The company took to NYC for its ‘Welcome Home’ event to unveil its new smart home products. And as the reports and rumors suggested, this is the HomeView, Apple’s first smart display. It will arrive in two forms: a desktop in silver, starlight, rose pink, and space gray colors and a wall-mounted option in silver or space gray for $299. HomeView pre-orders are available now and going on sale on November 13.
The HomeView can do all of the things a smart display can do, including answering questions, showcasing photos, dictating steps for a recipe, taking video calls, and controlling your smart home—all powered by Siri AI. This is in addition to having Matter support and doubling as a Thread Border Router. It’s a stunning piece of hardware, reminiscent of the iMac G4 with a 7-inch square-ish LED display, powered by Apple’s A18 chip, and a 12MP FaceTime camera with Center Stage for video calls, comprised of aluminum with a stainless steel hinge to connect the screen and the base (for the desktop version).
Apple’s smart display also doesn’t have any buttons, as it uses a combination of voice and touch for navigation. It can pull info from your messages, calendar, and emails but will require facial recognition from a compatible iPhone on the same network to access it all. You can also handoff audio or recipes from your iPhone by holding your handset close to the HomeView.
For audio, the HomeView is armed with four far-field mics, two custom full-range drivers (for both desktop and wall-mounted), a custom down-firing woofer, and dual passive radiators. The aforementioned speaker grants it spatial audio with Dolby Atmos, AirPlay support for multiroom audio, and audio recognition for smoke and carbon monoxide alarm sounds.
