Well, this is Hacker News, and you can’t even make apps for the device - there’s nothing to hack on. Of course this audience isn’t excited about it. It’s a Facebook Portal, with better privacy (at least).
Props to Apple for making this. Always cool to see them try stuff. That said:
I watched their video demo with the family getting ready in the morning: there are some interesting ideas here but imo if this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me. Like: FaceTime while cooking, sure, but those calls tend to happen on Messenger and Snapchat for us. Music in the kitchen, sure, but I run Plexamp. My kids are always stealing my iPad to run the Toybox 3D printer; this would be a great thing for them to use.
And so on.
My house has a bunch of spots on the wall where an old intercom system used to live: it'd obviously be a budget buster to buy a bunch of these to fit in those slots but even if you did, you'd need Apple to provide an intercom solution (a la the Watch's Walkie-Talkie?) or you're...out of luck.
I suspect this might be the beginning of a new turn for Apple strategy under Ternus: more satellite hardware that’s cheap(ish) compared to the flagship devices & locked down, reliant on your iPhone to do anything useful, pushing you to use exclusively Apple services rather than 3rd party ones. The App Store
strategy is a thing of the past.
Through the incredible power of Siri AI™, you can now get a "I didn't understand that. Do you want to search the web for 'turn on the kitchen lights'?" response faster than ever before.
It's not even a very functional size. Honestly makes me go why not just get a phone charging mount by my HomePod in the kitchen and save $300. Plus add on a mount and charger and it's $400. No thanks
This is a nice design, and a very aggressive price. I like the design enough I'm interpreting that price as a sign Apple's serious about getting these into a lot of homes.. I wasn't thinking I'd buy one of these, but I changed my mind looking at the pitch -- at this price it's sort of a 'hmm, I could imagine wanting one of those in X room'.
I'm curious if this is intended to act as a matter hub -- right now a lot of that load is shouldered by an Apple TV 4K if you've got one. Anyway, apple's home automation story has been terrible for ten years, but this device makes me think they will make another serious run in the next five.
The thing on the stand is goofy, partly because it's like a large Apple Watch. Especially goofy when it's pictured with a hand, and it isn't actually all that big. But their wall mounted design looks interesting, kind of for the same reason? Aesthetically it immediately makes me think of a wall clock, which tells me exactly where it belongs. I kind of feel like they should lead with that one. (Although maybe they should be honest that it obviously needs a power cable).
One of the motivations is to have a "master controller and dashboard" for the (smart-) home that's conveniently always attached and connected to the house itself.
Consider that many houses already have wall-mounted control panels in the main hallway or kitchen for the burglar alarm or thermostat. Replace that with an all-in-one smarthome touchscreen that configures the same security system as well as everything else ... HVAC, lights, blinds, door cam video feed, etc.
Examples of that concept from other home automation companies such as Crestron, Savant, Control4, etc:
Apple's product marketing pages for HomeView at the moment don't heavily promote the idea of customized programming for home automations (HomeKit API) to compete with Crestron/Savant but many observers think Apple wants to expand into that space.
A lot of homeowners don't want to be locked in with Crestron/Savant. Yes, Apple is itself also a "walled garden" but it's a more palatable lock-in situation than the ridiculous re-programming fees that Crestron dealers charge for every little change.
I don't enjoy figuring out how to stand it up, or having the screen constantly lock. And I don't want to buy accessories or mess with settings to fix this.
And yet from what I can see on the product page this thing doesn't have video apps on it, and doesn't work as an Airplay video target, so you still end up with a laptop/iPad on the kitchen counter.
And what's wrong with moving a laptop around? They're designed to do that. The keyboard and trackpad give you great tactile control of what you're doing.
I gave up with these questions, some people will consume and buy anything offered to them. I know obese people who do 0 sport and 0 effort to improve yet buy $800+ apple watch ultra for """health""" reasons...
Make it shiny enough, give people an easy way to rationalise the purchase and they'll buy your shit.
One personal use case is I have my home set up with smart lights. My family can control the lights from our phones, but friends and extended family cannot. Having a dedicated device like this gives others the ability to control home automations too.
unless you are not into home automation you cannot understand how useful this is. Years ago I bought a slightly broken Ipad Pro just to hang it on the wall and control by lights.
