Apple’s new home gadgets are here, from a talking screen to a smart doorbell

Apple has been in the smart home business since 2014 without ever making much of a smart home. HomeKit gave iPhone owners a tidy app and a long list of compatible gadgets, the HomePod and Apple TV did hub duty quietly in the background, and everything you would actually bolt to a wall or point at the front door came from somebody else.

Amazon had the Echo Show and Ring. Google had the Nest Hub and its thermostats. Apple had an app.Tuesday's Welcome Home event in New York was Apple finally building the rest of the house. Six weeks into John Ternus's tenure as chief executive, the company unveiled HomeView, its first smart display, a new Apple TV 4K, the HomePod mini 2, and Apple Home Collection, a set of cameras, a door lock and thermostats co-developed with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric.It is the familiar late-and-finished playbook, applied to a category Amazon put a screen on nine years ago. The hardware, though, is only half of it. Every one of these devices is also somewhere for Siri AI, the rebuilt assistant powered by Apple Intelligence, to live, and whether Apple's home works now depends far more on that assistant than on any hinge or speaker grille.

HomeView's best idea is knowing who is standing in front of it

HomeView is the smart display Apple should have made years ago, and it looks the part: a 7-inch Liquid Retina screen on a domed speaker base, joined by a stainless steel hinge that will remind anyone of the iMac G4.

It tilts to suit a kitchen counter or a bedside table, dims to 0.3 nits so it does not light up the bedroom at night, and comes in silver, starlight, rose pink and space gray, with a wall-mounted version for the hallway.What lifts it above an Echo Show in nicer materials is how it handles a family, and that matters in Indian homes, where the screen in the kitchen is shared by parents, children and whichever relative is visiting that month.

HomeView recognises up to six people by their faces, enough for most nuclear families if not every joint one, and gives each their own Home Screen. Your Messages, Calendar and Reminders show up only for you, and only when your iPhone is nearby and was recently unlocked, while shared albums and music stay open to the whole house.Camera and microphone data are processed in isolated Secure Exclaves on the A18 chip, which Apple says not even it can access.

Around that sits everything a home display should do: two full-range drivers and a down-firing woofer for Apple Music, FaceTime with Center Stage, recipes turned into step-by-step instructions with hands-free timers, and a Home Camera face that shows nine feeds at once for anyone keeping an eye on the gate and the parking."Apple HomeView is designed to be shared by everyone in the home yet feel completely personal to each user," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.That sharing comes with a condition. Setup and multi-user support need a compatible iPhone or iPad, which works in an all-Apple household and less so in homes that mix iPhones with Android phones.Both the tabletop and wall-mounted HomeView are up for pre-order at Rs 39,900 ($299 in the US), with availability from November 13. The wall version needs one of Schneider Home’s mounts, which start at Rs 6,900 ($59.95) for the USB-C connector and Rs 8,900 ($79.95) for the AC wired option, with a PoE version following in early 2027 at Rs 14,900 ($129.95).

HomeView will not go on sale in the European Union at all for now, since Siri AI is not yet available in iOS there, and Apple has given no timeline beyond saying it is working with the EU on a way forward.

Every device on stage is a body for the new Siri

Strip away the industrial design and Welcome Home was a Siri event. HomeView is built around Siri AI, the Apple TV puts it on the biggest screen in the house, and the HomePod mini 2 is still waiting for it. The rebuilt assistant brings broad world knowledge, onscreen awareness and the ability to hold an actual conversation, so you can ask about almost anything and follow up without starting over.

The personal side runs through the iPhone, and that is where Apple has an edge Amazon and Google cannot copy. Paired with an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad, Siri can dig out a song a friend recommended over iMessage, set a reminder tied to a calendar event, or play the show a friend suggested last week. A conversation started on HomeView picks up on your phone or Mac. Without a supported iPhone, you still get the smarter answers, just not the personal context.In India, the new Siri works in English from day one. It is also careful about how ready it says any of this is. Siri AI arrives as a beta on HomeView and the Apple TV, some features that lean on server-side models come with daily usage limits, and expanded access has been promised for a fee later.That is the bet underneath the whole event. Twelve years after HomeKit, Apple finally has the full set: its own screen on the counter, its own speakers in every room, its own camera at the door and its own lock on it.

For a decade, the weak link in Apple's home was that the company did not make the devices. Now it does, and what decides whether people buy into the rest is an assistant that, for the moment, still carries a beta label.

