I tried out Apple’s HomeView smart display

Apple has just announced the HomeView, its first smart home display — and I just got hands-on with the device, which features a gorgeous 7-inch square touchscreen and built-in Siri AI. It’s designed as a smart home controller, personal assistant, and home hub for your household, so there was a lot to check out.

The first thing that struck me about the HomeView was its size. It’s much smaller than I expected, and the screen almost entirely hides the small aluminum base that acts as a speaker. The Liquid Retina display is bright and responsive to touch, and it displays photos and the HomeView “faces” brilliantly.

You can swipe to change faces easily and choose from dozens of options, most of which resemble Apple Watch faces. The display feels like a giant Apple Watch paired with the functionality of an iPhone and the room to breathe of an iPad.

Apple offers both a wall-mounted and tabletop version of the HomeView, and the wall-mounted model looks like it will make a great smart home controller.

A dedicated Home Widget face pulls devices from the Apple Home app; I could walk up and tap to control a thermostat and door lock and activate a scene, or I could swipe right to get a live view of HomeKit Secure Video cameras and tap into one to access nearby accessories, such as opening the garage door. When I tried to unlock a door, it stopped me, asking me to authenticate with my face or iPhone.

The Home Widget is a skin of the Home app, so it offers all the controls you have with that app on your iPhone, just on a bigger screen designed for walk-up-and-tap interaction.

1/11The HomeView can show live video feeds from HomeKit Secure Video cameras.

There’s a lot of swiping on the HomeView. Swipe left to get to new home faces, tap widgets to access deeper controls in apps, then swipe right for more features. You swipe up to return to the main screen, then up again to access the on-board apps, which automatically populate from your phone. Swiping down from the top of the screen brings up a control center, just like on an iPhone. You can even enable the 12 MP camera from here, giving you a de facto mirror.

The HomeView is built around Siri AI, and it can pull personal context such as text messages and calendar appointments based on voice requests. I didn’t get to try this myself, but saw a demo where it was asked what time Andrew would arrive from the airport, pulling context together to take actions:

“Hey, Siri, what time did Andrew say he’s getting in from JFK?”

Siri: Andrew Dean sent a message saying his flight lands at JFK Airport at 6.30 a.m. on October 16th.

“How long will it take him to get to my place if he takes the train from JFK? Okay, I know he didn’t pack any bags.”

Siri: It will take about 1 hour and 8 minutes to get from JFK to your place by transit.

“Okay, let’s turn on the coffee maker 15 minutes before he’ll arrive.”

Siri: Sets a routine to turn on the coffee maker at the correct time.

This integration of your personal context with the smart home, all orchestrated by the HomeView, is a big jump up in capability for Apple Home, and I’m looking forward to testing it myself.

One of my favorite features, being a big home chef, is the guided cooking experience on the HomeView. You can bring your iPhone, with a recipe pulled up in Siri, to the screen, and it will use Handoff to transfer the data, then reformat the recipe into an easy-to-follow on-screen experience, complete with in-line timers for each step. Apple says most recipes that use Google formatting will work this way. I’m wondering how it will handle TikTok recipes.

Another Siri AI demo had the user asking Siri to play that song her friend texted, and it started playing Bad Bunny. It took about eight seconds to pull up the song, but considering what it was doing, that felt fairly fast. I also saw a FaceTime demo where we were centered on the screen thanks to Center Stage, and I see this as a great countertop calling device.

I only got to try a few HomeView features today, but I’m looking forward to testing more soon. It costs $299 and is available for preorder today. It starts shipping on November 13th.

Photography by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

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