I was so ready to buy one of these things on day one to replace the iPad that awkwardly sits on the side in my kitchen and they completely missed that relatively simple target. All I really want is a device that will accept AirPlay video in my kitchen with a decent speaker or two.
Looks like a terrible TV/Movie playback device. But potentially a nice device to quickly glance at information, or show information based on what you ask
> Apple HomeView is not available for sale in the European Union, as Siri AI is currently unavailable in iOS in the EU. Apple is working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward.
It's interesting that they consider that this product would be unusable without Siri AI. I've used a Google Nest Hub for years, and I don't think it needs AI to be useful?
The rumor is that this has been ready for 1-2 years and was waiting on "good Siri" before they would/could release it. So it follows that if they aren't releasing "good Siri" in the EU that this device wouldn't be available.
So weird. A brand new product category, and it gets dropped with the HomePod Mini/Apple TV, aka Apple’s most neglected products (besides the zombified Vision Pro). Apple has a history of being so proud of their new form factors, of wanting to show them with pomp and highlighting every little detail. Not so much here.
Also completely locked out for 3rd party developers, needs your iPhone to do anything while offering very little reason to do things on it rather than on your phone… (the teenage girl texting on it rather than her phone in the intro video is totally unbelievable)
Hmm, really hard to figure out what they’re thinking on this besides “throw it on the wall and see if it sticks”, aka the HomePod & Apple TV strategy, which is not reassuring. I bought a couple HomePods early on, excited by the potential given how reliable my AirPods were, and they’ve been one of my most hated tech purchases. Super buggy, completely lagging behind in terms of basic features, and of course no fallback to use them as “dumb” wired speakers.
I kind of like the idea of this for a home phone replacement and a good way for our family to communicate as we get more comfortable with leaving the kids home alone. But it won’t be able to call 911 and I do not trust it.
Makes me even happier I just installed a red wall phone with an armored cable and signed up for ooma’s cheap plan. 911 access and we have no need for whitelisting. Always have outgoing and default to ringer off. Can turn it on (satisfying slider) if we are leaving the kids for a bit and they can have fun hanging up on any spam while we are out.
I am assuming but as far as I am aware that would be some separate app/service. You need a number that is locally registered so it routes to the correct dispatcher.
Not made for this, doesn't have good speakers, doesn't have all the surround sound features that the airplay products have. Doesn't have multi user support. These all could be solved by improving the iPad (increasing price drastically), but why do that when you can make a specialized product that is cheaper than an iPad for those who want it, instead of charging everyone for some stuff they won't use?
I got an iPad mini a few years ago and tried to use it like this. There’s almost no actual utility to it that “Siri set a timer for 12 minutes” or “Siri what’s the weather like” doesn’t already do on my phone.
Square screen is a no from me. I'm overall tired of the Google ecosystem, and I want to replace our Nest Hubs with something else. I was hoping Apple would come out with something large enough for wife and the kids to use when we're not in the tv room. :(
Has anyone successfully jailbroken Amazon Echo and Google Home devices to make them Claude/ChatGPT assistants without any telemetry/dependency on Amazon/Google respectively.
Yes, but only older models. I looked into getting a Show 5 to use with Home Assistant but I don't love building on/relying on deprecated hardware no longer in production with no hope of jailbreaks for the newer versions (different tech stack IIRC).
Nope, just Apple apps, but they support streaming audio from compatible iPhone apps (probably anything that can integrate to normal system audio, so your podcast app). I imagine they might open this to 3rd party _widgets_ in the future.
Why not just make an iPad dock to use the device you already have? The Pixel Tablet with its magnetic docking station was the perfect form factor for this. Home control tablet when docked, and simply lift it off the dock and take it around the house for whatever.
That's because it's a couple years late due to Siri. Rumor says they've had this ready to go, but weren't going to ship it until they had a Siri that was half functional.
One would assume, they haven't announced (that I can see) which A-chip they put in here but rumors said it would be the A18 (2024 chip). Which seems like it would have to be updated since if this was ready 1-2 years ago they would have designed it with an even older chip (their HomePods have used multiple generation old chips, which, to be fair, is reasonable).
