I tried Apple's HomeView smart display

Apple has just unveiled HomeView, its first smart home display, and I've just gotten to know the device, which features a beautiful 7-inch square touchscreen and Siri's built-in AI. Designed as a smart home controller, personal assistant, and family hub, it has a lot to examine. […]

Apple has just announced the HomeView, its first smart home display – and I just got to know the device, which has a beautiful 7-inch square touchscreen and built-in Siri AI. It's designed as a smart home controller, personal assistant and home hub for your family, so there's a lot to explore.

[Image: HomeView has a 12-megapixel camera for FaceTime, facial recognition, and quick makeup checks (here's the orange phone!)

The first thing that struck me about HomeView was its size. It's much smaller than I expected, and the screen almost completely hides the small aluminum base that serves as a speaker. The Liquid Retina display is bright and responsive to touch, displaying photos and HomeView "faces" well.

You can easily swipe to change the face and choose from dozens of options, most of which are similar to Apple Watch faces. The display is like a giant Apple Watch paired with the performance of an iPhone and the breathing room of an iPad.

[Image: You can also mount HomeView on a wall.

Apple offers both wall and desktop versions of the HomeView, and the wall model looks like it would make a great smart home controller.

A dedicated Home Widget page pulls devices out of the Apple Home app. I could reach up and tap to control the thermostat and door locks and activate a scene, or I could swipe right to get a live view of HomeKit Secure video cameras and tap one to access nearby accessories, like the garage door opener. When I tried to unlock the door, it blocked and asked 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 larger screen designed for walking and tapping interaction.

There is a lot of swiping on HomeView. Swipe left to access new home faces, tap widgets to access deeper controls in apps, then swipe right for more features. Swipe up to return to the home screen, then swipe up again to access the apps on your phone that populate automatically from your phone. Swiping down from the top of the screen brings up a control center, just like on the iPhone. You can even activate the 12MP camera from here and it will give you a real mirror.

HomeView is built on Siri's artificial intelligence and can create personalized context such as text messages and calendar appointments based on voice requests. I haven't been able to try this myself, but I've seen a demo where it's asked what time Andrew is coming from the airport, and collects the context for the actions:

[Image: HomeView sits nicely on the kitchen counter.

"Hey Siri, what time did Andrew say he was arriving from JFK?"

Siri: Andrew Dean sent a message that his flight landed at JFK Airport at 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 16.

"How long will it take him to get to my place if he takes the train from JFK? Well, I know he didn't pack a bag."

Siri: It takes about 1 hour and 8 minutes to get you from JFK to your destination by shuttle

"Okay, let's turn on the coffee maker 15 minutes before he arrives."

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

This integration of your personal context with the smart home, all orchestrated by HomeView, is a huge leap forward in Apple Home functionality, and I look forward to trying it out.

[Image: iPhone delivers recipe to HomeView.

One of my favorite features of being a great home chef is the guided cooking experience in HomeView. You can bring your iPhone up to the screen with a recipe drawn into Siri, and it uses Handoff to transfer the data, then turns the recipe into an easy-to-follow on-screen experience, with inline timers for each step. Apple says most recipes that use Google formatting work this way. I wonder how it handles TikTok recipes.

In another Siri AI demo, a user asked Siri to play a song texted by a friend, and it started playing Bad Bunny. It took about eight seconds for the song to come up, but considering what it was doing, it seemed fairly quick. I also saw a FaceTime demo where we were focused on the screen thanks to Center Stage, and I see this as a great calling device.

I only got to try out a few HomeView features today, but I'm looking forward to more. It costs $299 and is available for pre-order today. It starts this year on November 13.