Having largely stayed out of the smart-home space until now, Apple today jumped in with both feet, unveiling the Apple HomeView, its first smart display — introduced alongside the Apple HomePod mini 2, a new Apple TV 4K, and a range of smart-home devices — including a video doorbell — produced by partner brands LG and Schneider Electric.
The Apple HomeView is a modern, cute 7-inch Liquid Retina display and smart-home hub that enables you to use the touchscreen or Siri AI voice commands, to control connected devices, play music, check the weather and more.
There are two models: a version with the display sitting atop a speaker unit (shown at the top of the page), to which it's attached by an adjustable arm that enables you to tilt and rotate the display; and a screen-only model that's designed to be wall-mounted.
The HomeView starts at $299 in the US, £299 in the UK, and AU$449 in Australia, with preorders opening today (October 13) ahead of a November 13 on-sale date.
It comes in familiar Apple colors: Silver, Starlight, Rose Pink, and Space Gray. That price is actually more competitive than I expected, given that rumors had pointed to a price around $350.
While $299 is still $100 more than the Echo Show 8, Apple is clearly pitching the HomeView as its alternative to Amazon's devices — and if you’re already in the Apple ecosystem, there are some compelling reasons to consider it.
As for the hardware, you get a 7-inch Liquid Retina display, a 12MP Ultra Wide Center Stage camera, a four-microphone array, and a multi-driver speaker system in the model with the speaker unit.
Apple’s A18 processor powers the HomeView, though the platform is not iPadOS, tvOS, or iOS — it’s all-new HomeView Software.
The HomeView has features that can rival the likes of the Amazon Echo Show or Google Nest Hub. And when it comes to the former, it might have the edge for two key reasons: privacy, and integration with the Apple devices you already use every day.
As the rumors and reports suggested, HomeView is reminiscent of the iMac G4 of yesteryear, but feels more refined. It starts with a face you can set to a variety of clocks — think an Apple Watch face or the screensaver interface on an Apple TV 4K — and some will feel familiar if you’ve used an Apple Watch, though with distinct differences.
Snoopy is back with fresh adventures, and the Flow face is reimagined here so that, rather than simply grooving like a lava lamp, its colorful shapes respond to what the camera up top sees. You can add complications such as your calendar, to-do lists, and weather, with information adjusting from a general view to more specific details as you approach.
The HomeView can recognize up to six family members using its integrated camera, which helps it personalize the experience for whoever is interacting with it. Each family member can customize their own face, apps, and widgets, and here the interface resembles iOS, even to the degree that you can tint the icons.
The similarities extend to privacy, too. Apple says personal information stays personal, meaning another family member shouldn’t be able to walk up to HomeView and access your messages or see who you’re texting.
Siri requests aren’t recorded, according to Apple, and personal data isn’t stored directly on HomeView itself. It also has no ads, unlike the Echo Show, which makes it feel more like part of your home than a billboard on your kitchen counter.
You'll need an iPhone or iPad to set it up, and doing so unlocks much of the HomeView’s personal context.
You won’t find an App Store on the HomeView. Instead, Apple curates the experience around the apps and features it thinks make sense on a shared home display. Those include Apple’s own apps and services, such as Messages, Music, Weather, Reminders, Calendar, Safari, Find My, FaceTime, Apple TV, Podcasts, News, and the Home app.
Apple also shared that select third-party media apps that already work with CarPlay will be supported, potentially bringing more of your favorite audio services, such as Spotify, into the experience.
You can’t just download whatever you want, but Apple has clearly thought about how people will use HomeView throughout the day, whether that’s for checking the weather, catching up on messages, playing music, or controlling connected devices.
Siri is central to HomeView, and the integration with Apple’s broader ecosystem is where the experience starts to feel more ambitious than a typical smart display.
HomeView can draw on personal context to help with requests that go beyond simple commands. During a demonstration, I saw how it could help find a recipe a friend had recommended, or one your mom had sent, or pull up a song a friend had texted you about.