And Amazon have effectively left it because they couldn't work out a way to turn all those purchases into a stream of shopping purchases on Amazon.com. And in the intervening years they've enshittified those devices by becoming increasingly intrusive with adds and "did you know..." interjections to try and squeeze whatever engagement they can.
Apple doesn't typically have the same incentives. It could turn out to be the perfect timing to fill the vacuum Amazon is leaving.
Today I asked Siri a basic question hands free whilst driving and it said “I found these on the web”.
I’ve been with Apple since the first iPhone but I think I’m done. They have dropped the ball on AI. It’s late 2026 and my Opus 5.5 does all my coding and Siri still can’t find info and read back some basic info. Pathetic it’s like they’re not even trying any more.
what a weird product. I'm all in on the Apple ecosystem but this seems like an obvious miss. Presumably the low price point is because its internals are incredibly basic, i mean its just not got a lot to do really has it so doesnt need anything other than probably a bunch of old binned chips.
“Certain Apple Intelligence features that rely on server-side models are subject to daily usage limits. Expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future”
An incredibly locked down device from a manufacturer with terrible track record for this category of device. Their Homepod line has been completely neglected, even with the Mini 2 announcement today it's clear Apple's heart's not in it.
Couple that with the LG trash they are pushing (again, because Apple doesn't care) and it's clear Apple's HomeKit endeavors are still just as dead as they were yesterday. They ceded the home wifi space at the worst possible time and instead of trying to rectify any of that, they ignored that space for over a decade.
I'm very surprised Apple hasn't done more here. Ever since they introduce the first AirPort Express in 2004, I have continued to be surprised they haven't done more here.
In 2004 they produced a device with wireless audio over WiFi, that worked really well. It felt like the future. Then Sonos took over the market, and the rest of the market became flooded with products that didn't really work that well. E.g., in a home people would have a set of audio products to their TV, then a bluetooth boombox somewhere else, then just a laptop with internal speakers somewhere else - and not in a connected system.
Similarly with Home (automation) products, Apple launched their Home offering that seemed interesting and with the promise of an ecosystem. However, again - the market became dominated with e.g., Home Assistant, together with a flood of products and mini-ecosystems that don't really work that well. E.g., Samsung Home etc. And just like the audio market, Apple deliberately let it go.
Apple is one of the few players that can combine world class hardware, great user experience, and now increasingly privacy focused AI. You may not like their hardware, or their software, or think that their AI is not privacy focused. But it's still one of the few companies that can credibly do this.
I'm unsure if what we see is another meh / one-shot product that will be on the shelves with their HomePods. Or if it may be a stronger push into an interesting market where there the technology is far ahead of the products and ecosystems out there. Future will tell.
Apple's partnership with LG shows they don't actually care. If they cared, they'd be making the accessories. All the various Apple-blessed 3rd-party hardware over the years has been resoundingly "meh". Also, of all companies when trying to make a case for security and privacy, LG is not who I would have launched this with. Of course, the LG spying/privacy scandal only came out recently and for all we know, the LG hardware has been waiting in the wings along with the HomeView for multiple years, waiting for Siri to be "good enough", so I understand Apple may have already been "locked in".
All that said, HomeKit was announced 12 years ago and it pales in comparison to every other smart home ecosystem. Samsung probably has the best "off-the-shelf" unless you want to invite 10's of dubious Chinese wifi devices into your house and control them with Alexa (yes, I know it has other radios). Thread/Matter were supposed to improve this but I've yet to see that happen.
My decision to got all-in on Home Assistant looks better and better as time goes on. I can even re-export my devices to HomeKit if I hate myself.
I've done every song and dance required to try to hook my smart house devices into the Apple Ecosystem and it's complete trash. Even with HA having a much higher learning curve, I'd pick it every day over the buggy mess that is HomeKit. Oh, a gnat sneezed? I guess you need to re-setup your HomeKit network from scratch. And I hope you like the worst UI imaginable to configure your devices when you add them.
