And the HomePod mini 2 and the appletv. They were waiting to release them when Apple Intelligence was ready. So they've been just sitting there for years. I hope they iterate pretty fast on the next version now that these are out the door. I wouldn't buy any of these products.
I’ll be replacing my minis because I find Siri AI to be a banger most of the time, but yeah this is the first new launch where I didn’t care even a little bit about the product. I don’t need some foreboding looking tower with an Apple Watch XL glued to it to control my home.
This is Apple we’re talking about. If it isn’t a MacBook or an iPhone, it doesn’t iterate fast, it just stagnates. Apparently a $5 trillion company can’t afford to employ enough people to work on all of its products at once.
Apple's new HomeView underwent regulatory testing in October 2024, and it was running what would now be known as HomeView software version 18
For added context, iOS 18 was the software that brought AI to the iPhone 15 and 16 (16 came out 2024). HomeView has been around since then, but was delayed back in March 2025.
I wonder if people will be able to find a manufacturing date somewhere on them, like the original HomePods that appeared to all be from the original production run even though they were still being sold years later.
That’s not how production logistics work. Even if hypothetically a major manufacturer like Apple had the exact specs down years prior to deployment and changed nothing, it’s still less expensive to manufacture them close to release and then meet supply. Having a bunch of devices in a warehouse is expensive and unnecessary.
What needed to be tested so hard though? They already have iOS on iPads and iPhones and WatchOS which is basically what this is. It’s a glorified iPhone lock screen information display.
The A18 is in the new Apple TV too so I guess it’s just a workhorse chip they can manufacture pretty cheaply and know very well. The MacBook Neo runs on the A18 Pro and the Studio Display uses the A19 so it’s not unusual for older chips to find use in other products.
and it looks like technology from 2024...really 2022. I've never seen an apple product get such a poor reception. Everyone pissed in apple's cheerios yesterday.
if you're happy good on ya. Every tech reviewer I've seen was underwhelmed. I'm underwhelmed and I don't understand the pricing. Why would I pay $300 for just the screen and then also need to pay an additional $100 for a charger/mount. It's ridiculous that you're getting less but charged the same as the full version and then also not getting the hardware included.
I was really interested in the door bell camera too because fuck ring and amazon. I wanted someone who wasn't going to hand over data to police without a warrant. Then they went and picked LG to make it...fucking idiots.
They were doing so good at bespoke tech for awhile but I guess it was never about that it was just about having stuff that looked different form the competition bummer
I would pick one up on sale. I have been wanting to replace my alexa’s for a while. I have home assistant so i can make pretty much anything homekit accessible.
The only issue for me and is lack of Spotify support.
or you could have read below where I mentioned it was tech reviewers too. I'm pretty confident with the huge push back on surveillance that people are less interested in cameras in homes.
I never really got why all the home automation folk want screens everywhere to control it. You have a phone, tablet, computer, tv that can display any of that any time. I want home automation to be invisible.
Why can't they just add multiple user accounts to all these devices instead? Stupid that we still have to buy multiple iPads for a family to use instead of letting everyone use the same iPad.
I think we're seeing a sort of "analogification" of technology where society is slowly moving a tiny bit away from do-it-all devices like the iPhone and iPad to avoid detrimental screen time.
Special purpose devices like the HomeView are an important part of a more focused digital experience.
In retrospect, Apple adding the Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro was an early sign because it can move an operation off the screen to a physical button.
I find it odd that people do not realize a massive amount of people do not wear clothes with front pockets, or pockets that can hold a phone. When inside your house your phone could be anywhere. That’s why smart speakers and smart screens are so popular
Ok sure. Guess I’m old school and prefer not to have a bunch of screens everywhere. Home automation should just work, not require me to monitor it 24/7 from a screen, phone included. But we’re a single tv household.
The biggest point of friction of smart homes is not solved by something like this. I'd really rather have more choices, especially us in the Asia market, for smart switches and ways to control automations and appliances in the house for people who aren't me.
It would have been nice if they at least put some environmental sensors or air quality sensors in it. With the Apple Watch focusing on health metrics, the HomeView could augment that.
