Apple just made its biggest smart-home bet in years. At a "Welcome Home" event in New York on Tuesday, the company unveiled four new product lines — Apple HomeView, HomePod mini 2, a new Apple TV 4K and the Apple Home Collection — with no keynote and four press releases. Every new device is built around Siri AI, Apple's entirely new version of Siri, and almost every useful feature runs through your iPhone.
Pre-orders opened immediately for the three flagship products. The message is clear: Apple, after years of ceding the smart home to Amazon and Google, finally wants to own the living room.
HomeView: Apple's first screen-based smart speaker
The headline product is HomeView, a $299 smart display that resembles the iMac G4 with its domed speaker base and floating screen. It pairs a 7-inch Liquid Retina display with the A18 chip and runs a new operating system called homeOS, acting as both a smart display in the vein of the Echo Show and Nest Hub and as a hub for controlling HomeKit accessories.
Privacy is the centrepiece of Apple's pitch: the A18 includes Secure Exclaves for camera and microphone data. HomeView recognises up to six people by face, each with their own home screen. A wall-mounted version costs the same $299, with Schneider power mounts from $59.95, and is limited to grey and silver. The tabletop model comes in silver, starlight, rose pink and space grey.
Siri AI arrives on HomeView as a beta in HomeView software 27.2, but there is a catch: personal context requires a paired Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad. Both models go on sale 13 November, with pre-orders from today in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India, plus Singapore from 15 October and South Africa through resellers. Notably, HomeView is not being sold in the EU, where Apple says Siri AI is currently unavailable in iOS.
HomePod mini 2: Sound Glow and Siri AI
The second-generation HomePod mini costs $149 — up from $129 — and ships first, with availability beginning Friday 30 October. It upgrades from the S5 chip of the original to the S10, bringing computational audio that optimises dynamic range, loudness and acoustic performance in real time.
The standout flourish is Sound Glow: the speaker's top becomes a "visual canvas" that glows and animates in sync with music, using colours generated from each song's album artwork. It can also pair with the new Apple TV 4K to create a four-speaker surround sound system — Apple's most immersive home theatre setup yet — with the speakers automatically recognising their positions in the room and calibrating levels to the space. The mini can also serve as the default speaker for a Mac and listens for smoke or carbon monoxide alarms, sending an alert if one goes off.
Siri AI will come to the HomePod mini 2 in a future software update, requiring a paired Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad, with voice recognition for up to six users. It comes in pink, green, blue, white and midnight.
Apple TV 4K: built-in microphones for Siri AI
The fourth-generation Apple TV 4K also costs $299 — or $49.83 a month for six months on Apple Card instalments — and is available 13 November. It runs the A19 chip with 8GB of RAM and, notably, has built-in microphones so you can talk to Siri AI directly without reaching for the remote.
Siri AI arrives as a beta in tvOS 27.2 on second-generation and later models, though iPhone, language and country rules apply. The new box anchors Apple's audio ambitions, supporting the four-speaker HomePod mini surround setup and serving as the hub for the whole HomeView ecosystem.
Apple Home Collection and the LG/Schneider partnership
Rounding out the event is the Apple Home Collection, an accessories line developed with LG and Schneider Electric, with prices from $39.95 and availability in December — some items stretching into early 2027. The range includes a smart doorbell, deadbolt lock, thermostat, temperature sensor, indoor and outdoor security cameras and a floodlight camera, all controllable by Siri voice.
