Apple’s New Smart‑Home Hub: HomeView Unveiled

Just a few days before Apple’s highly anticipated smart‑home event on Tuesday, a name finally emerged for the company’s elusive hub. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says the device will be called HomeView and it’s slated to take center stage at the “Welcome home” showcase.

HomeView isn’t meant to be a tablet or a mini‑computer; the “View” part of the name hints at a display that lives to be spoken to. In other words, you’ll likely be looking at a sleek screen while Siri does the heavy lifting, rather than tapping through menus. Think of it as a Siri‑powered control panel for every Apple‑compatible gadget in your house.

According to Gurman, Apple plans to offer two versions. There’s a countertop model that sits on a metal speaker base – available in space gray, silver, starlight and even a soft pink – and a wall‑mounted sibling that comes only in space gray or silver. The latter will blend into a modern living‑room wall like a piece of art, while the former will sit proudly on a nightstand or kitchen counter.

One notable departure from Apple’s usual hardware playbook is that HomeView won’t run the full App Store. Instead, it will support a curated handful of Apple apps and lean heavily on third‑party accessories that speak Siri, the Home app, or other Apple devices. To flesh out that ecosystem, Apple has teamed up with LG to produce doorbells, thermostats, outdoor security cameras and more. Those products, along with a line from Schneider Electric for Europe, will be marketed under the “Apple Home Collection” badge.

Apple isn’t stopping at the hub. Gurman also hints at a refreshed HomePod mini powered by a new S10 chip, and a next‑gen Apple TV sporting an A19 processor. Both of those are expected to ship around October 30, hitting Apple stores just in time for holiday shoppers. HomeView itself, however, won’t arrive until mid‑November, with LG‑made accessories trailing later in the year.

All in all, the announcement could finally give Apple a cohesive voice‑first hub to tie together its growing smart‑home portfolio – and it will be interesting to see how well the “Apple Home Collection” devices blend with the rest of the ecosystem.