I watched a YouTube video about the Homeview, it looks like it has to have an iPhone or iPad within close proximity to work, if so then why not just do what you need to for smart home stuff on the iPhone or iPad
When I’m cooking sometimes I’ll say “Hey Siri set a 5 minute timer.” Sometimes Siri on my Apple Watch will set the timer, sometimes it’ll be my iPhone, and sometimes it’ll be the HomePod mini in my daughters bedroom lol
The whole smarthome thing is such a weird thing to me. The only use I could see is automatically turning on/off lights but it costs a literal fortune to replace enough lightbulbs for it to be worth it
Same. I use my Nest Hub Max to set timers and watch YouTube TV while I cook. I doubt this will even be able to run YouTube TV so it will be even more more useless than my Nest Hub
I am suspecting the table top version was supposed to have a larger screen but stability issues have delayed it. Their own video with that family using it made it so obvious it is too small plus they even drilled a hole into their breakfast table :)
Plus every thing they demoed could be better done on a phone
Apple, the company famously known for having bad hinges and unstable desktop monitors? You're delusional if you think Apple couldn't make a 9 inch screen if they wanted to.
i bought two. it's a step above the homepod mini in sound and it means i can pick music easily across the house. i also have smart switches, so being able to pick scenes or a specific room will be nice. i think i'll probably end up getting a few more.
they're not particularly expensive either. i have a lot of homepod minis in my house and i suspect ill end up upgrading some of those as well.
Maybe it was the launch video that turned me off to the whole thing, but I don’t have a chaotic house filled with overly precocious kids. I don’t need to schedule five people’s calendar at once nor track them. I don’t need to FaceTime specifically in one room of the house and even more specifically at the kitchen counter. I don’t need to stream Apple TV content from my phone to a screen that’s not much bigger, when my TV or iPad are literally in the same room or nearby. I don’t need another device for Siri. I can set timers for my Apple Watch. And I’m perfectly happy with the schedules I’ve set for my nest thermostat and it’s only two of us in the house, so it’s no big deal if somebody changes the temperature. Beyond that, I already have Sonos with inset speakers in all my rooms. That works just fine with my Spotify subscription. So yeah, I’m struggling to see how this is even on my shopping list
Yeah, sounds like you don’t need a device like this at all, and that’s ok! If you’re not in the market for a Skylight calendar then you’re probably not the target audience.
Families. I have three kids and we don’t live near any of our relatives. We FaceTime grandparents and the kids like to FaceTime their cousins a lot. I have a HomePod mini in my kitchen as well as the aforementioned skylight calendar. Both get used a lot by my kids for playing music while they help cook meals or track chores and morning/bedtime routines, and my wife and I rely on the skylight calendar for a good visual representation of our family’s schedule during the week. It would be nice to replace both of those with a single device
I’m probably going to get a few for older relatives, a tabletop FaceTime device is way nicer than them holding a phone or iPad up to part of their face.
This. Anytime I FaceTime my father with the kids it’s basically his chin and the ceiling. Having a tabletop device like this may work wonders if he can figure it out. Which sadly isn’t likely.
It’s the fact that this device is merely a locked down iPad mini attached to a HomePod mini. This would have sold better as a iPad charging stand. I already have an iPad and if it went into home os mode on the charging stand that would be rad. But no I have to go buy a whole new device. I’m out.
I don’t understand this either. Dashboards aren’t usually something the casual audience is after. I do have use for dashboards but I’ve just made my own with old iPads and fire tablets with home assistant and an HTML front end.
I feel like anyone in need or want of a dashboard is already sufficiently techy to have partially begun the home automation journey, and this is incredibly poor value compared to what you can do with a $70 tablet.
Literal perfect use case for AI. They’ll get you up and running in a day. Hell, can even give you links for everything you’ll need. Probably all in single conversation without losing context.
Lolol yeah the funny thing about doing in-ceiling speakers is that they’re incredibly affordable and the sound quality is crazy good. The beauty of Sonos is you don’t need to use Sonos branded speakers. It’s just the device that all the wires plug into
Let me tell you when I saw mock ups of this I was so excited. Finally I can ditch my kitchen echo show for something that’ll be polished! I thought, I’ll be able to stream and make video calls and everything will just work seamlessly. No streaming video is such a letdown. Why would anyone need this? It’s a glorified clock radio.
Yeah I’m pretty disappointed in the chip and a few other things more I learn about it. I just see this being very slow handling a lot of simple tasks, especially in a couple years. I made the decision today to make my own using an iPad Air M4, a beats pill, and using my bambu 3-D printer to create a dock for them. I’m just going to create a new iCloud for the family on this and use guided access to lock it to Apple Home. I made a terrible AI mock-up real quick, but I think I’m going to have it vertical so that I can have it charge when it’s docked and use a smart outlet to turn it off and on to keep the power between like 30% and 70%. It will also fit the pill that somehow got very elongated by AI here
I have Claude connected to Fusion 360 and my 3d printer and it’s been amazing. From my bed I can just text it what I want and hours later it’ll reply with a picture of the finished product on my printer bed
Feels like it should have been a software mode like CarPlay, a new feature of iPad OS. Then they could have introduced magnetic base stations with speakers as an option. This would allow you to go as big or small as needed, from iPad mini on up. They could even tout it as a way to use your old iPad so you can get a new one.
