Apple Debuts Long-Awaited HomeView plus New HomePod mini & Apple TV 4k

Apple is quickly upgrading its whole lineup to support Siri AI and its current focus is your home. In an online announcement, Apple just revealed the new HomeView, a standalone screen-based smarthome hub, plus the new HomePod mini 2 and the fourth generation of Apple TV 4K. All these devices are deeply integrated with Siri AI, giving your home usage expanded search capabilities, personal context, and more. Let's go over each device, who might want to spring for it, and how well these products protect your privacy and security.

Centralize Your Home Tech with the HomeView

Price: $299 Availability: Pre-order today, available November 13 Colors: Silver, Starlight, Rose Pink, Space Gray

For a couple years, now, rumors have been swirling of a new screen-based Apple home hub. I, for one, have been eagerly awaiting it, especially since the launch of Siri AI. The HomeView is a seven-inch screen display that either sits independently on a surface in your home or can mount on your wall, depending on which version you choose. While the HomePod is purely voice based, this device offers a more in-depth interface, with a screen allowing for visual displays, app interactions, FaceTime calls, and more.

Siri AI gives it the ability to search the web, have natural language conversations, give recommendations, and more. When paired with an iPhone or iPad running Siri AI, it can take into account personal context like messages, calendar events, emails, and more; but even without connecting to another Siri AI-compatible device it will still be able to run other Siri AI features. It can recognize up to six faces, making it an excellent device for a complete household.

Its design is sleek and classic to Apple's look, appearing almost similar in silhouette to an iMac, although much smaller. Its screen can automatically adjust to the lighting in the room so you don't need to worry about it glaring in the dark or being too dim to see in bright lighting. You can choose a face similar to those on an Apple Watch, meaning you can display anything you want when the device isn't actively in use. This could be great for keeping track of today's calendar, shuffling your favorite photos, or simply displaying the time. The included speaker supports Spatial Audio, bumping up your music or viewing experience. I'm particularly excited about this because I love to watch shows as I cook but can't always hear the TV from my kitchen.

Of course, it has HomeKit integration, giving you voice and screen-based options to control compatible devices, cameras, and other smart home products. It integrates with Apple's new Home Collection, a line of smart home devices launched alongside the HomeView.

While I love the hands-free options Siri AI brings to the game across my different devices, there aren't many cases where I'm not actually using my hands to wield that device. The HomeView, however, can be placed anywhere in your home. This means you can put it in the center of your home's activity, like your kitchen, living room, or entrance hall, places you'd normally be engaging in daily life activities. This means I can ask Siri for measuring cup conversations in the kitchen while my hands are covered in flour, check to see what the weather is when I'm on my way out the door, and display family photos in the room I spend most of my time in.

The Apple TV 4K Gets Smarter with Siri AI

Price: $299 Availability: Pre-order today, available November 13

The fourth generation of the Apple TV 4K launched with Siri AI as the headlining feature. New microphones let you activate Siri directly through the TV, meaning you don't have to search for the remote to speak a command. With Siri AI, you can now ask questions about what's on the screen, such as "where was this filmed?" or ask for recommendations in similar genres. The answers will appear as text on the TV screen, and you can enjoy some back-and-forth as you refine your question or ask for clarity on the results.

Another major feature is you can now sync up to four HomePods (HomePod 2 or HomePod mini2) with the Apple TV, creating a four-speaker surround sound experience. Your Apple TV will detect where the devices are, syncing the sound correctly for the distance and layout. Other updates include overall performance improvements, such as speed and reliability.

Smart Changes to the HomePod Mini

Price: $149 Availability: Pre-order today, available October 30 Colors: White, Pink, Blue, Green, Midnight

The HomePod mini 2 completes the trio of smart home devices that support Siri AI. This is a personal win for me, as whenever I'm in the same room as my HomePod mini and try to use Siri AI on my iPhone, the request hops over to my HomePod. My HomePod is sadly unequipped for the task. With the HomePod mini 2, you can ask questions and give commands in natural language, have it take your personal context into account, give recommendations, and all the other fun and creative things Siri AI can do.

In addition to the new four-speaker option you get when pairing two HomePod minis with the Apple TV 4K, you can also enjoy some ambiance with the new Sound Glow feature, which lights up the top of the HomePod with colors and pulses that match the music playing.

How Safe Are These Devices?

When letting any kind of new technology into your home, especially ones that record sound and video, it's important to check out the privacy features. Thankfully, Apple remains a top company in terms of user privacy and that extends to these new devices. These three devices all either process Siri requests on-device or use Private Cloud Compute, which keeps your data private even from Apple and does not store anything on Apple's servers. The HomeView and Apple TV 4K both use Secure Exclaves, which keeps your audio and video recordings separate from the rest of your system, meaning it isn't associated with your device or Apple account. Finally, the HomeView uses face recognition to determine who is using it, keeping messages and other data private from the rest of the household users.