Apple’s “Welcome home” lineup is official, and the price tags are the story. HomeView, Apple’s first smart display, is $299. The new Apple TV 4K is also $299. Both can be preordered today and arrive Friday, November 13. The HomePod mini 2 is $149 and is the only one of the three you can have before November.
On Sunday we passed along Mark Gurman’s report that HomeView would ship around mid-November while the Apple TV and HomePod mini landed October 30. He had the hub right. The Apple TV slipped to ship alongside it.
HomeView: $299, November 13
HomeView is a 7-inch Liquid Retina display on a domed speaker base, joined by a stainless steel hinge so it tilts. It comes in silver, starlight, rose pink and space gray. A separate wall-mounted model, in space gray and silver, is also $299 and attaches with one of three Schneider Home mounts: a USB-C wall connector for $59.95, a hardwired AC mount for $79.95, or a Power over Ethernet mount coming in early 2027 for $129.95.
The pieces Gurman previewed held up. It runs on an A18, and it is built around Siri and the Home app. Apple’s release doesn’t mention an App Store; it lists Apple’s own apps plus “compatible third-party audio and video apps.” It recognizes up to six people by their face and gives each one their own Home Screen. Private content like Messages and Calendar only appears when the right person is recognized and their iPhone or iPad is nearby and recently unlocked.
For the smart home, a Home Camera face can stream up to nine camera feeds at once, and HomeView listens for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and pushes an alert to your iPhone or Apple Watch.
The catches are in the footnotes:
- You need an iPhone. Apple says setup and multiuser support require a compatible iPhone or iPad on the latest software. The Verge notes that means every person in the household needs one, which is a problem for mixed iPhone and Android homes.
- Siri AI is a beta. Apple labels it beta in HomeView software 27.2, and the personal-context features need a paired Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone or iPad.
- Not in the EU. HomeView launches in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and India, with Singapore preorders opening Thursday and South Africa through resellers. Apple says it won’t sell HomeView in the European Union because Siri AI isn’t available in iOS there. Canadian buyers get English Siri AI at launch, with Canadian French coming later in a software update.
Apple TV 4K: three microphones and a much higher price
Both features Gurman said Apple had tested made it. The fourth-generation Apple TV 4K has three far-field microphones, so you can talk to Siri without picking up the remote, and the new Siri Remote adds Find My with Precision Finding and can play a sound when it’s lost in the couch. The remote is also sold separately and works with older Apple TVs.
Inside is an A19, which Apple says delivers up to 50 percent faster CPU and up to twice the GPU performance of the last model, plus a dedicated AV1 decoder for more efficient streaming. Four HomePod mini 2 speakers, or matching pairs of HomePod (2nd generation), can now act as a surround-sound system with the box.
The price is the headline. At $299, Wired calculates it’s a $170 jump, though this model starts with 128GB and includes both Wi-Fi and Ethernet. One piece of good news for people who don’t upgrade: Apple says the Siri AI beta also comes to the Apple TV 4K going back to the second generation.
HomePod mini 2: October 30, Siri AI later
The $149 HomePod mini 2 gets an S10 chip, a “Sound Glow” top that lights up to match the album art of what’s playing, and new colors: pink, green, blue, white and midnight. It can also work as a speaker for a Mac. It ships October 30.
The asterisk: Siri AI isn’t on it at launch. Apple says it’s coming “in a future software update,” in English, in the same eight countries as HomeView.
Apple Home Collection: December and beyond
The LG-built accessories Bloomberg reported last week now have a name, Apple Home Collection, and prices. From LG: a wired video doorbell ($249.95), a floodlight cam ($399.95), an outdoor cam ($299.95), an indoor cam ($199.95), a smart deadbolt ($349.95), and a thermostat ($199.95) with a $39.95 temperature sensor. Schneider Home adds its own $199.95 thermostat and $39.95 room sensor. Apple says the collection starts arriving in December, with some pieces not until early 2027. Each one pairs with a tap of your iPhone and is managed in the Home app without a separate account.
What to do
If you want Apple’s smart home bet, preorders are open now, but nothing besides the HomePod mini 2 arrives before November 13, and the cameras and locks that make HomeView most useful don’t start shipping until December. The safest buy today is the HomePod mini 2, as long as you’re fine waiting on its Siri AI update. If you’re on the fence about a $299 Apple TV, remember the Siri AI beta is coming to the box you may already own.
Reporting reference: Apple Newsroom ↗