People moan all day long that they wish Apple made a product in a certain category and then they do and then people moan about it. I personally would love what is essentially a HomePod mini with a visual aspect. I don’t think it’s meant to be some amazing new product. It’s just Apple making something official for all the people using iPad Minis plugged into their wall as a home hub for years and I think it’s great for that. It’s just a HomePod Mini Pro and I think it does a great job at that.
Same. It’s literally in its name - HomeView. It’s a screen for, you guessed it, the Home app. And Apple Music speaker with a screen. Two main things people use currently with voice only commands. Now with a screen.
No, the thing that held them up was Siri AI. Apple Intelligence is a key part of this thing's story, and they didn't want to ship it with the old version of Siri, and they didn't want to make more promises about what Siri could do "in a future update."
Doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to implement. Especially for how well their software and hardware already work with locations.
An example, wreck my mtb yesterday on a jump and hit my head. Didn’t realize my AirPods Pro 2 had fallen out of my ears until several hours later, well after dark. And not until I pulled the case out of my pocket after the ER visit to make a call and saw they were empty.
Pulled up Find My and tada, they were out on the trail were I wrecked haha. It was going to rain overnight/early AM so I had to go out in the pitch black but was able to easily find them.
And that tech is in those tiny little headphones.
The rest of the tech already exists as well. And the pro 2s came out years ago, these are the lightning version even.
I know this device has bot been awe inspiring, but for my low sight mother, it would allow her to cook again with Siri reading out the steps, hear the doorbell and kettle, etc. as an accessibility device, this could be quite nice. Assuming she can figure out how to use it
My issue with this device is that it's artificially separated on purpose.
There is absolutely no reason an iPhone or iPad couldn't already do all of what you mentioned. No technical or engineering reason at all. They just want you to buy one more device.
This is so unintuitive and not usually how Apple does brand new-to-them product lines. There’s just nothing special or eye catching about this device at all, I think the amount of people that will have a use for it and get one will be small. Cause they clearly haven’t convinced anyone to get one who wasn’t already wanting this.
How many apps will really make it to this thing if it was a whole new OS that developers would have to target? How many developers are going to test a version of their apps for this thing if the number of users is only in the few hundred thousands for years to come?
iPad apps feel wrong for this thing. It's certainly not designed for anyone to stand there and poke at it for long amounts of time. Spiritually, it feels like it should be running blown-up watchOS apps. I think streaming CarPlay apps from your phone is as good as a compromise as anything.
I want to control my devices I already have, like Sonos and Hue lights. HomeKit sucks for doing that as is. I’m definitely not replacing Sonos with Apple speakers. They could improve HomeKit so that I like using it for controlling things too. The device seems gimped
As long as this has been rumored I’ve wondered why anyone would want it. Part of the purpose of a smart home is the convenience of NOT having to get up to flip switches or touch things.
I prefer voice commands and automation. Everything this can do I can do from my Watch and phone.
It is really cute though. I’m enjoying the square screen aesthetic.
Voice commands and automations are pro level features for a smart home. Most people are on the "I have 2 lamps that I can control with my phone / a remote control" level of home automation.
What home products have voice commands and automation? You need either Google or Amazon stuff, or this or a normal HomePod. Of those only Google and Apple have LLM assistants.
HomeKit automations. Anywhere in my house, I can say, "Hey Siri, [Scene]" and my house responds accordingly. Lights sync, doors lock, music plays, etc.
I understand the use case, but it's redundant. What purpose does this serve that is not already better accomplished by the existing Apple products people are more likely to have?
Consider Jobs' introduction of the iPad, explaining why it had to be better than the phone and Mac at certain tasks. I'm not yet seeing a similar value proposition with HomeView.
I’m pretty underwhelmed with this one, and I actually considered myself a target customer for something like this.
All I wanted was something plop on the counter to display a shared calendar, family pics, and maybe play music or sports while I’m puttering around. It does those things, but I didn’t want it to look like it was mirrored from an Apple Watch.
