Today, Apple announced its forthcoming line of home products, including the new HomeView smart home hub, a 7-inch screen that functions as both a digital assistant and a tool to help you manage and monitor your home. You can ask the Siri-enabled device to read you specific recipes from your text messages, check your calendar, adjust the thermostat, and play music, all without moving an inch.
The HomeView, available November 13 for $299, is Apple’s first smart home display. It isn’t decorative enough to pass as decor, nor is it as severely tech-looking as many competitors on the market. Instead, it lands in a sleek, inoffensive middle ground. Available in silver, starlight, space gray, and rose pink, its aluminum screen sits on a domed speaker base, joined by a stainless steel hinge. The face is customizable with various colorways, clock fonts, and photos; there’s also an animated Snoopy, whose antics change with the weather and the holidays. A wall-mounted version disappears into entryways and hallways.
The central idea is that one screen can belong to, and keep track of, everyone. HomeView recognizes up to six people by face and shows each of them their own messages, calendar, and reminders. Whereas an iPad is single-user–specific, the HomeView is designed to suit the whole house. It knows who’s standing in front of it, and it’s always available to act as their personal assistant, armed with their specific backlog of preferences and requests. The privacy settings are strict: You can’t toggle into someone else’s profile, and there’s no override—it must recognize you. However, shared photo albums, web browsing, and music stay open to the whole house, guests included.
For owners of an Amazon Echo Show, the concept may feel familiar. But because the HomeView is compatible with iOS, if you’re an Apple user, the hub can conveniently pull from your texts and calendar when your iPhone is nearby. You can ask for the TV show someone recommended or a beloved recipe and skip the exasperated scrolling to find what you’re looking for. In the kitchen, HomeView turns recipes into step-by-step instructions with hands-free timers. You can talk to the HomeView from across the room instead of reaching for it with wet hands, as you would need to with a recipe on an iPhone or iPad. The HomeView can also share intercom-style broadcasts to any other room equipped with smart speakers, sparing you the need to yell up the stairs when dinner is ready. Out to dinner? It runs the home’s cameras and automations when no one is home.
The ease HomeView offers depends on how much you let it know: your face, your texts, your calendar, who comes to your door. Apple is betting its reputation on privacy to make the exchange feel fair, with encrypted footage and personal content that only appears when your face and your phone are both present. For many, the convenience will probably win. Preorders are open now.
