Apple unveiled a slate of new astute residence gadgets at its aptly named “Welcome Home” event today, including its archetypal (and extremely anticipated) astute residence hub. That flagship notice came alongside much-needed refreshes for Apple’s HomePod Mini and TV 4K devices, and a choice of new astute residence and safety accessories designed together alongside trusted third-party manufacturers.
Catch up on all of Apple’s new hardware announcements in our roundup below, or click through for additional detailed safety on each.
HomeView is arguably the company’s archetypal important Apple Home initiate since releasing HomeKit in 2014. It gives you a dedicated display to detect and authority compatible astute residence gadgets and safety devices about your living area — item that Amazon and Google have lengthy offered for their own astute residence platforms in the form of Echo Show and Nest Hub devices.
The $299 HomeView is accessible in four colors: silver, starlight, rosy pink, and area gray. It features a 7-inch, square-shaped, Liquid Retina display on a rounded speaker basis (or it can be wall-mounted), in a scheme reminiscent of Apple’s 2002 iMac G4. The HomeView display can automatically modify ray levels to lawsuit its surroundings, and can be dimmed downward to fair 0.3 nits of brightness so it can comfortably sit on your nightstand without blinding you at night. A 12-megapixel camera can be used for FaceTime calls, and enables the equipment to acknowledge up to six distinct users — automatically adapting from a shared family display to a personalized hub whenever awareness and acknowledgment features are enabled.
Feature-wise, HomeView has all the customary astute residence hub capabilities you’d expect: you can oversee lighting, thermostat, and another astute equipment controls, and detect a live perspective of up to nine safety cameras. There are additionally several Apple Intelligence-powered Siri AI features specified as individual environment and content descriptions for video feeds, but these are leveraged via an iPhone connection. In fact, HomeView requires all person in a family to have an iPhone alongside the latest OS, which may logic problems in blended iOS / Android households, or for anyone alongside an older iPhone. It’s accessible to preorder today, alongside preparedness starting from November 13th.
We’ve been expecting Apple to autumn a refreshed type of its petite pod speaker since sparse particulars leaked in September, but now the update is official. The $149 HomePod Mini 2 is $50 additional than the debut cost of its six-year-old predecessor and retains many of the identical scheme features, but it’s motionless cheaper than the larger second-gen HomePod, which launched in 2023 at $299. It has the identical acquainted domain shape, but the previously vivid color options are additional muted: pink, blue, green, white, and midnight, color-matched alongside the current iMac models.
The colorful lighting swirl on the top panel additionally makes a reappearance, but Apple has upgraded it alongside a “sound glow” characteristic that matches the illumination to the color of gathering shield art and another beautiful soundscape designs. The HomePod Mini 2 is powered by the identical S10 part that’s established inner the Apple Watch Series 10, and includes assistance for WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 6, and the two Thread and Matter. Support for Siri AI via a connected iPhone volition be coming in a “later” application update, according to Apple.
It can be used as the default speaker for your Mac, and multiple speakers can be connected together to provision a encircle audio experience: either four HomePod Mini 2 speakers, or two second-gen HomePods alongside two HomePod Mini 2s. The HomePod Mini 2 can additionally automatically calibrate alongside the new Apple TV 4K to comprehend anywhere the devices are positioned in the room, and related to all other, tuning audio to finest equivalent the space. You can preorder the new HomePod Mini 2 today, alongside shipping starting on October 30th.
This is the fourth generation of Apple’s TV hardware, and comes alongside several insignificant but appreciated quality-of-life upgrades compared to its predecessor, released in 2022. The new Apple TV 4K is $299 and comes alongside four far-field microphones built into the set-top box — definition you no longer have to conversation into the distant or a connected HomePod equipment to authority it via Siri. It doesn’t react out loud, however, so any answers volition be displayed as on-screen text.
You can additionally brace the new Apple TV 4K alongside a compatible iPhone to use Siri AI features, specified as leveraging individual environment to exterior a TV sequence suggested by a companion complete content messages, and asking the AI aide to propose shows to observe on Apple TV (the streaming service, not the device). If you endure your remote, you can ask Siri to find it using Bluetooth Channel Sounding and create it perform a sound. Preorders are accessible starting today, alongside shipping expected on November 13th.
Apple additionally announced a new range of astute residence hardware, designed in collaboration alongside LG Electronics and Schneider Electric. The Apple Home Collection includes multiple cameras from LG: a $199 indoor camera that automatically tilts downward whenever you attain residence to provision several individual privacy, a $299 outdoor safety camera alongside optional motion-activated floodlights (raising the cost to $399), and a $249 video doorbell. These are all HomeKit Secure Video cameras, definition they can detect people, pets, packages, and vehicles, and assistance Apple Intelligence features via a connected iPhone.
The gathering additionally includes an LG entrance fastener and two thermostats — one from LG and the another made by Schneider. All of the listed devices use NFC and are designed to be set up easily, akin to the cognition of pairing AirPods. Just method them alongside your iPhone, prosecute the on-screen steps, and the equipment is automatically added to your Home app. Apple hasn’t mentioned a publish date for this astute residence gadget collection, lone that it’s “coming soon.”
Correction, October 13th: This narrative initially misstated the cost of the new Apple TV 4K. It is $299, not $149.
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