> Secure Exclaves. The A18 chip inside HomeView contains Secure Exclaves that process the camera and microphone feeds in a secure compartment that cannot be accessed by the operating system or by Apple. This enables HomeView to recognize the face and voice of each user without exposing the audio and visual data used for recognition to the operating system.
I feel like we’re already surrounded by devices that do this without any security whatsoever (TVs for example). So, it’s nice to see one implementation try to do it safely. Though, I do agree that normalizing overt recording could embolden the rest.
Props to Apple for making this. Always cool to see them try stuff. That said:
I watched their video demo with the family getting ready in the morning: there are some interesting ideas here but imo if this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me. Like: FaceTime while cooking, sure, but those calls tend to happen on Messenger and Snapchat for us. Music in the kitchen, sure, but I run Plexamp. My kids are always stealing my iPad to run the Toybox 3D printer; this would be a great thing for them to use.
And so on.
My house has a bunch of spots on the wall where an old intercom system used to live: it'd obviously be a budget buster to buy a bunch of these to fit in those slots but even if you did, you'd need Apple to provide an intercom solution (a la the Watch's Walkie-Talkie?) or you're...out of luck.
Same, all of the apps they demo in the video are not useful in my family - we use a different messenger, different calendar, different video calling app... it's not just about the App Store, if it's supposed to integrate with house things (there was the doorbell camera in the video) it needs to work with "homes" from other vendors, not just HomeKit.
Also, I believe that form factor was tried by both Meta and Google and didn't really click with people - who has so much free space near a power socket... in the kitchen ... in the morning ... lol.
It makes sense they'd eventually do that. The Apple TV didn't launch with an App Store, and it took 8 years after its first generation to get an App Store! I'd guess Apple sees that most apps wouldn't make sense for the HomeView, and they'll likely restrict what categories of apps can launch on it.
Also all the developers are angry and trying to build for Duo right now that didn’t even give them a simulator in time, so makes sense to not rush this out right away.
Yeah the lack of an app store is fine for the first year.
But the requirement for everyone to have an ipad or iphone on 27.2 or later (for full functionality) seems more of a showstopper. I would have been in the market for one but haven’t even bothered to upgrade past iOS 18 yet.
I think the Watch is a better precedent than the Apple TV. The product page already borrows its vocabulary: customizable faces, Live Activities, and “compatible third-party audio and video apps from your iPhone.” That’s how WatchKit started in 2015. Third-party Watch apps ran as extensions on the paired iPhone, went native with watchOS 2 later that year, and didn’t get an on-device App Store until watchOS 6 in 2019.
So I wouldn’t expect a HomeView App Store soon. I’d expect iPhone-hosted extensions first (widgets, Live Activities, CarPlay-style templates for audio and video), probably at WWDC. That also spares developers who are already scrambling to support the Duo.
I suspect this might be the beginning of a new turn for Apple strategy under Ternus: more satellite hardware that’s cheap(ish) compared to the flagship devices & locked down, reliant on your iPhone to do anything useful, pushing you to use exclusively Apple services rather than 3rd party ones. The App Store
strategy is a thing of the past.
Maybe it's a bet on LLMs/Siri AI as well: all of the not-iPhone devices become more useful if you can control them well with your voice.
I think people do feel some tension about staring at their phones all day and like the idea that the phone can stay in the pocket or on a desk while stuff like the Watch and maybe a HomeView or a HomePod could cover a lot of the little usages along the way. (I'm not sure people would ACTUALLY use them that way, but I could see it driving some sales.)
> people do feel some tension about staring at their phones all day
That, plus the crowd who would want or like
to hack on a device like this, or at least use a non-Apple app or service, is probably far outnumbered by people who don’t care what (and whose) software can run on their screen in the home as long as it looks nice and works well, which is typically the case for Apple.
Ternus being named CEO is a long-term project that certainly includes him and Tim Cook. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone internally that there are several big releases after his nomination.
There’s a potential argument that’s brewing how software moat is null, distribution is still hard-to-impossible to crack. A company, could, spin up software very easily by monitoring the requests of the existing clients that have purchased the hardware. Having such teams that push out software would be valuable, as you’d get a complete walled garden experience. Would be hard to pull off though, as your marketing team needs to be insanely good at convincing people that the product itself is valuable.
I strongly agree. Lack of support for Plexamp is a dealbreaker for me. At minimum they're going to need to support Spotify or they'll kill the product. I think it will probably need YouTube support as well. There is a worryingly sparse amount of information published about what it will support.
Well, plexamp is a dealbreaker for Apple that more and more wants you to buy Apple Music and all their services. They have more to lose by opening to plexamp users, who are not the more prone to spend money, or other services, than to lock users in their very own walled garden. Open source software on consumer friendly hardware is the way now.
I don't know if that's obviously true. I'm sure Plexamp is small potatoes compared to how many are on Apple Music, and there's a solid chance that anyone running a Plex server is doing it on a Mac.
Looks nice, unfortunately I'll have to stick with however Google's alternative is currently called since Google Cast is the strictly better model for these types of devices in my view, compared to Airplay.
Google Cast runs the player on the cast target and only uses the device that initiates playback as an optional remote control that can be disconnected without interrupting streaming.
Airplay requires the controlling device to remain available throughout, in my experience; receiving a phone call, watching other media etc. on my phone isn't possible without interrupting playback. (This might have changed in one of the last versions, but that needs app support, and not knowing what to expect on a per app basis is at least as bad, if not worse.)
I will say my experience making a chromecast custom app though has been painful. It's fine to just send media though.
I tried multiple ways, contacted their support and they just kept me trying to do the same thing over and over again. For some reason I could not register my device with my development account. Tried multiple SDKs to get it to work, just ran into the same isue.
Chromecast used to support streaming from the casting device, i make an app that used to use it. Sadly they no longer support that feature. Having everything on your device allows considerable more freedom.
I think it is a neat product with two strange limitations that I can't quite figure out:
1. No apps. This would be perfect for my kitchen but I like to watch videos, movies, tv shows while I cook. The aspect ratio is not ideal, but the fact it won't support third party apps means that is not an option. Maybe it will support Airplay video and I can cast from my phone?
2. No battery means it is stuck to the wall. They had to work around this limitation in their own (excellent) promo video by drilling a hole in the middle of their kitchen island. The device would have a lot more utility if it could be moved around a lot and then say in a base station like a Sonos Move.
I agree that a battery would have been nice. My first thought was that I would like to move this around in my kitchen while I'm doing this and that.
That said, since it's USB-C, it's possible to put a battery pack on it. Cue the third-party ecosystem making a specially shaped battery that can attach to the base (or compatible stand mount with battery for the wall-mounted version).