- Signed, someone who has, stupidly, tried to integrate with HomeKit on no less than 6 different occasions only to be burned and give up vowing to never waste my time again.... only to try again every year or two. HomeKit is like Lucy with the football, and I keep thinking "this time maybe it will work".
> Siri AI. A personal assistant that helps you find what you need and get more done.1
> Usage limits may apply.
What a great way to start out, to openly flag that people shouldn't rely on it, as it can be pulled away from you without notice. Feels very atypical of Apple, are they starting to get short on cash or what's going on?
iPhone 13 mini, ios 27.0.1, and Siri turned on the ceiling fan along with the lights when I asked Siri to turn on the bedroom lights. Don’t see any reason to believe Siri claims.
They're out of ideas, the only thing left for product people there is to fill the gap of devices their competitors also offer. We're at peak "I ONLY BUY APPLE" fandom, so they make devices now for people who think they need Apple everything. Since these fans will always buy it, there is no incentive to make it a well crafted or even original or useful product. Just slap the damn Apple logo on it and use up the money budgeted for the year.
The Apple TV is the same price
iPhones and iPads are so expensive these days that this feels like a steal
I’m buying one for my parents and one for my in-laws for Christmas. Easy $300 gift that I know they won’t have.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who will have that idea
I watched their video demo with the family getting ready in the morning: there are some interesting ideas here but imo if this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me. Like: FaceTime while cooking, sure, but those calls tend to happen on Messenger and Snapchat for us. Music in the kitchen, sure, but I run Plexamp. My kids are always stealing my iPad to run the Toybox 3D printer; this would be a great thing for them to use.
And so on.
My house has a bunch of spots on the wall where an old intercom system used to live: it'd obviously be a budget buster to buy a bunch of these to fit in those slots but even if you did, you'd need Apple to provide an intercom solution (a la the Watch's Walkie-Talkie?) or you're...out of luck.
I'm curious if this is intended to act as a matter hub -- right now a lot of that load is shouldered by an Apple TV 4K if you've got one. Anyway, apple's home automation story has been terrible for ten years, but this device makes me think they will make another serious run in the next five.
One of the motivations is to have a "master controller and dashboard" for the (smart-) home that's conveniently always attached and connected to the house itself.
Consider that many houses already have wall-mounted control panels in the main hallway or kitchen for the burglar alarm or thermostat. Replace that with an all-in-one smarthome touchscreen that configures the same security system as well as everything else ... HVAC, lights, blinds, door cam video feed, etc.
Examples of that concept from other home automation companies such as Crestron, Savant, Control4, etc:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Crestron+home+touchscreen+ho...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Savant+touchscreen+home&tbm=...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Control4+touchscreen+home&tb...
Apple's product marketing pages for HomeView at the moment don't heavily promote the idea of customized programming for home automations (HomeKit API) to compete with Crestron/Savant but many observers think Apple wants to expand into that space.
A lot of homeowners don't want to be locked in with Crestron/Savant. Yes, Apple is itself also a "walled garden" but it's a more palatable lock-in situation than the ridiculous re-programming fees that Crestron dealers charge for every little change.
Why is an accessory unacceptable but a new device is fine?
Make it shiny enough, give people an easy way to rationalise the purchase and they'll buy your shit.
A braindead customer is a better customer.
It seemed incredibly fake to me, and I couldn't identify a single interesting use case.
that’s why, obviously!</s>
Otherwise looks like an ideal kitchen TV/Movie playback device.
Again, dumbfounded they completely passed on this use-case ...
It's interesting that they consider that this product would be unusable without Siri AI. I've used a Google Nest Hub for years, and I don't think it needs AI to be useful?
Apple basically made a HomePod mini that is also a Skylight - https://myskylight.com/calendar - and it's even competitively priced.
They could turn off all AI (turn off all of Siri even) and this would be one of the best products in the market.
They might be perfectly useable but not profitable enough
Also completely locked out for 3rd party developers, needs your iPhone to do anything while offering very little reason to do things on it rather than on your phone… (the teenage girl texting on it rather than her phone in the intro video is totally unbelievable)
Hmm, really hard to figure out what they’re thinking on this besides “throw it on the wall and see if it sticks”, aka the HomePod & Apple TV strategy, which is not reassuring. I bought a couple HomePods early on, excited by the potential given how reliable my AirPods were, and they’ve been one of my most hated tech purchases. Super buggy, completely lagging behind in terms of basic features, and of course no fallback to use them as “dumb” wired speakers.
