Apple released its first smart display, the HomeView, a $299 device that the company positions as both a household smart home hub and an extension of a user’s iPhone or iPad. In a review published by The Verge, senior reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy found the 7-inch square touchscreen excellent at controlling a smart home, guiding recipes and displaying photos, but awkward when it surfaces personal data in a shared space. The HomeView is Apple’s least expensive screened device after the Apple Watch SE.
The device comes in tabletop and wall-mounted versions, both priced at $299. Tuohy reported that the tabletop model sits neatly on a kitchen counter and is light enough to move around, while its long USB-C cable allows maneuverability but became twisty after a few days of spinning. The screen is clear and bright, large enough for reading messages, following a recipe and video calling, and responsive with no lag or stuttering. A Center Stage camera above the display keeps a person in frame during FaceTime calls while moving around a small kitchen, though callers heard her clearly but with more tinny sound the farther away she was.
Tuohy called sound very good for the size, with speakers in both the display and the base of the tabletop model, close to a HomePod Mini 2 but not as room-filling and with a touch more bass. The wall-mounted model’s audio was richer and cleaner than an Echo Show 15 mounted in the same entryway, she wrote. She listed the lack of physical buttons as the one hardware miss, requiring a tap on the display or a phone to adjust volume quickly or mute Siri.
The HomeView includes a Thread radio and Matter controller, acting as an Apple Home hub, the first with an always-on screen. Tuohy wrote that it connects to any HomeKit or compatible Matter device and controls them as quickly as a regular light switch, and that her husband, who had never opened the Home app, began turning on lights from the HomeView every morning. A Camera face streams up to nine HomeKit Secure Video cameras at once and pulls up a live feed instantly when a video doorbell rings, allowing the door to be unlocked from the display. She also praised guided cooking, including Handoff of a recipe from a phone, and said Siri AI was helpful in the home but still slow at times.
The friction comes from the HomeView’s role as a communal device holding personal data. Tuohy wrote that clunky authentication checks and repeated redirection to her iPhone interrupted hands-free use, and that she could easily read her 15-year-old daughter’s text messages, and vice versa. Her daughter’s verdict was that she would just use her iPhone, while her tech-averse husband immediately asked for a HomeView for his office.
Wall mounting adds cost. Apple sent two Schneider Electric mounts for the review: a USB-C wall mount at $59.99 with a 2-meter cable and cable management, and a hardwired AC mount at $79.99. A power-over-Ethernet option will cost $129.99. Because the wall-mounted version includes neither a mount nor a power adapter, Tuohy estimated a starting cost of around $400 with Apple’s $39 power brick. She noted Apple is late to the category, with Amazon and Google selling smart displays for close to a decade, but said the HomeView elevates it in nearly every way, with a few quirks.
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