As adamesque wrote, it's going to be more like the Watch or even CarPlay. And I think this is probably the right approach, market-wise: Apple ran with the idea that every device needs its own standalone app ecosystem, to the point where they even tried putting an app store in iMessage, and it didn't really work out. Apps on the Apple TV that aren't effectively "channels" (i.e., streaming services) have mostly fizzled, and I bet most readers even on Hacker News forgot that the Watch even had a standalone app store for a while. The HomeView absolutely seems like the kind of device that's going to do better with "companion apps": install them on your phone and let them install a little mini-app or widget on the HomeView. I don't need to manage a whole new set of apps on my smart home gadget---I just need to be able to futz with lights and the thermostat, listen to music and podcasts with the music and podcast app of my choice, and get to my recipe app if I'm going to be one of those monsters who puts one in the kitchen.
As for the battery, this doesn't look like a kind of device that's intended to travel with you room to room---but I agree it would have been smart for them to give people the option.
Yeah, as long as there is a way to cast video to the device I think it works...some consumers may struggle with that as they are used to apps being on device, but it works for me.
The battery issue, I agree it is kind of a single room device, but I could see wanting to move it around the room I am in. If I am say, washing dishes versus cooking at the stove, versus doing prep work. Right now I move an iPad around with me in the kitchen. Also, for when there is a facetime call being able to best position it for what I am currently doing verus having to move to the device and face it.
Unless made for a square display, video will not be ideal on this device. Even SD NTSC content is 4:3 and would require cropping or matting. Anything modern would be tiny on this display.
I think the aspect ratio makes sense for the form factor, recipes, FaceTime, music, etc. but it won’t be a very good video device.
"Additional apps. HomeView supports compatible third-party audio and video apps from your iPhone for a familiar experience across devices."
If I had to guess this would be kind of similar to the way CarPlay supports apps, but it's admittedly possible this just means "you can use AirPlay yaaaay".
This is a funny framing. For those who don't know, the Apple TV 4K debuted at $129 USD. Apple then slightly improved the remote and bumped the price up to $199 USD.
Now today they announced a marginal upgrade -- they added a microphone in the base unit and not just on-demanded toggled on the remote, such that it will always be listening, along with a slightly improved CPU -- and they pumped the price to $299 USD.
So sure, the Apple TV is the "same price", to basically universal derision because they took a successful product and decided to turn it into a shakedown.
And to the root post about how great of a success this will be, virtually an identical top-ranked comment happened in the Vision Pro release. I mean, every flopped product has someone doing the "wow I guess it's going to be a huge success" when people question the point.
Yeah I'm absolutely the market for this thing. We have an old Google Home that we use as a digital photo frame and Google has progressively destroyed every other piece of functionality we once used on it.
My only complaint is that a truly environmentally friendly company (like Apple claims to be!) would make this OS available for old iPads. I'm quite sure they're capable of running it (or at least a stripped down version thereof) and lots of people have old iPad Minis sitting around.
Cynicism about selling new devices aside, if they really want Siri intelligence on these, old iPads can't do it, and Apple won't (if they can avoid it) sell a "product" with varying features.
Yes, I predict the same outcome. For one, I would buy it if I could. I don't get why people think this won't sell when Alexa has a market (and I believe that Apple can be better at a consumer device than Amazon)
Well, this is Hacker News, and you can’t even make apps for the device - there’s nothing to hack on. Of course this audience isn’t excited about it. It’s a Facebook Portal, with better privacy (at least).
The audience here does not really represent the generic population.
And, as the word hit usually meant for something positive, I just wish to highlight that being a financial success does not always mean that something is sensible, worthwhile, beneficial considering the overall picture. Usually being pretty is enough.
Agree. $300 for a speaker + home automation hub + timer + digital picture frame appeals to a lot of older people and busy parents who spend a lot of time in the kitchen.
I can’t wait to get rid of the last of one retailer/tech giant’s ad machines in my house and replace it with another tech giant’s device. No sarcasm there either. Going down to one voice system across all devices available in house and out of the house, easily, will be nice.
It looks like a nice device at a reasonable price. I looked at the video, but it doesn't solve any problems I have. We ban screens at the dinner table, it's for having attention for each other, not for screens. I never have to ask for a recipe for french toast, it's either in my head, or in cookbook, or written down on paper. The very rare number of cases someone loses their key, we can just look it up with Find My on the phone, it's such an irregular occurrence that it's not a hassle to find it with a phone. For random queries, phones with Siri can already listen, but the voice recognition or LLM fails on too many queries anyway not to be frustrating.
I could see it being useful as an additional control panel for the smart home, but Home Kit and the Home app are still pretty useless for the smart home. It can't even show a temperature graph or trend, let alone do many other things. So I would like a Home Assistant/Homey/whatever display (which would be possible if it supported apps).
I am sure this will sell plenty. It's an Apple device, people will just buy it for that reason, especially if it's not in the Apple Vision Pro price class. Will the get used a lot? Probably by a very small subset of people. Just like Siri doesn't get used a lot beyond setting timers when you are not in an English-speaking country, or even worse, use multiple languages in daily life. I am not in the US and most people I know never use Siri.
Aside from that most people seem to be more interested in digital detox than getting more pervasive tech in their lives.
My problem is mainly with the family dynamic in their 'film'. Nobody in that ad seems happy, they even seem to hate each other. Is this normal enough in the US that people can ignore it and focus on the product?
Through the incredible power of Siri AI™, you can now get a "I didn't understand that. Do you want to search the web for 'turn on the kitchen lights'?" response faster than ever before.
Yep, I really wish I could revert to previous-Siri on my iPhone 15 Pro. Old Siri was reasonably predictable and faster. New Siri is slower, more ambitious, and fails more often.
- Meanwhile, the HomePod in a different room chimes in with "Turn off the alarm on Ben's iPhone XR?", pauses for a while then checks in to see if I heard it the first time
This is a nice design, and a very aggressive price. I like the design enough I'm interpreting that price as a sign Apple's serious about getting these into a lot of homes.. I wasn't thinking I'd buy one of these, but I changed my mind looking at the pitch -- at this price it's sort of a 'hmm, I could imagine wanting one of those in X room'.
I'm curious if this is intended to act as a matter hub -- right now a lot of that load is shouldered by an Apple TV 4K if you've got one. Anyway, apple's home automation story has been terrible for ten years, but this device makes me think they will make another serious run in the next five.