The Apple TV 4K finally hears you from the sofa

The fourth-generation Apple TV 4K looks exactly like the third, and that is fine, because the changes worth having are inside. Three far-field microphones mean you can talk to Siri from across the room, even with something playing, instead of hunting for the remote first.

Of the languages Apple supports for this, English is the only one most Indian viewers will use.And when you do need the remote, it now shows up in Find My, complete with Precision Finding and the option to make it play a sound. Anyone who has lifted every cushion in the living room will appreciate that more than the A19 chip, even though the chip brings up to 50 per cent faster CPU performance, twice the graphics performance and a dedicated AV1 decoder for more efficient streaming.Siri AI takes over the whole screen when you are browsing, pulling poster art and suggestions from the Apple TV app, and shrinks to a small overlay when you ask something mid-episode, like where a show was filmed or whether it suits a 15-year-old. Owners of the Apple TV 4K (2nd generation) and later get Siri AI as a beta too, a generous call for hardware that old.The bigger addition is for anyone building a living room around Apple.

The first upgrade usually after a new TV is usually a soundbar. Apple's answer is four HomePod mini 2 or second-generation HomePod speakers running as surround sound with the new box, in matching front and rear pairs, with the system working out where each speaker sits and calibrating itself to the room. The new Apple TV 4K is up for pre-order in India at Rs 39,900 ($299 in the US), with availability from November 13.

HomePod mini 2 is built to be part of a bigger setup, not just a standalone speaker

The HomePod mini 2 keeps the ball and swaps the loud colours of the original for pink, green, blue, white and midnight, matched to the current iMac.

The glowing top panel finally does something worth looking at. Sound Glow pulses with the bass and treble and pulls its colours from the album art of whatever is playing, so an Arijit Singh ballad and a Prateek Kuhad track will not light up the room the same way.Under the mesh, it runs on the S10 chip, recognises up to six people by voice, works as a speaker for a Mac and slots into the new surround setup with the Apple TV. Paired with Apple Home Collection cameras, it can announce who is at the door by name.What it does not have, at least on day one, is Siri AI. The speaker is up for pre-order in India at Rs 18,900 ($149 in the US) and goes on sale on October 30, but the new assistant only reaches it through a later software update, in English here as elsewhere.

Apple Home Collection is Apple finally owning the front door

This is the part that fills the oldest hole in Apple's home. Amazon has Ring, Google has Nest, and Apple has never had a camera or a lock it could put its name behind. It still has not built one itself.

LG Electronics and Schneider Electric make the hardware, Apple co-developed every piece, and all of it is set up with a tap of an iPhone and run entirely from the Home app.That last part matters more than it sounds. Anyone who has installed a smart camera knows the routine: download the manufacturer's app, make yet another account, sign up for yet another subscription. Here there is no partner app and no separate camera plan.

Footage sits end-to-end encrypted in iCloud+ with 10 days of event history, and neither LG, Schneider nor Apple can see it.LG makes four cameras, all recording at up to 2.5K. The Video Doorbell carries a second, downward-facing camera for packages, which makes more sense in an Indian city, where quick-commerce riders can ring the bell several times a day, than almost anywhere else. The Floodlight Cam and Outdoor Cam add low-light colour night vision, and the Indoor Cam is the cleverest of the lot.

It physically tilts down and stops watching the moment the first person in the household walks in, a privacy promise you can see with your own eyes.

On eligible iCloud+ plans, Apple Intelligence also writes descriptions of clips and lets you search footage in plain language.LG's Smart Deadbolt Lock uses Ultra Wideband to sense your iPhone or Apple Watch as you walk up and unlocks the door without a tap, with a PIN pad and a hidden key slot for the day the tech misbehaves.

It keeps working without the internet, which is the right priority for a front door. Two thermostats, one each from LG and Schneider Electric, adjust heating and cooling based on whether anyone is home, and every device updates its own Wi-Fi details when you change your router, which quietly fixes one of the most irritating parts of living with a smart home."Working closely with industry leaders LG Electronics and Schneider Electric, we designed every accessory to work seamlessly with Apple Home," said Matthew Costello, Apple's vice president of Hardware Engineering.The collection starts rolling out in December in the US and Canada, with the cameras and doorbell also heading to the UK and some accessories following in early 2027, though India is not on the list yet. In the US, the Indoor Cam starts at $199.95, the Video Doorbell at $249.95, the Outdoor Cam at $299.95 and the Floodlight Cam at $399.95, while the Smart Deadbolt Lock costs $349.95 and both thermostats $199.95 each.