It can also handle more involved requests. For example, you could ask when your dad’s flight lands, work out how long it will take him to get from the airport to your apartment, and then look for brunch recommendations. Rather than treating each question as a separate task, HomeView can use context to help connect the dots.
It’s not just about asking Siri to turn on a light or set a timer; Siri AI on HomeView seems purpose-built for personalized, multi-step assistance — much like what Apple promised with the next-generation personal assistant.
The HomeView isn’t just a screen with a speaker attached. Apple has built a more considered audio setup into the device, with two custom drivers for high notes in the screen, alongside a down-firing woofer and two other force-canceling woofers in the base of the speaker-mounted version.
During a kitchen demonstration, I heard a Bad Bunny track playing on Apple Music, and HomeView got impressively loud without distorting. Lyrics appeared on the screen, too, making it feel like a natural fit for a kitchen island or another shared space where music is part of the routine.
The speaker-mounted version feels especially suited to the kitchen, where you might angle the screen toward yourself while cooking, then turn it toward someone else when they walk in. As mentioned, there’s also a wall-mounted option, with audio tuned specifically for that placement, though I didn’t get to demo music on that model.
One of the more practical features is how HomeView works with your iPhone. If you’re looking at a recipe on your phone, you can tap or bring the phone close to HomeView to hand it off to the larger screen. You can also switch a FaceTime call or music in the same way.
With a recipe, Safari can show the important details, including ingredients and step-by-step instructions. You can work through the recipe as you go, with timers available along the way.
Siri AI adds another layer. You could ask it to add ingredients to a shopping list, set a reminder, or help find a nearby grocery store for something you need. It’s the kind of connected workflow that makes sense on a display designed to live in a shared space, rather than one that’s just a smaller tablet sitting on a counter.
The HomeView also feels like a natural extension of Apple’s smart-home ambitions. The Home app enables you to control compatible lights, thermostats, door locks, and cameras, while smart home widgets put your most-used controls closer at hand.
You can receive doorbell alerts and view live camera feeds, with support for up to nine camera views at once. Existing Apple Home-compatible and Matter-compatible devices will work with it, naturally, giving HomeView a clear role as a central smart home hub.
The HomeView will arrive ahead of Apple’s new Home Collection, a range of smart home products made in collaboration with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric, that are expected to arrive in December. These will include a video doorbell, a smart lock, and various security cameras and sensors.
As mentioned, you can choose between speaker-mounted or wall-mounted versions of the HomeView. The wall-mounted option feels like a replacement for touch controls for an automated home system — the feel will be similar to a smart thermostat, too.
The speaker-mounted version feels much more like a communal, catch-all device. Both versions have their appeals, but you will need to give this some thought before you buy.
The HomeView has fewer features than some rivals, and as mentioned it’s not an entirely open software experience. I think that’s a two-fold decision: it enables Apple to deliver a compelling, well-thought-out experience built around what HomeView is designed to do at launch, and to put privacy front and center.
The HomeView will be central to controlling your smart home, but it also ventures closer to being a personal assistant around the house, thanks to its integration with Apple’s broader ecosystem. The HomeView isn’t a standalone device in the traditional sense given that it requires you to have and iPhone or iPad, but if you’re already invested in Apple’s ecosystem it could also mean that you're reaching for your iPhone a little less.
It’s taken Apple a long time to enter the smart-display category, but after seeing HomeView in action, I think the wait has been worth it. This feels like one of Apple’s strongest new category entries in quite some time. Apple has used its ecosystem strengths to give HomeView a clear purpose: a shared display that still feels personal, a smart-home hub that doesn’t require you to reach for your phone, and a genuinely useful extension of the Apple devices you already own.
The Echo Show has been a familiar fixture in the smart home for years. But now Apple has finally arrived on the scene, with a product that feels distinctly Apple — and if you already have an iPhone at the center of your life, I can see the HomeView making a lot of sense.