It's not even a very functional size. Honestly makes me go why not just get a phone charging mount by my HomePod in the kitchen and save $300. Plus add on a mount and charger and it's $400. No thanks
> Apple HomeView is not available for sale in the European Union, as Siri AI is currently unavailable in iOS in the EU. Apple is working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward.
It's interesting that they consider that this product would be unusable without Siri AI. I've used a Google Nest Hub for years, and I don't think it needs AI to be useful?
Interesting, the calendar2 has a header that says "Designed to Delight", and the new apple page says "Delight Up the House". That CAN'T be a coincidence...
The rumor is that this has been ready for 1-2 years and was waiting on "good Siri" before they would/could release it. So it follows that if they aren't releasing "good Siri" in the EU that this device wouldn't be available.
i would love a dashboard for my smart home, but even as a fanboy of Apple i feel like HomeView doesnt do much, i'll just buy an eink screen, attach a esp32 of sorts and have it the way i want it without additional mics and shit
The product ad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkrYiZ_g9tw) is amazing, honestly, and I can't think of any other brand that has this kind of "feeling". Most other just copy this style, like Google or Microsoft, but they just don't have the "coolness". And I am not saying Apple is the ultimate cool, just that from all big tech, they're consistently the best of them.
I was so ready to buy one of these things on day one to replace the iPad that awkwardly sits on the side in my kitchen and they completely missed that relatively simple target. All I really want is a device that will accept AirPlay video in my kitchen with a decent speaker or two.
I wonder if this works as a screen mirroring device, so you could mirror your iPad to this device. Wouldn't work very well, but that might be a way to watch media
Yeah, I expect not also, but let's say you wanted to watch a video while doing a workout or doing the dishes and you wanted to make it follow you around? (I can't find anywhere whether or not it has a motor to rotate, but that is what was rumored so I am going off of that info)
Looks like a terrible TV/Movie playback device. But potentially a nice device to quickly glance at information, or show information based on what you ask
I’ve had one Echo device or multiple around the house since they launched. several years ago I whittled it down to one Echo Show in the kitchen. I like the screen just being there on the counter with timers and easily visible. I can finally retire this ad machine and be Alexa free.
I stopped using the smart home features of echo since it was too cumbersome to go in and readjust all devices for use by one thing or troubleshooting when there was problems. HomeKit is visible across 20 devices used by a family of 5 and made sense to expose all my devices through it.
I just vibe coded the UI and backend services for a 10 inch, soon to be wall mounted, raspberry pi panel integrated with HomeSeer and UniFi. It switches to the door camera automatically when motion is detected. I added a status screen with important items such as state of door locks, washer, dryer, dishwasher and litter boxes. Very bespoke to my house and family. I will have to see what the ongoing cost of maintenance is of my panel vs HomeView device.
I wonder if someone can just vibecode an app for iPad mini to do the same things as HomeView and just mount it on the wall or have a 3D printed stand for it.
Also the most unrealistic part about the intro video by apple for this was that not a single person in the kitchen was on their phone and was waiting their turn to use this thing. Do iPhones doesn't exists on the universe where they filmed that ad?
Hmm. I'm currently looking to update my Alexa echo dot combined with a wall-mounted iPad connected to my Home Assistant instance. I don't really know if this thing is what I should get instead of waiting for a Home Pod update and using that for voice with my existing iPad display. Maybe it could be useful as a condensed UI for some important Home Assistant entities I link into HomeKit? Can it be powered through PoE which I already have set up for the iPad? (edit: yes, looks like a PoE adapter is coming for $130). But if I get the non-wall mounted version I can replace my bluetooth speaker for music. I just hope it supports more than just core Apple apps because I don't really use those. For $299 I might just pick it up for fun and see how it works for me (edit: I pre-ordered the regular non-wall mounted one)
I kind of like the idea of this for a home phone replacement and a good way for our family to communicate as we get more comfortable with leaving the kids home alone. But it won’t be able to call 911 and I do not trust it.
Makes me even happier I just installed a red wall phone with an armored cable and signed up for ooma’s cheap plan. 911 access and we have no need for whitelisting. Always have outgoing and default to ringer off. Can turn it on (satisfying slider) if we are leaving the kids for a bit and they can have fun hanging up on any spam while we are out.
I am assuming but as far as I am aware that would be some separate app/service. You need a number that is locally registered so it routes to the correct dispatcher.
I think any HomePod can call 911, so I assume this one will be able to as well, but yeah, it requires an iPhone within connection range. So not for kids left alone unless they have a phone.
Even iPads with a cellular modem only have data enabled. Calling anyone, including 911, from an iPad requires some setup of Wi-Fi Calling ahead of time with a paired iPhone on the same Apple account: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108066
I built a generative UI app for Apple TV over the weekend. It lets any agent send notifications, questions and media to any of my Apple TVs. Putting it on this device would be perfect, hopefully they let developers start doing third part apps soon.
One of the motivations is to have a "master controller and dashboard" for the (smart-) home that's conveniently always attached and connected to the house itself.
Consider that many houses already have wall-mounted control panels in the main hallway or kitchen for the burglar alarm or thermostat. Replace that with an all-in-one smarthome touchscreen that configures the same security system as well as everything else ... HVAC, lights, blinds, door cam video feed, etc.
Examples of that concept from other home automation companies such as Crestron, Savant, Control4, etc:
Apple's product marketing pages for HomeView at the moment don't heavily promote the idea of customized programming for home automations (HomeKit API) to compete with Crestron/Savant but many observers think Apple wants to expand into that space. (https://www.apple.com/home-app/)
A lot of homeowners don't want to be locked in with Crestron/Savant. Yes, Apple is itself also a "walled garden" but it's a more palatable lock-in situation than the ridiculous re-programming fees that Crestron dealers charge for every little change.
>Didn't even occur to me to look for a purpose-built smart home console.
Sorry for not being clear. The Crestron/Savant panels are not typically purchased separately as 1 item. They're installed by certified system integrators as part of a total package where they wire up the whole house (often new construction).
There have been rumblings and predictions that Apple could expand HomeKit's capabilities to eventually be a real alternative to Crestron/Savant. The previous iterations of HomePod and Apple TV acting as a home hub really wasn't a credible threat but a new product like HomeView is a step closer to the "professional smarthome automation" space. E.g. Apple offering a wall-mounted PoE option is evidence of that.
I gave up with these questions, some people will consume and buy anything offered to them. I know obese people who do 0 sport and 0 effort to improve yet buy $800+ apple watch ultra for """health""" reasons...
Make it shiny enough, give people an easy way to rationalise the purchase and they'll buy your shit.
I don't enjoy figuring out how to stand it up, or having the screen constantly lock. And I don't want to buy accessories or mess with settings to fix this.