Makes me even happier I just installed a red wall phone with an armored cable and signed up for ooma’s cheap plan. 911 access and we have no need for whitelisting. Always have outgoing and default to ringer off. Can turn it on (satisfying slider) if we are leaving the kids for a bit and they can have fun hanging up on any spam while we are out.
It was $2800 with tax and a keyboard!
Nothing wrong with iPads They are just expensive
This is $350 in Canada. Literally free compared to everything else Apple sells!
Pricing is kind of in between those right?
https://www.derekseaman.com/2025/11/home-assistant-hacking-y...
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/1vow96e/amaz...
https://lee-soft.com/replacing-alexa-with-claude/
Apple doesn't typically have the same incentives. It could turn out to be the perfect timing to fill the vacuum Amazon is leaving.
Thinking if the RAM is good, this is a great jailbreak target with an A18 chip for only $299.
I’ve been with Apple since the first iPhone but I think I’m done. They have dropped the ball on AI. It’s late 2026 and my Opus 5.5 does all my coding and Siri still can’t find info and read back some basic info. Pathetic it’s like they’re not even trying any more.
But maybe that’s just me?
An incredibly locked down device from a manufacturer with terrible track record for this category of device. Their Homepod line has been completely neglected, even with the Mini 2 announcement today it's clear Apple's heart's not in it.
Couple that with the LG trash they are pushing (again, because Apple doesn't care) and it's clear Apple's HomeKit endeavors are still just as dead as they were yesterday. They ceded the home wifi space at the worst possible time and instead of trying to rectify any of that, they ignored that space for over a decade.
In 2004 they produced a device with wireless audio over WiFi, that worked really well. It felt like the future. Then Sonos took over the market, and the rest of the market became flooded with products that didn't really work that well. E.g., in a home people would have a set of audio products to their TV, then a bluetooth boombox somewhere else, then just a laptop with internal speakers somewhere else - and not in a connected system.
Similarly with Home (automation) products, Apple launched their Home offering that seemed interesting and with the promise of an ecosystem. However, again - the market became dominated with e.g., Home Assistant, together with a flood of products and mini-ecosystems that don't really work that well. E.g., Samsung Home etc. And just like the audio market, Apple deliberately let it go.
Apple is one of the few players that can combine world class hardware, great user experience, and now increasingly privacy focused AI. You may not like their hardware, or their software, or think that their AI is not privacy focused. But it's still one of the few companies that can credibly do this.
I'm unsure if what we see is another meh / one-shot product that will be on the shelves with their HomePods. Or if it may be a stronger push into an interesting market where there the technology is far ahead of the products and ecosystems out there. Future will tell.
All that said, HomeKit was announced 12 years ago and it pales in comparison to every other smart home ecosystem. Samsung probably has the best "off-the-shelf" unless you want to invite 10's of dubious Chinese wifi devices into your house and control them with Alexa (yes, I know it has other radios). Thread/Matter were supposed to improve this but I've yet to see that happen.
My decision to got all-in on Home Assistant looks better and better as time goes on. I can even re-export my devices to HomeKit if I hate myself.
I've done every song and dance required to try to hook my smart house devices into the Apple Ecosystem and it's complete trash. Even with HA having a much higher learning curve, I'd pick it every day over the buggy mess that is HomeKit. Oh, a gnat sneezed? I guess you need to re-setup your HomeKit network from scratch. And I hope you like the worst UI imaginable to configure your devices when you add them.
- Signed, someone who has, stupidly, tried to integrate with HomeKit on no less than 6 different occasions only to be burned and give up vowing to never waste my time again.... only to try again every year or two. HomeKit is like Lucy with the football, and I keep thinking "this time maybe it will work".
Sure.
> Usage limits may apply.
What a great way to start out, to openly flag that people shouldn't rely on it, as it can be pulled away from you without notice. Feels very atypical of Apple, are they starting to get short on cash or what's going on?