All the news from Apple’s ‘Welcome Home’ event

When Apple revealed the HomeView to the world, it did so with an unusual ad for the company: Instead of pristine, polished tech in immaculate rooms, it’s a three-minute look at the messy, frantic morning routine of a family of five. Apple’s new smart display sits in the center of the chaos on the kitchen table, helping the family check their calendars, send messages, and pull up a French toast recipe in seconds, with simple, step-by-step instructions.

The HomeView is just the latest in a long line of websites, browser extensions, and smart home gadgets with the same promise: that it can take an online recipe and strip it down to the essentials. Instead of scrolling a lengthy webpage that might range from helpful cooking instructions to seemingly irrelevant personal anecdotes, with the recipe itself way down at the bottom, you simply get ingredient lists, cooking instructions, and timers, all navigable hands-free with voice controls and Siri AI. No distractions, no unnecessary text, and no need to deal with a touchscreen while you’re wrist-deep in a chicken carcass. The appeal is obvious.

For more than a decade, Apple has told other companies to build smart home devices for its platform. This week, Apple launched its own. The Apple Home Collection is a lineup of cameras, thermostats, sensors, a smart door lock, and a video doorbell, all codeveloped with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric. They arrive alongside HomeView, Apple’s first smart display.

Even after 12 years of HomeKit, Apple’s smart home ecosystem still felt underdeveloped, especially compared to the competition. Amazon’s and Google’s ecosystems support more products, and both have popular in-house brands: Ring and Nest. Apple had nothing of its own to point customers to as an Apple experience — and now it does.

I’m just going to come right out and say it. I love the approach Apple has taken with the HomeView. I think it’s the shared, always-available household interface that my family might finally use. Is Apple’s first smart display my dream smart home dashboard? No. But is it the right product for Apple Home at this moment? Absolutely.

A lot of initial reactions to the $299 HomeView (which looks like a giant Apple Watch on a flatter metallic HomePod Mini) ask why you would want it when you can do most of what it offers on your iPhone or iPad. And yes, its features replicate many of the things you already do on the devices you use all the time. But that’s kind of the point. HomeView gives you another interface for those things, but crucially one that is always powered, always unlocked, and always in the same spot in your home, making it easy to walk up to and interact with.

It’s been four long years since the last Apple TV 4K was released, and in that time there have been lots of hopes and dreams for features in whatever comes next. A new chip, 4K/120Hz support, audio passthrough, a remote locator, better home control integration — the 2022 Apple TV 4K is a great box, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. With the fourth-gen Apple TV 4K announced on Tuesday, some of those hopes were met, while others were unfortunately left out.

Coloring the announcement is the device’s price. Apple eliminated the cheaper 64GB, Wi-Fi-only model, leaving just the 128GB, Wi-Fi and Ethernet model — and bumped up its price to $300. I repeat, $300 for a streaming device. It’s a hefty price when every other major streamer on the market is at least half the cost.

Apple says HomeView is “the perfect way” to enjoy its audio and video entertainment apps, but some notable examples like Apple TV only work if you AirPlay it through your iPhone. As noted on the HomeView spec page, Apple TV, Apple Books audiobooks, Apple Music Classical, and Apple News Plus aren’t natively supported on the smart hub, so you’ll have to use your phone to operate them.

HomeView is foremostly designed as a hub for managing smart home gadgets, but competing smart display hardware like Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest Hub devices can natively stream Prime Video and YouTube, respectively, without requiring a phone connection. Apple TV is also featured in at least one promotional image for HomeView, but the AirPlay requirement is in small print on its announcement page:

Apple’s ad introducing its new HomeView smart display is a little unusual. It’s fast-paced and unruly, depicting a family of five as they rush through the morning routine. There’s yelling and mess, misplaced keys and discarded eggshells. Apple’s typical vibe is clean, simple, orderly; this commercial is chaos.

But the spot has parents — those with teen children in particular — feeling seen.

Apple has just announced the HomeView, its first smart home display — and I just got hands-on with the device, which features a gorgeous 7-inch square touchscreen and built-in Siri AI. It’s designed as a smart home controller, personal assistant, and home hub for your household, so there was a lot to check out.

The first thing that struck me about the HomeView was its size. It’s much smaller than I expected, and the screen almost entirely hides the small aluminum base that acts as a speaker. The Liquid Retina display is bright and responsive to touch, and it displays photos and the HomeView “faces” brilliantly.

We just got a closer look at Apple’s new video doorbell, security cameras, door lock, and thermostats, following the company’s “Welcome home” event on Tuesday. The six new devices are part of a new Apple Home Collection, which the company codeveloped with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric.

The new LG smart lock costs $349 and comes with support for Apple’s Home Key, including the option to unlock your door hands-free with UWB. You can unlock the door with a PIN code, too, or by using the physical keyhole beneath the keypad.

The HomeView smart home display announced by Apple today comes in two models that both cost $299: one with a speaker base, and the other being a self-explanatory “Wall Mounted” version. If you want the latter, however, you’ll actually have to pay at least $59 more — the mounts required to actually affix the display to your wall are sold separately. Maybe calling it the “Mountless” version would have been more accurate?

Apple isn’t exactly shouting about that sneaky additional premium for wall-mounted HomeView customers. The details are mentioned in the small print at the bottom of the product announcement page:

Apple is getting into smart displays with its new HomeView. It has a 7-inch squircle design, looking similar to a gargantuan Apple Watch mounted to a speaker base. The $299 HomeView is meant to be the centerpiece for Apple’s big push into the home, as it’s capable of controlling a host of smart home tech. Additionally, it can display recipes, show music playback controls, let you make FaceTime calls, and display a variety of widgets.