Is this really a good solution for cooking though? The grid of holes for the speakers in the main column are going to get clogged with food spatters in no time, and they wouldn't be easy to clean. An iPad I can understand, since you can just wipe it off.
And yet from what I can see on the product page this thing doesn't have video apps on it, and doesn't work as an Airplay video target, so you still end up with a laptop/iPad on the kitchen counter.
And what's wrong with moving a laptop around? They're designed to do that. The keyboard and trackpad give you great tactile control of what you're doing.
One personal use case is I have my home set up with smart lights. My family can control the lights from our phones, but friends and extended family cannot. Having a dedicated device like this gives others the ability to control home automations too.
unless you are not into home automation you cannot understand how useful this is. Years ago I bought a slightly broken Ipad Pro just to hang it on the wall and control my lights. But I agree the screen size is not right. I cant do shit besides listening to music
The thing on the stand is goofy, partly because it's like a large Apple Watch. Especially goofy when it's pictured with a hand, and it isn't actually all that big. But their wall mounted design looks interesting, kind of for the same reason? Aesthetically it immediately makes me think of a wall clock, which tells me exactly where it belongs. I kind of feel like they should lead with that one. (Although maybe they should be honest that it obviously needs a power cable).
I would want to hear what the sound is like but it seems like it could be a good replacement for my OG HomePods while adding some new features, even if the screen is minimally useful.
I wonder how well the multi-user stuff works? Are we going to have to authenticate to this thing many times a day?
Is this going to work like the Apple TV device? On that you have to pick a user when it starts but then when you open an app like Hulu, you have to pick a user there as well. Why doesn't the Apple TV tell Hulu what profile to use?
Worse, if you open Spotify it just starts with the last user that authenticated so I never know who's account I'm vandalizing as I listen to stuff and star songs as favorites.
Unless they've figured out the multi-user stuff, maybe it would be better to just create a famliy devices Apple ID and use that for shared devices?
HomeKit isnt new though, the accessories are the same accessories that have existed for years. Sure Apple has announced new ones today, but its just more options.
Home Automation has always been expensive regardless of the ecosystem your in.
I love the callout to the classic lampshade Mac. I would love them to bring that back one day. I use one as a music machine -- driving the classic clear acrylic Harmon Kardon column speakers, essentially using a machine I could never had had back in 2004.
I think this is pretty classic Apple – they take their time jumping into a new product segment and only do it once they feel their product would work and be received well. The iPhone Duo being released this year after ~10 years of foldable Android phones is a similar story
Not made for this, doesn't have good speakers, doesn't have all the surround sound features that the airplay products have. Doesn't have multi user support. These all could be solved by improving the iPad (increasing price drastically), but why do that when you can make a specialized product that is cheaper than an iPad for those who want it, instead of charging everyone for some stuff they won't use?
can iphones or ipads already 'recognize up to 6 people' like this thing can??
THe video has the girl check her messages and her brother trying to read them, and the mother checking her calendar. Without logging in or switching users.
As someone who's been in the home automation scene for decades, the only thing that excites me from this release is first party recipe scraping in Safari.
BTW - I was expecting a "Welcome Home" keynote/event where this would be presented. Is it just to me it is a surprise they updated the website ahead of the event?
This is a massively optional device that sits on your counter or wall.
1984 would be if you had to carry a Internet connected camera around with you all the time. Brave new world would be if you had to carry around an entertainment device just to do your banking.
Square screen is a no from me. I'm overall tired of the Google ecosystem, and I want to replace our Nest Hubs with something else. I was hoping Apple would come out with something large enough for wife and the kids to use when we're not in the tv room. :(
I just wish they'd fix what they already have. the nest hubs are a completely fine format. but they're underpowered (the UI lags badly), and they completely destroyed the voice assistant which had LLM-like answering capabilities in 2018. Now it just says "I'm not sure, but here's some results".
if they just rebuilt the same device newer, better, with all of the old capabilities, I'd probably buy one.
It was heavily rumoured. Maybe they disabled it after the negative reactions to the Apple Watch always listening feature. Can't have too many issues at once.
I got an iPad mini a few years ago and tried to use it like this. There’s almost no actual utility to it that “Siri set a timer for 12 minutes” or “Siri what’s the weather like” doesn’t already do on my phone.
Passing opinion, but I hope this isn't indicating a lean in direction to 90's era Apple now that Tim retired. Too many overpriced skews and non-core products that diluted the brand and led to their market shrinking.
Has anyone successfully jailbroken Amazon Echo and Google Home devices to make them Claude/ChatGPT assistants without any telemetry/dependency on Amazon/Google respectively.
Yes, but only older models. I looked into getting a Show 5 to use with Home Assistant but I don't love building on/relying on deprecated hardware no longer in production with no hope of jailbreaks for the newer versions (different tech stack IIRC).
Nope, just Apple apps, but they support streaming audio from compatible iPhone apps (probably anything that can integrate to normal system audio, so your podcast app). I imagine they might open this to 3rd party _widgets_ in the future.
So weird. A brand new product category, and it gets dropped with the HomePod Mini/Apple TV, aka Apple’s most neglected products (besides the zombified Vision Pro). Apple has a history of being so proud of their new form factors, of wanting to show them with pomp and highlighting every little detail. Not so much here.
Also completely locked out for 3rd party developers, needs your iPhone to do anything while offering very little reason to do things on it rather than on your phone… (the teenage girl texting on it rather than her phone in the intro video is totally unbelievable)
Hmm, really hard to figure out what they’re thinking on this besides “throw it on the wall and see if it sticks”, aka the HomePod & Apple TV strategy, which is not reassuring. I bought a couple HomePods early on, excited by the potential given how reliable my AirPods were, and they’ve been one of my most hated tech purchases. Super buggy, completely lagging behind in terms of basic features, and of course no fallback to use them as “dumb” wired speakers.
Amazon chased away users like me because their needs and my needs weren't aligned. All I wanted was a little device that could tell me the weather, play music, set timers, and a few other basic things. They wanted an Amazon store cash register in my kitchen that I would use to buy things.
The "by the way..." nags irritated us so much we got rid of our two Echos and replaced them with a Sonos speaker and a Homepod Mini.
And Amazon have effectively left it because they couldn't work out a way to turn all those purchases into a stream of shopping purchases on Amazon.com. And in the intervening years they've enshittified those devices by becoming increasingly intrusive with adds and "did you know..." interjections to try and squeeze whatever engagement they can.
Apple doesn't typically have the same incentives. It could turn out to be the perfect timing to fill the vacuum Amazon is leaving.
