Apple just announced its long awaited smart home display: HomeView, and it’s available for $299. That said, the product has been in development for quite some time, being held back by all of the delays with developing a smarter Siri.
Now that it’s on the market, some customers have had concern about the fact that you have to move the HomeView around yourself if its on a table with multiple people surrounding it. According to the Power On newsletter, it might not be too long before Apple has a solution.
We’ve known that Apple has been working on robotic products of sorts for quite some time, but now we have a clear release window. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company might debut a better HomeView, perhaps HomeView Pro – as soon as next year:
The good news is that Apple is on track to solve that problem with a souped-up version of the HomeView planned for release in 2027 or 2028. Code-named J595, this version looks like the current HomeView but has a roughly 9-inch screen (up from 7 inches) and a motorized robotic arm that lets the display swivel a full 360 degrees. Using voice recognition, the machine is designed to identify who’s speaking and automatically turn toward that person.
Top comment by QuantumPulse
Conceptually, I like the idea of a "Kitchen Siri" because I ask my phone to set timers, send texts, play music, add reminders, etc., so I see the "need" for that there. Siri is a very handy kitchen assistant, that's not in dispute here. Also, $299 doesn't seem unreasonable to me but for the outlet and space I'm willing to contribute to this device. The kitchen is a messy, noisy, at-times even dangerous place so I don't know how reasonable it is to have something like this in that sort of area. That's just my take, YMMV.
With this use in mind, I'm not seeing a big "need" for a dedicated unit that takes up kitchen space, given that my iPhone (and iPad!) can already do these things relatively well and without anything extra except may be a stand or a folio cover, I'm not seeing the "need" unless I have one of these in each room, and I don't see a need for putting one in each room when my iPhone (and likely iPad) is already in each room, or on the person of anyone else in the house.
Conference room table? Sure, handy I suppose. Kitchen? Yes, but I'm not willing to sacrifice counterspace when my iPhone can do most of these things already. Garage? Uh, maybe.
I feel like this is something of an Answer looking for a Question.
This version will have a larger display, and be capable of turning full-circle, rather than just a little bit of tilt. This won’t replace the HomeView, and will instead serve as a higher end model in the lineup. So, don’t expect it at the same $299 price point.
Apple reportedly also plans to use voice recognition to figure out how to pivot the robotic arm towards the right person. Think about the Center Stage camera on some newer Apple products, but leveled up.
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- Belkin MagSafe 3-in-1 Charging Stand for iPhone
- MOFT MagSafe Kickstand Wallet for iPhone
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