Should you buy the Apple HomeView? 5 reasons to pick one up (and 2 reasons why you might want to hold off)

If you’ve been eagerly eyeing Amazon’s Echo Show or Google’s Nest Hub smart displays but wanted to wait and see what Apple had up its sleeve, you’re in luck: the wait is finally over. Unveiled earlier this week, the Apple HomeView officially launches on Friday, November 13.

Rumors of a smart speaker with a built-in display from Cupertino have been making the rounds online for years. Mark Gurman first reported all the way back in 2021 that Apple planned to expand its smart home lineup with a display-equipped device.

Then came reports of a smart display attached to a robotic arm that could swivel to follow you around the room, much like the now-discontinued Echo Show 10. Later, in 2023, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted the new device would feature a 7-inch display.

Now, after five years of speculation, the Apple HomeView is real and could be in your house in time for the holidays. But is it actually worth buying? Here are five reasons to pick up the HomeView to control your existing smart home devices — or make it the starting point for your setup — along with two reasons you might want to skip it for one of the best smart displays instead.

Apple HomeView: Reasons to buy

Apple’s first smart display brings a lot to the table, especially if you’ve already bought into the company’s ecosystem. From its dual dashboard system and hands-free recipe navigation to deeper Siri AI integration and seamless FaceTime calls, here are the top features that make the HomeView worth adding to your smart home.

Smart home dashboard

One of the hardest things about living in a smart home is having to juggle between multiple apps on your phone. If you have one of the best iPhones, the Apple Home app helps simplify this, but the Apple HomeView takes things a step further.

The HomeView actually features two distinct dashboards: a shared household view and a personal one. When no specific person is in front of the screen, the device defaults to a shared layout displaying universal widgets for controlling smart lights and thermostats or viewing live security camera feeds. This is a great addition for guests, who can easily adjust a room’s lighting without having to guess the exact names of your individual smart lights.

Then, when one of up to six household members approaches the HomeView, the display switches to a personalized home screen using facial recognition. This second dashboard surfaces your private reminders, personal calendar events, and favorite accessory shortcuts pulled directly from your iPhone.

Siri AI

Just like how Amazon’s Echo Show smart displays got an upgrade to the AI-powered Alexa Plus earlier this year, HomeView relies heavily on Siri AI. Powered by Apple Intelligence and the built-in A18 chip inside HomeView, this new version of Siri is tailored to handle natural follow-up questions, mid-sentence corrections, and complex, multi-part commands without you having to repeat the wake word.

When paired with your iPhone or iPad, Siri AI can pull personal context from Apple’s first-party apps like Messages, Mail, Calendar, and Reminders. At the same time, Siri AI on HomeView uses broad world knowledge to deliver conversational answers instead of just redirecting you to a web link on your other devices.

When it comes to HomeView’s 7-inch display, Siri AI acts directly on what’s currently on screen. For instance, you can look at a live camera feed and ask it to unlock the front door — provided you have a compatible smart lock installed. Likewise, when looking at a recipe on your HomeView, you can ask Siri AI to add those ingredients straight to your shopping list.

Hands-free FaceTime, messages and calls

Having to prop your iPhone up every time you want to FaceTime with your grandparents gets old fast. Fortunately, Apple’s HomeView handles video calls with ease thanks to its 12MP camera equipped with Center Stage auto-framing. You can also start a FaceTime call completely hands-free just by asking Siri, which is especially handy if you’re mid-recipe and need to quickly check an ingredient with your parents.

Just like on a Mac, you can send iMessages directly from the HomeView. While you can type them out using the on-screen keyboard, you can also dictate them — and have incoming replies read back to you — using Siri AI. Phone calls work seamlessly, too; if your iPhone rings in another room, you can simply answer the incoming call directly on the smart display’s screen. Plus, HomeView doubles as an in-home intercom, letting you blast quick voice announcements like “dinner is ready” across every Apple device in the house.

Multi-person recognition

That 12MP camera on the front of HomeView isn’t just for video calls. While the new device lacks Face ID, it uses the camera to scan the faces of up to six people in your household. This is what allows your personal dashboard to automatically pop up when you walk up to the screen.

In a way, HomeView’s multi-person recognition feels like having separate user accounts on the shared family computer back in the day. Once the device recognizes you and verifies your unlocked iPhone or iPad is nearby on the same network, you can securely access your personal iMessages, calendar, and reminders. HomeView’s far-field microphones also support multi-user voice matching, allowing Siri AI to differentiate between family members and respond with personalized answers when different people talk to it across the room.

Step-by-step recipes

There’s no better place for a smart display than the kitchen, and Apple definitely considered this when designing HomeView. One of its best features is how you can take any online recipe you’ve opened in Safari and send it straight to the device. From there, HomeView strips away all the clutter and reformats the page into clean, step-by-step instructions with large text that’s easy to read across the room. It even uses proximity sensing to automatically scale the text size up or down based on how far away you're standing.

Since you don’t want to be touching a glass screen with messy hands, you can navigate the entire process using voice commands. Saying phrases like “Siri, next step” lets you advance the recipe without leaving greasy fingerprints on the display. HomeView’s recipes also feature embedded step timers, allowing you to set, label, and manage multiple concurrent timers hands-free while you cook.

Apple HomeView: Reasons to skip

As impressive as the HomeView is on paper, it isn't going to be the right fit for every home. Between its strict reliance on the iPhone and the steep additional costs required just to get a clean wall-mounted install, here are two major drawbacks you should keep in mind before picking one up.

iPhone required

Unlike Amazon’s Echo Show or Google’s Nest Hub devices which are platform agnostic, for the best experience with Apple’s HomeView, you’re going to need an iPhone or at least an iPad. In fact, without one, you can’t even set up a HomeView since you need a device running iOS 27.2 or later just to register it.

While there are households where iOS and Android co-exist, non-iPhone users won’t get anywhere close to the full HomeView experience. Without an iPhone or iPad, you don’t get access to the device’s personal dashboard since facial recognition won’t work — it only matches faces to active Apple IDs. Essentially, without an iPhone, you're stuck feeling like a guest in your own home.

A clean install costs even more

At $299, the standard Apple HomeView is already one of the most expensive smart displays on the market, sharing a price point with Amazon’s much larger Echo Show 15. However, if you want to wall-mount it — especially if you’re aiming for a sleek, wire-free installation — that $299 base price quickly balloons.

Unlike the tabletop model, the wall-mounted HomeView doesn't include a mount or a power supply in the box. Choosing the DIY route with Apple’s entry-level Power Mount USB-C adds $59 to your tab, pushing the total to $358. If you want a hardwired, flush-to-the-wall setup without visible cables dangling down to an outlet, the Power Mount AC Wired costs $79 extra — plus the additional cost of hiring a licensed electrician to wire it safely, which Apple recommends through a partnership with ADT.

Finally, if you want to run power and data over a single network cable, the Power Mount PoE costs an eye-watering $129 on top of the display, and that's before factoring in the cost of a PoE switch or professional installation.

More from Tom's Guide

• Apple HomeView is already discounted ahead of next month's release — here's how much you could save by pre-ordering
• Amazon Echo Show 15 vs Echo Show 21: which wall-mountable smart display should you buy?
• Apple's HomeView isn't reinventing smart displays — it's fixing what made me abandon my Amazon Echo Shows