That's because it's a couple years late due to Siri. Rumor says they've had this ready to go, but weren't going to ship it until they had a Siri that was half functional.
One would assume, they haven't announced (that I can see) which A-chip they put in here but rumors said it would be the A18 (2024 chip). Which seems like it would have to be updated since if this was ready 1-2 years ago they would have designed it with an even older chip (their HomePods have used multiple generation old chips, which, to be fair, is reasonable).
apple's usb-c port placement strikes again. the port for the wall-mounted one is apparently in the middle of the back, so you'll have to take it off the wall or risk damaging your usb-c cables by trying to keep them between the device and the wall. if it was just on the bottom (like an iphone or ipad) you could leave it hanging there while plugged in to a nearby outlet
Looks like it's explicitly designed to work with special mounts, so the idea was never that you'd use your own cable and mount it yourself, but rather buy one of these USB-C/hardwired/PoE ones and plug the device into it. From the pictures, I'm guessing these mounts are magnetic.
https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/overlay/apple_homeview/con...
Smart Home devices feel somewhat antithetical to Apple's Philosophy. Aren't they all about a smoothly integrating, tightly controlled ecosystem? Offering something that connects a potentially large amount of third party devices, protocols and homecooked solutions feels odd for apple.
I wonder if this works as a screen mirroring device, so you could mirror your iPad to this device. Wouldn't work very well, but that might be a way to watch media
Let's say you wanted to watch a video while doing a workout or doing the dishes and you wanted to make it follow you around (I can't find anywhere whether or not it has a motor to rotate, but that is what was rumored so I am going off of that info)
Today I asked Siri a basic question hands free whilst driving and it said “I found these on the web”.
I’ve been with Apple since the first iPhone but I think I’m done. They have dropped the ball on AI. It’s late 2026 and my Opus 5.5 does all my coding and Siri still can’t find info and read back some basic info. Pathetic it’s like they’re not even trying any more.
Why not just make an iPad dock to use the device you already have? The Pixel Tablet with its magnetic docking station was the perfect form factor for this. Home control tablet when docked, and simply lift it off the dock and take it around the house for whatever.
Good luck. AFAIK, there are no reliable jailbreaks for the previous generation of AppleTV 4k devices. This is probably locked down at least as well as that.
Because this would be revealing that king is naked. Just like some of comments note how siri responds to simple requests like "heres what i found on web". This is infuriating especially when you're in opposite corner of the room or are driving. you are the VOICE assistant.
what a weird product. I'm all in on the Apple ecosystem but this seems like an obvious miss. Presumably the low price point is because its internals are incredibly basic, i mean its just not got a lot to do really has it so doesnt need anything other than probably a bunch of old binned chips.
I'm honestly tempted to replace the HomePod Mini that lives in my kitchen with one of these. I wouldn't have to stick my phone to the magnetic knife holder to watch videos while I cook.
Isn’t is amazing how Apple’s answer to having five kids is consistently “pick the one to single out”, without having any process at all for making an exception?
They somehow missed the memo that Sophia’s choice wasn’t an operating manual.
I mean, I’m single indie developer and I have a process to give a lifetime membership to people’s significant others (as Apple has nothing between “a single person” vs “a whole family”, and no option to give eg. discounted bundles for couples), so it doesn’t seem like a rocket science.
An incredibly locked down device from a manufacturer with terrible track record for this category of device. Their Homepod line has been completely neglected, even with the Mini 2 announcement today it's clear Apple's heart's not in it.
Couple that with the LG trash they are pushing (again, because Apple doesn't care) and it's clear Apple's HomeKit endeavors are still just as dead as they were yesterday. They ceded the home wifi space at the worst possible time and instead of trying to rectify any of that, they ignored that space for over a decade.
I'm very surprised Apple hasn't done more here. Ever since they introduce the first AirPort Express in 2004, I have continued to be surprised they haven't done more here.
In 2004 they produced a device with wireless audio over WiFi, that worked really well. It felt like the future. Then Sonos took over the market, and the rest of the market became flooded with products that didn't really work that well. E.g., in a home people would have a set of audio products to their TV, then a bluetooth boombox somewhere else, then just a laptop with internal speakers somewhere else - and not in a connected system.
Similarly with Home (automation) products, Apple launched their Home offering that seemed interesting and with the promise of an ecosystem. However, again - the market became dominated with e.g., Home Assistant, together with a flood of products and mini-ecosystems that don't really work that well. E.g., Samsung Home etc. And just like the audio market, Apple deliberately let it go.
Apple is one of the few players that can combine world class hardware, great user experience, and now increasingly privacy focused AI. You may not like their hardware, or their software, or think that their AI is not privacy focused. But it's still one of the few companies that can credibly do this.
I'm unsure if what we see is another meh / one-shot product that will be on the shelves with their HomePods. Or if it may be a stronger push into an interesting market where there the technology is far ahead of the products and ecosystems out there. Future will tell.
Apple's partnership with LG shows they don't actually care. If they cared, they'd be making the accessories. All the various Apple-blessed 3rd-party hardware over the years has been resoundingly "meh". Also, of all companies when trying to make a case for security and privacy, LG is not who I would have launched this with. Of course, the LG spying/privacy scandal only came out recently and for all we know, the LG hardware has been waiting in the wings along with the HomeView for multiple years, waiting for Siri to be "good enough", so I understand Apple may have already been "locked in".
All that said, HomeKit was announced 12 years ago and it pales in comparison to every other smart home ecosystem. Samsung probably has the best "off-the-shelf" unless you want to invite 10's of dubious Chinese wifi devices into your house and control them with Alexa (yes, I know it has other radios). Thread/Matter were supposed to improve this but I've yet to see that happen.
My decision to got all-in on Home Assistant looks better and better as time goes on. I can even re-export my devices to HomeKit if I hate myself.
I've done every song and dance required to try to hook my smart house devices into the Apple Ecosystem and it's complete trash. Even with HA having a much higher learning curve, I'd pick it every day over the buggy mess that is HomeKit. Oh, a gnat sneezed? I guess you need to re-setup your HomeKit network from scratch. And I hope you like the worst UI imaginable to configure your devices when you add them.
- Signed, someone who has, stupidly, tried to integrate with HomeKit on no less than 6 different occasions only to be burned and give up vowing to never waste my time again.... only to try again every year or two. HomeKit is like Lucy with the football, and I keep thinking "this time maybe it will work".
LLMs/AI has taken my HA usage to another level. It worked great and I loved it pre-LLM but armed with LLMs I can do some amazing automations and tweak them with my voice [0].