The HomeView launches on Friday, November 13th, and it’ll likely be a popular holiday gift. You can preorder it in multiple colors from Apple, Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, and you have the option to either include a speaker base (it includes a custom down-firing woofer and two passive radiators) or opt for a wall-mounted option that omits the base and its extra sound performance. They’re the same price, though you’ll need to pay extra for the actual wall mounts.

After nearly six years, Apple debuted a new, improved HomePod Mini. The $149 HomePod Mini 2 will launch on Friday, October 30th, and you can place a preorder now through Apple, Best Buy, Target, and B&H Photo.

The speaker includes the S10 chip, which debuted in the Apple Watch Series 10, and it can power a host of features. It will support Siri AI after a future update, pairing you with a better, more helpful voice assistant. The speaker can be integrated into a four-speaker surround system with the new Apple TV 4K, and they can serve as speakers for a Mac computer (so long as it supports Wi-Fi 6E). Lastly, the top of the HomePod Mini 2 can arrange its LEDs to mimic the album artwork for the music you’re listening to.

Apple debuted its latest Apple TV 4K — its first in four years — and it’ll be available starting Friday, November 13th. It’s powerful, with the A19 chip (the now-discontinued 2022 model has the A15 Bionic), plus a dedicated AV1 decoder, and it features better wireless connectivity than its predecessor, too. Siri AI is a big part of this rollout, though it’ll work in beta on the second-gen Apple TV 4K models and newer. The new Find My tracking feature works with the second-gen Siri remote and newer.

It’s not cheap, costing $299 (twice the original cost of the 2022 Apple TV 4K, until it rose to $249 a few months ago), but those who’ve been waiting a while for a new version to launch can place a preorder now at Apple, Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and B&H Photo.

Apple just announced its long-rumored smart home hub, the HomeView, during its “Welcome Home” event taking place today. As part of the event, it showed a video featuring the new device, and if you want to see it for yourself, you can watch it right here.

The HomeView is a 7-inch square display. It costs $299 and comes in two versions: one that mounts to a wall, and another that sits atop a small speaker base. It can be used to show smart home controls, pull up information with Siri AI, take video calls, and show footage from HomeKit Secure Video cameras. It’s also a Matter controller and a Thread Border Router.

Apple unveiled a slate of new smart home gadgets at its aptly named “Welcome Home” event today, including its first (and highly anticipated) smart home hub. That flagship announcement came alongside much-needed refreshes for Apple’s HomePod Mini and TV 4K devices, and a selection of new smart home and security accessories designed together with trusted third-party manufacturers.

Catch up on all of Apple’s new hardware announcements in our roundup below, or click through for more detailed coverage on each.

It’s finally here: Apple’s long-rumored smart display, the Apple HomeView, has arrived. I got a first look at the device in New York City this week, and it’s gorgeous. The HomeView puts a small, vibrant screen atop a speaker base for taking video calls, beautifully displaying photos, and providing information at a glance with Apple’s Siri AI voice assistant. The device’s square shape makes it feel less imposing than larger smart displays like Google’s Nest Hub Max or Amazon’s Echo Show 11, and I can see it fitting nicely on my kitchen counter — though it might be a hair too big for my bedside table.

The HomeView is the centerpiece of Apple’s new push into the home. It costs $299 and launches alongside a new collection of cameras, thermostats, and a door lock designed for Apple Home. As a smart home hub, Matter controller, and Thread Border Router, the HomeView can orchestrate these and other Apple Home and Matter smart home devices. It’s available in eight countries at launch: the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and India. Preorders are open now, with devices shipping November 13th.

Apple has partnered with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric to launch the Apple Home Collection, an assortment of smart home devices meant to be easy to set up and use. The collection is something of a smart home starter pack, including security cameras, a video doorbell, a door lock, and two thermostats.

Apple is announcing the products as part of a major push into the smart home space, led by its new Siri AI-powered HomeView smart display. The devices are the first smart home gadgets the company has made for Apple Home; previously, it relied on third parties to make products for the platform. While third parties manufactured these, Apple co-developed each product and says they are designed to work seamlessly with Apple Home. Apple introduced the collection at its Welcome Home event in New York City today, where it also showcased the new Apple TV 4K and the HomePod Mini 2.

Apple is announcing the long-awaited HomePod Mini 2 with a new chip that can power Siri AI — but support for those new AI features won’t be available at launch. The speaker is also getting a new sound glow feature that syncs its LED lights with a song’s album art, and it can now be your Mac’s default speaker. Up to four can also pair with the new Apple TV 4K for surround sound. And like everything this year, it’s more expensive, too.

The HomePod Mini 2 comes in pink, green, and a new shade of blue, along with white and black. It costs $149, $20 more than its predecessor, which is being discontinued. Preorders open today, October 13th, and it will ship on October 30th. Apple announced the smart speaker alongside a suite of new products for the home, including the new HomeView smart display ($299), the fourth-generation Apple TV 4K ($299), and a new collection of smart home devices developed in collaboration with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric starting at $199.

Apple is introducing a refreshed Apple TV 4K today with a pair of interesting new hardware features: far-field microphones to talk to Siri hands-free and Find My built into the remote. The fourth-gen Apple TV 4K, announced at Apple’s Welcome Home event in New York City, is the first model to support the Siri AI voice assistant and has a new home theatre feature that lets you pair up to four second-gen HomePods or HomePod Mini 2s for surround sound.

The new Apple TV 4K costs $299, more than twice the price the prior-generation Apple TV 4K debuted at and $50 more than the current top-of-the-line model (which is being discontinued). The fourth-gen model matches that version’s specs with 128GB of storage, an Ethernet port, and support for Thread and Matter, but it’s getting a bump up to Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. It will be available on November 13th, with preorders opening today, October 13th.