Apple just announced its long-rumored smart home hub, the HomeView, during its “Welcome home” event taking place today. As part of the event, it showed a video featuring the new device, and if you want to see it for yourself, you can watch it right here.
The HomeView is a 7-inch square display. It costs $299 and comes in two versions: one that mounts to a wall, and another that sits atop a small speaker base. It can be used to show smart home controls, pull up information with Siri AI, take video calls, and show footage from HomeKit Secure Video cameras. It’s also a Matter controller and a Thread Border Router.
The HomeView will be available for preorder starting today, with four color options, including silver, starlight, rose pink, and space grey. It starts shipping on November 13th.
Apple has been rumored to be working on a smart home display of some kind for a long time. The company originally planned to launch one in 2024 with an AI-powered upgrade to Siri, but had to change plans after it delayed Siri’s upgrade, Bloomberg reported. Apple finally launched its Siri AI overhaul alongside its OS updates last month.