I recently tasked Claude with creating a vector floorplan of my house, then added icons for lights/fans/etc (Claude wrote a little tool where I could drag everything where it goes), and then set it up in HA so I can click on devices on the floorplan to toggle them. It's so cool.
I am utterly baffled by the Home app. One of the worst pieces of shit I've ever used. I really have no clue how anyone in the upper echelon of management at Apple haven't torched it by now, it feels like an interns first app and it has never improved at all.
Could not agree more. It's the opposite of a power user app. It's like they built the features (rooms/etc) to support a lot of devices but only tested with like 5 devices. I have 74 light switches alone, it's hell trying to set those up in the Home app.
Despite the typical snark on HN, I know there are still plenty who are bought in to Apple. Is anyone here using the HomePod and/or using Homekit? I'm mostly on board with the Apple ecosystem, and in my assessment when trying to outfit my home, I couldn't find a reason (maybe the privacy store is better) to choose them over Alexa or Google Home or any of the other options, including DIY.
Clever marketing video with the whole "family" interacting around the device.
A video with how customers will use this in real life, alone in a room talking to a machine - would just look like somebody who needs to be taken to a mental asylum.
“Certain Apple Intelligence features that rely on server-side models are subject to daily usage limits. Expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future”
It reminds me of those things that restaurants put on your table that you're supposed to use to play games, or pay with, but just end up spying on you and getting in the way. Like Olive Garden.
> Siri AI. A personal assistant that helps you find what you need and get more done.1
> Usage limits may apply.
What a great way to start out, to openly flag that people shouldn't rely on it, as it can be pulled away from you without notice. Feels very atypical of Apple, are they starting to get short on cash or what's going on?
iPhone 13 mini, ios 27.0.1, and Siri turned on the ceiling fan along with the lights when I asked Siri to turn on the bedroom lights. Don’t see any reason to believe Siri claims.
They're out of ideas, the only thing left for product people there is to fill the gap of devices their competitors also offer. We're at peak "I ONLY BUY APPLE" fandom, so they make devices now for people who think they need Apple everything. Since these fans will always buy it, there is no incentive to make it a well crafted or even original or useful product. Just slap the damn Apple logo on it and use up the money budgeted for the year.
This is interesting!
Idk, to me it's just one more step in widening of the technological Overton window.
I watched their video demo with the family getting ready in the morning: there are some interesting ideas here but imo if this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me. Like: FaceTime while cooking, sure, but those calls tend to happen on Messenger and Snapchat for us. Music in the kitchen, sure, but I run Plexamp. My kids are always stealing my iPad to run the Toybox 3D printer; this would be a great thing for them to use.
And so on.
My house has a bunch of spots on the wall where an old intercom system used to live: it'd obviously be a budget buster to buy a bunch of these to fit in those slots but even if you did, you'd need Apple to provide an intercom solution (a la the Watch's Walkie-Talkie?) or you're...out of luck.
Also, I believe that form factor was tried by both Meta and Google and didn't really click with people - who has so much free space near a power socket... in the kitchen ... in the morning ... lol.
But the requirement for everyone to have an ipad or iphone on 27.2 or later (for full functionality) seems more of a showstopper. I would have been in the market for one but haven’t even bothered to upgrade past iOS 18 yet.
So I wouldn’t expect a HomeView App Store soon. I’d expect iPhone-hosted extensions first (widgets, Live Activities, CarPlay-style templates for audio and video), probably at WWDC. That also spares developers who are already scrambling to support the Duo.
Maybe it's a bet on LLMs/Siri AI as well: all of the not-iPhone devices become more useful if you can control them well with your voice.
I think people do feel some tension about staring at their phones all day and like the idea that the phone can stay in the pocket or on a desk while stuff like the Watch and maybe a HomeView or a HomePod could cover a lot of the little usages along the way. (I'm not sure people would ACTUALLY use them that way, but I could see it driving some sales.)
That, plus the crowd who would want or like to hack on a device like this, or at least use a non-Apple app or service, is probably far outnumbered by people who don’t care what (and whose) software can run on their screen in the home as long as it looks nice and works well, which is typically the case for Apple.
Apple wants to design the best UI for everything and be the front-end to everything their users interact with.
Home automation is a good place to gain market share among their upper income clientele.
Google Cast runs the player on the cast target and only uses the device that initiates playback as an optional remote control that can be disconnected without interrupting streaming.
Airplay requires the controlling device to remain available throughout, in my experience; receiving a phone call, watching other media etc. on my phone isn't possible without interrupting playback. (This might have changed in one of the last versions, but that needs app support, and not knowing what to expect on a per app basis is at least as bad, if not worse.)
I tried multiple ways, contacted their support and they just kept me trying to do the same thing over and over again. For some reason I could not register my device with my development account. Tried multiple SDKs to get it to work, just ran into the same isue.
1. No apps. This would be perfect for my kitchen but I like to watch videos, movies, tv shows while I cook. The aspect ratio is not ideal, but the fact it won't support third party apps means that is not an option. Maybe it will support Airplay video and I can cast from my phone?
2. No battery means it is stuck to the wall. They had to work around this limitation in their own (excellent) promo video by drilling a hole in the middle of their kitchen island. The device would have a lot more utility if it could be moved around a lot and then say in a base station like a Sonos Move.
That said, since it's USB-C, it's possible to put a battery pack on it. Cue the third-party ecosystem making a specially shaped battery that can attach to the base (or compatible stand mount with battery for the wall-mounted version).
As for the battery, this doesn't look like a kind of device that's intended to travel with you room to room---but I agree it would have been smart for them to give people the option.
The battery issue, I agree it is kind of a single room device, but I could see wanting to move it around the room I am in. If I am say, washing dishes versus cooking at the stove, versus doing prep work. Right now I move an iPad around with me in the kitchen. Also, for when there is a facetime call being able to best position it for what I am currently doing verus having to move to the device and face it.
I think the aspect ratio makes sense for the form factor, recipes, FaceTime, music, etc. but it won’t be a very good video device.
"Additional apps. HomeView supports compatible third-party audio and video apps from your iPhone for a familiar experience across devices."
If I had to guess this would be kind of similar to the way CarPlay supports apps, but it's admittedly possible this just means "you can use AirPlay yaaaay".
I feel like it may be the kind of product that makes people realize how much they had become owned by one coroporation.
The Apple TV is the same price
iPhones and iPads are so expensive these days that this feels like a steal
I’m buying one for my parents and one for my in-laws for Christmas. Easy $300 gift that I know they won’t have.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who will have that idea
Where do they get that pricing from?
I have a lot of sensors, and always build variations of "a dashboard with a touchscreen" to play with them.