It’s an insulting product, just like the Apple TV refresh. And by insulting, I mean it does nothing that your existing Apple device can’t already do. Oh, except for allowing multiple users but iPads can’t support that. It’s another screen to serve up ads in new spaces. It’s expensive and ugly. But it’s Apple, and they depend on mindless consumerism to drive up stock prices at this point. $300? You gotta be out of your mind to buy this, just like the new Apple TV. Apple is laughing at all of us.
They do make it for iPad in a very limited setting (Apple Classroon shared iPads). It’s one annoying thing Apple refuses to just copy from Android. Separate user profiles on iOS would be very useful.
They choose not to because they want you to buy multiple iPads. It’s a feature that has been requested for years that they are capable of doing without FaceID verification but have deliberately chosen not to do it.
Man, don’t be so grumpy. No products are for everyone. In my circle of friends of parents with kids, a handful of us have smart home stuff and this is appealing to us. Obviously does not apply to everyone and that’s okay.
I don’t think HomeView is some crime against humanity or insult to smart home enthusiasts like some people are saying.
I think it’s an alright product. A bit pricey for what it is, but I would’ve gotten one when I was in the market for it 3 or 4 years ago. I’ve since got tired of waiting for Apple’s version of a screen hub and went with another solution though. I think it’s fine for those who want one within the Apple ecosystem.
But the one thing I think is egregious about it is that the wall-mounted version costs the same price as the base version, yet comes with less hardware (no speaker base and no power supply). Since you’re losing the base, they could have at least included a standard wall mount kit with it with the option to upgrade to one of the fancier ones.
This. I was thinking only a few weeks ago that lack of a home phone in my house (and in the houses of friends) has really shrunk my kids social options compared to when I was a kid. My 6yo and 8yo don’t need a smartphone, or their own iPad, or a discord account, but I sure could get behind a device that allows them to call their nana and grandma and (in an ideal world where everyone has one of these - never coming I realise) their primary school friends over FaceTime. But I can’t get clarity that the product will even allow this possibility either, as it seems to expect every end use will have their own personal apple device. If apple would lean into the young family market with this product and its software development to make those kinds of scenarios more possible, that would be a massive value proposition. But as it stands, I’ll wait to see if Gen2 brings any of these benefits.
it sure doesn't say that or show the port https://www.apple.com/apple-homeview/specs/
I mean its such a huge mistake I want you to be right, seems like one of those things that would be worth delaying the product till its in.
Have a Google home. The limited functionality of it all sucks. Just get an iPad and convert your home to smart lights and stuff use Siri, way better experience
I haven't seen a recent Apple product look so fucking bad in a long time. The screen bezel is huge! It's like they didn't even try to make it look nice, not even close to the Apple standards of the past.
This will be one of Apple’s worst-selling products ever. There are two main types of people out there in regards to a product like this…
people who are interested in it and have already purchased one over the past 10 years that does everything that Apple’s does, for much cheaper
or
people who are not interested before and still not interested now.
I’m not saying that it will sell zero units, of course it will sell some, but there’s not really a big addressable market out there other than these two major groups above.
If this ad from the geniuses at Apple is to be trusted, then i better drill a hole in my kitchen counter so my mom can FaceTime me at 7am. Hard no on both.!
i’m not sure why my oldish iphone 16 can’t have an “always on” function when charging or a dock screen that doesn’t go dark … so that if attached to a magnetic charger on the counter i can walk by and see if there are new notifications without touching it. this seems like basically that? do i really need another device ?? i hate wearing the watch and ive been trying to get this phone dock set up to work but have been frustrated it doesn’t seem possible
I would’ve gave a shit if it followed you around by rotating during a video call. Would’ve been nice to FaceTime family with our as-of-this-moment 7 month old baby. I’m not gonna just stand in one spot during a FaceTime call or rotate the damn thing manually every time.
Grifting on no-news rumours at best. These are people who sit together and ask what they can write about and borderline invent as long as they label it rumours. They don’t care about quality as long as people lien OP just share for likes without criticising quality
No conversational AI apps on this device is all the proof you need that Apple views agents from OpenAI and Meta as an existential threat
They’re scared
Wow, surprised to see this sub is so supportive of Apple just blocking whole classes of apps, yall be cool with them blocking other companies LLM wrappers on the App Store broadly too?
This just does not look good to me. The text being cutoff looks bad, it's not as legible as it could be. Apple software design has gotten so messy especially with the new glassy stuff. Maybe it's just me..
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u/grandchester 10h ago
And the HomePod mini 2 and the appletv. They were waiting to release them when Apple Intelligence was ready. So they've been just sitting there for years. I hope they iterate pretty fast on the next version now that these are out the door. I wouldn't buy any of these products.