Apple has unveiled a brand-new product – HomeView – a smart speaker with a 7-inch Liquid Retina display that can meet all your entertainment, connection and smart home needs in one place.
HomeView can do everything from controlling devices and monitoring your home to playing music and making FaceTime calls.
There are two versions of HomeView – one which can be placed on a tabletop and the other that can be wall mounted to fit in any space.
It will be priced at $449 and will go on sale on November 13.
HomeView comes in four colours- silver, starlight, rose pink, and space grey – and includes a matching cable.
The wall-mounted HomeView is available in space grey and silver and has the same 7-inch Liquid Retina display and features, along with rich audio. It can be fixed to a wall using three purpose-built mounts.
HomeView uses the same Face ID security as the iPhone and can recognise up to six different users and is able to access their personal content in Messages, FaceTime, Calendar, Reminders and Find My.
Each person recognised has a personalised home screen with apps and widgets and their content is kept private from others.
And when paired with an Apple Intelligence compatible device, HomeView can also access a user’s personal context, including their calendar, messages, and other relevant information across apps, to provide more personalised and helpful responses.
HomeView allows users to have a conversation with Siri AI and continue that conversation, if necessary, through a private iCloud sync across a user’s other devices, like iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, or Apple Vision Pro.
“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.
“It recognises your face to shift from a household screen to your own experience, fills the room with incredible sound, keeps you connected to the people who matter most with FaceTime, and makes it easy to control your smart home.
“And it’s powered by Apple Intelligence with Siri AI at its core, drawing on personal context from your iPhone to help you find what you need and get more done, all while keeping everyone’s information private and secure.”
HomeView has an aluminium design with a 7-inch Liquid Retina display connected to a domed speaker base with a stainless steel hinge.
This offers a smooth tilt to view comfortably on tabletops of any height like kitchen counters, desks, nightstands and side tables.
The onboard display is adaptive with True Tone able to adjust brightness automatically depending on the light conditions.
Automatic brightness can adjust from 500 nits, which is bright enough to read in a sunlit room, all the way down to 0.3 nits so it’s ideal for a bedside table.
At the heart of HomeView is Siri AI, powered by Apple Intelligence and advanced Apple silicon.
Siri AI is more powerful and conversational, with personal context understanding and on-screen awareness.
Users can personalise HomeView to display information convenient to them.
The HomeView syncs with an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad so it can take action across apps and provide relevant information from messages and calendars.
The Photos face can also bring memories to life with portrait-style depth effects to create a blurred background while keeping the subject sharp.
Users can select a shared album and turn HomeView into a stunning photo frame.
The Flow face can respond to your physical presence and movement and turn the screen into a piece of interactive art and other animations that reflect the time of day, the weather, and the latest sporting events.
On the audio side there are two custom full-range drivers in the display for crisp clean sound, including room-filling spatial audio.
A separate down-firing woofer and two noise-cancelling passive radiators are also built into the base.
The unit is powered by Apple silicon and real-time sensors and offers advanced computational audio to optimise loudness and bass response.
The wall-mounted version also delivers rich sound with two custom drivers and computational audio tuned for on-wall placement.
HomeView allows users to enjoy Apple Music, along with animated art and lyrics on the screen, along with Apple Podcasts, Apple News, Apple TV, and other compatible third-party audio and video apps.
Handoff allows users to continue listening to a song or a podcast they were playing in the car or on a walk by placing their iPhone in front of the HomeView display.
HomeView also makes it easy to connect through FaceTime with CenterStage keeping everyone framed perfectly and centred even if they move around the room.
The intercom feature lets users send a message to a single room or to the whole house via other HomeView and HomePod speakers, along with other personal devices like iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch.
HomeView is particularly handy in the kitchen and can be your sous chef to convert recipes found on the internet into step-by-step instructions, as well as providing hands-free timer control and help with ingredient tracking.
The new HomeView can also act as a smart home dashboard and view camera feeds, adjust lights, lock doors, and close blinds.
The Home Modular Face provides access to favourite accessories while the Home Camera Face can stream up to nine video feeds at once to keep an eye on the doorstep when you’re waiting for an important delivery or check on your pets in the backyard.
With a supported iCloud Plus subscription HomeView we’ll work with compatible cameras to provide other features like end-to-end encrypted recognition of people, pets, packages, and vehicles.
HomeKit Secure also provides AI descriptions of what happened in a video clip so you don’t even need to watch it.
HomeView will also work with Apple’s Home Collection, which is a new range of smart home cameras, thermostats, and locks designed in partnership with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric.
Apple’s HomeView is available to pre-order now with a price of $449 for the desktop and wall-mounted version. It will go on sale on November 13.