Insta-buy for me :).
This is a funny framing. For those who don't know, the Apple TV 4K debuted at $129 USD. Apple then slightly improved the remote and bumped the price up to $199 USD.
Now today they announced a marginal upgrade -- they added a microphone in the base unit and not just on-demanded toggled on the remote, such that it will always be listening, along with a slightly improved CPU -- and they pumped the price to $299 USD.
So sure, the Apple TV is the "same price", to basically universal derision because they took a successful product and decided to turn it into a shakedown.
And to the root post about how great of a success this will be, virtually an identical top-ranked comment happened in the Vision Pro release. I mean, every flopped product has someone doing the "wow I guess it's going to be a huge success" when people question the point.
My only complaint is that a truly environmentally friendly company (like Apple claims to be!) would make this OS available for old iPads. I'm quite sure they're capable of running it (or at least a stripped down version thereof) and lots of people have old iPad Minis sitting around.
And, as the word hit usually meant for something positive, I just wish to highlight that being a financial success does not always mean that something is sensible, worthwhile, beneficial considering the overall picture. Usually being pretty is enough.
It looks like a nice device at a reasonable price. I looked at the video, but it doesn't solve any problems I have. We ban screens at the dinner table, it's for having attention for each other, not for screens. I never have to ask for a recipe for french toast, it's either in my head, or in cookbook, or written down on paper. The very rare number of cases someone loses their key, we can just look it up with Find My on the phone, it's such an irregular occurrence that it's not a hassle to find it with a phone. For random queries, phones with Siri can already listen, but the voice recognition or LLM fails on too many queries anyway not to be frustrating.
I could see it being useful as an additional control panel for the smart home, but Home Kit and the Home app are still pretty useless for the smart home. It can't even show a temperature graph or trend, let alone do many other things. So I would like a Home Assistant/Homey/whatever display (which would be possible if it supported apps).
I am sure this will sell plenty. It's an Apple device, people will just buy it for that reason, especially if it's not in the Apple Vision Pro price class. Will the get used a lot? Probably by a very small subset of people. Just like Siri doesn't get used a lot beyond setting timers when you are not in an English-speaking country, or even worse, use multiple languages in daily life. I am not in the US and most people I know never use Siri.
Aside from that most people seem to be more interested in digital detox than getting more pervasive tech in their lives.
If this is what families are like in the US, I can understand why people become massive drug addicts and even to take their lives ...
"Did you mean your device labeled "tv"?"
Yes Siri ffs that's literally the only device called "tv" I have
- "Hey siri, stop alarm"
- Alarm stops
- Meanwhile, the HomePod in a different room chimes in with "Turn off the alarm on Ben's iPhone XR?", pauses for a while then checks in to see if I heard it the first time
The HomePod has now been unplugged.
I'm curious if this is intended to act as a matter hub -- right now a lot of that load is shouldered by an Apple TV 4K if you've got one. Anyway, apple's home automation story has been terrible for ten years, but this device makes me think they will make another serious run in the next five.
It's interesting that they consider that this product would be unusable without Siri AI. I've used a Google Nest Hub for years, and I don't think it needs AI to be useful?
Apple basically made a HomePod mini that is also a Skylight - https://myskylight.com/calendar - and it's even competitively priced.
They could turn off all AI (turn off all of Siri even) and this would be one of the best products in the market.
They might be perfectly useable but not profitable enough
Otherwise looks like an ideal kitchen TV/Movie playback device.
Again, dumbfounded they completely passed on this use-case ...
I stopped using the smart home features of echo since it was too cumbersome to go in and readjust all devices for use by one thing or troubleshooting when there was problems. HomeKit is visible across 20 devices used by a family of 5 and made sense to expose all my devices through it.
I just vibe coded the UI and backend services for a 10 inch, soon to be wall mounted, raspberry pi panel integrated with HomeSeer and UniFi. It switches to the door camera automatically when motion is detected. I added a status screen with important items such as state of door locks, washer, dryer, dishwasher and litter boxes. Very bespoke to my house and family. I will have to see what the ongoing cost of maintenance is of my panel vs HomeView device.
Also the most unrealistic part about the intro video by apple for this was that not a single person in the kitchen was on their phone and was waiting their turn to use this thing. Do iPhones doesn't exists on the universe where they filmed that ad?
Makes me even happier I just installed a red wall phone with an armored cable and signed up for ooma’s cheap plan. 911 access and we have no need for whitelisting. Always have outgoing and default to ringer off. Can turn it on (satisfying slider) if we are leaving the kids for a bit and they can have fun hanging up on any spam while we are out.
One of the motivations is to have a "master controller and dashboard" for the (smart-) home that's conveniently always attached and connected to the house itself.
Consider that many houses already have wall-mounted control panels in the main hallway or kitchen for the burglar alarm or thermostat. Replace that with an all-in-one smarthome touchscreen that configures the same security system as well as everything else ... HVAC, lights, blinds, door cam video feed, etc.
Examples of that concept from other home automation companies such as Crestron, Savant, Control4, etc:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Crestron+home+touchscreen+ho...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Savant+touchscreen+home&tbm=...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Control4+touchscreen+home&tb...
Apple's product marketing pages for HomeView at the moment don't heavily promote the idea of customized programming for home automations (HomeKit API) to compete with Crestron/Savant but many observers think Apple wants to expand into that space. (https://www.apple.com/home-app/)
A lot of homeowners don't want to be locked in with Crestron/Savant. Yes, Apple is itself also a "walled garden" but it's a more palatable lock-in situation than the ridiculous re-programming fees that Crestron dealers charge for every little change.
Sorry for not being clear. The Crestron/Savant panels are not typically purchased separately as 1 item. They're installed by certified system integrators as part of a total package where they wire up the whole house (often new construction).
There have been rumblings and predictions that Apple could expand HomeKit's capabilities to eventually be a real alternative to Crestron/Savant. The previous iterations of HomePod and Apple TV acting as a home hub really wasn't a credible threat but a new product like HomeView is a step closer to the "professional smarthome automation" space. E.g. Apple offering a wall-mounted PoE option is evidence of that.
Make it shiny enough, give people an easy way to rationalise the purchase and they'll buy your shit.
Why is an accessory unacceptable but a new device is fine?
It seemed incredibly fake to me, and I couldn't identify a single interesting use case.
A braindead customer is a better customer.
that’s why, obviously!</s>
I would want to hear what the sound is like but it seems like it could be a good replacement for my OG HomePods while adding some new features, even if the screen is minimally useful.
I am a bit sad that it seems like it isnt using anything the video apple put out about https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/elegnt-expressive...
I would love to see them open up an app store for this, or even if it is apps tied to your phone like the Apple Watch.
Is this going to work like the Apple TV device? On that you have to pick a user when it starts but then when you open an app like Hulu, you have to pick a user there as well. Why doesn't the Apple TV tell Hulu what profile to use?
Worse, if you open Spotify it just starts with the last user that authenticated so I never know who's account I'm vandalizing as I listen to stuff and star songs as favorites.
Unless they've figured out the multi-user stuff, maybe it would be better to just create a famliy devices Apple ID and use that for shared devices?
The entry ticket is cheap, then you'll probably pay to extend your system.
It was $2800 with tax and a keyboard!
Nothing wrong with iPads They are just expensive
This is $350 in Canada. Literally free compared to everything else Apple sells!
Pricing is kind of in between those right?
THe video has the girl check her messages and her brother trying to read them, and the mother checking her calendar. Without logging in or switching users.
That's really cool.
- a Home Hub to connect and drive the accessories and Airplay devices in your house
- a UI to support the user experience
I believe that e.g. an AppleTV is already a Home Hub, and the Home app on your iPhone / iPad gives you control over it.
So the value is in the integration and the multi-user support.
1984 would be if you had to carry a Internet connected camera around with you all the time. Brave new world would be if you had to carry around an entertainment device just to do your banking.
Ridiculous concepts..
if they just rebuilt the same device newer, better, with all of the old capabilities, I'd probably buy one.
https://www.derekseaman.com/2025/11/home-assistant-hacking-y...
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/1vow96e/amaz...
https://lee-soft.com/replacing-alexa-with-claude/
Also completely locked out for 3rd party developers, needs your iPhone to do anything while offering very little reason to do things on it rather than on your phone… (the teenage girl texting on it rather than her phone in the intro video is totally unbelievable)
Hmm, really hard to figure out what they’re thinking on this besides “throw it on the wall and see if it sticks”, aka the HomePod & Apple TV strategy, which is not reassuring. I bought a couple HomePods early on, excited by the potential given how reliable my AirPods were, and they’ve been one of my most hated tech purchases. Super buggy, completely lagging behind in terms of basic features, and of course no fallback to use them as “dumb” wired speakers.
The "by the way..." nags irritated us so much we got rid of our two Echos and replaced them with a Sonos speaker and a Homepod Mini.
Apple doesn't typically have the same incentives. It could turn out to be the perfect timing to fill the vacuum Amazon is leaving.
The Home app launched in 2016 (HomeKit in 2014).
The Health app launched in 2014. Both apps meant to work with third party devices/apps and act as a hub of information.
I’ve been with Apple since the first iPhone but I think I’m done. They have dropped the ball on AI. It’s late 2026 and my Opus 5.5 does all my coding and Siri still can’t find info and read back some basic info. Pathetic it’s like they’re not even trying any more.
Thinking if the RAM is good, this is a great jailbreak target with an A18 chip for only $299.
But maybe that’s just me?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G4
But seriously, how cool would it be if V2 of this product had mesh wifi and/or could be used in bridge mode?
They somehow missed the memo that Sophia’s choice wasn’t an operating manual.
I mean, I’m single indie developer and I have a process to give a lifetime membership to people’s significant others (as Apple has nothing between “a single person” vs “a whole family”, and no option to give eg. discounted bundles for couples), so it doesn’t seem like a rocket science.
An incredibly locked down device from a manufacturer with terrible track record for this category of device. Their Homepod line has been completely neglected, even with the Mini 2 announcement today it's clear Apple's heart's not in it.
Couple that with the LG trash they are pushing (again, because Apple doesn't care) and it's clear Apple's HomeKit endeavors are still just as dead as they were yesterday. They ceded the home wifi space at the worst possible time and instead of trying to rectify any of that, they ignored that space for over a decade.
In 2004 they produced a device with wireless audio over WiFi, that worked really well. It felt like the future. Then Sonos took over the market, and the rest of the market became flooded with products that didn't really work that well. E.g., in a home people would have a set of audio products to their TV, then a bluetooth boombox somewhere else, then just a laptop with internal speakers somewhere else - and not in a connected system.
Similarly with Home (automation) products, Apple launched their Home offering that seemed interesting and with the promise of an ecosystem. However, again - the market became dominated with e.g., Home Assistant, together with a flood of products and mini-ecosystems that don't really work that well. E.g., Samsung Home etc. And just like the audio market, Apple deliberately let it go.
Apple is one of the few players that can combine world class hardware, great user experience, and now increasingly privacy focused AI. You may not like their hardware, or their software, or think that their AI is not privacy focused. But it's still one of the few companies that can credibly do this.
I'm unsure if what we see is another meh / one-shot product that will be on the shelves with their HomePods. Or if it may be a stronger push into an interesting market where there the technology is far ahead of the products and ecosystems out there. Future will tell.
All that said, HomeKit was announced 12 years ago and it pales in comparison to every other smart home ecosystem. Samsung probably has the best "off-the-shelf" unless you want to invite 10's of dubious Chinese wifi devices into your house and control them with Alexa (yes, I know it has other radios). Thread/Matter were supposed to improve this but I've yet to see that happen.
My decision to got all-in on Home Assistant looks better and better as time goes on. I can even re-export my devices to HomeKit if I hate myself.
I've done every song and dance required to try to hook my smart house devices into the Apple Ecosystem and it's complete trash. Even with HA having a much higher learning curve, I'd pick it every day over the buggy mess that is HomeKit. Oh, a gnat sneezed? I guess you need to re-setup your HomeKit network from scratch. And I hope you like the worst UI imaginable to configure your devices when you add them.
- Signed, someone who has, stupidly, tried to integrate with HomeKit on no less than 6 different occasions only to be burned and give up vowing to never waste my time again.... only to try again every year or two. HomeKit is like Lucy with the football, and I keep thinking "this time maybe it will work".
I recently tasked Claude with creating a vector floorplan of my house, then added icons for lights/fans/etc (Claude wrote a little tool where I could drag everything where it goes), and then set it up in HA so I can click on devices on the floorplan to toggle them. It's so cool.
Video of my HA dashboard: https://cs.joshstrange.com/8cFn6sbs
[0] TTS on my mac -> Claude Code, not via Alexa or other smart speaker
Sure.
A video with how customers will use this in real life, alone in a room talking to a machine - would just look like somebody who needs to be taken to a mental asylum.
> Usage limits may apply.
What a great way to start out, to openly flag that people shouldn't rely on it, as it can be pulled away from you without notice. Feels very atypical of Apple, are they starting to get short on cash or what's going on?