Six. That’s how many different people Apple says its newest device can recognize on sight, then hand each one their own calendar, texts and music without a single password.
Apple announced HomeView on October 13, 2026: a $299 touchscreen display built for a kitchen counter or a wall, running a new version of Siri. TechCrunch and ABC News both confirmed the price, the feature set and a November 13 ship date. Apple hasn’t published a newsroom page we could open directly, so what follows leans on what TechCrunch, ABC News and two other outlets reported, plus Apple’s own HomeView promo video on YouTube.
- Price: $299 for either the tabletop model or the wall-mounted one. A wall mount costs extra.
- What’s new: An updated Siri with what Apple calls “personal context understanding,” plus on-device recognition for up to six people in one household.
- Not for everyone: It needs an iPhone to set up, and Tech Advisor reports some features need an iPhone 15 Pro or newer.
- Not everywhere: ProPakistani reports Apple is skipping the European Union launch over Siri AI rules there.
- Not reviewed yet, by us: Early hands-on reactions are mixed. More on that below.
What HomeView actually does
HomeView is a 7-inch touchscreen, 1,088 by 1,088 pixels, running on Apple’s A18 chip. TechCrunch reports it sits on a speaker base and carries a single front-facing camera for FaceTime calls. The camera also handles Center Stage, which keeps you framed as you move around the kitchen.
The headline trick is recognition. Apple says HomeView can tell up to six household members apart and show each person their own texts, calendar, notes and preferred apps the moment they step up to it. Cecilia Dantas, a product marketing manager at Apple, told ABC News: “It can recognize up to six users and pull information for everybody in the home.” Shared things, like a family’s iCloud photo library and music, stay visible to everyone.
Beyond that, it runs the same jobs other smart displays handle: playing music and podcasts, pulling up a recipe, starting a FaceTime call, and showing reminders or a shared calendar. It also works as a smart home dashboard. Ask Siri to show a camera feed, adjust the thermostat, lock the front door, or dim the lights, and TechCrunch says it will. An intercom feature sends messages to other HomeView units, HomePods, iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches around the house. The updated Siri can also start a conversation on the display and pick it back up later on your phone, which builds on the Siri upgrade Apple has been rolling into iOS 27.
Here’s Apple’s own introduction to the device:
What $299 buys you, next to the competition
HomeView isn’t the first screen built for a kitchen counter. The table below lines up list prices reported by TechCrunch and ABC News. It says nothing about which device works best, just what each one costs to walk in the door.
| Device | List Price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Apple HomeView | $299 | TechCrunch |
| Amazon Echo Show 11 | $249.99 | ABC News |
| Google Nest Hub (2nd gen) | $99.99 | ABC News |
That’s list price only. Dylan Horetski at Dexerto, reporting on tech reviewer MKBHD’s early hands-on, notes the wall-mounted HomeView costs the same $299 as the tabletop version despite losing its subwoofer, and still needs a separate mounting adapter that runs $60 to $130 more. Neither HomeView price includes that hardware.
Where the evidence stops
- How recognition works isn’t confirmed. TechCrunch’s report never uses the term “facial recognition,” so the exact method Apple uses to tell people apart is unconfirmed. Apple says data about who’s in the room isn’t stored once they leave, but hasn’t detailed how that data is processed.
- The app library is thin at launch. Tech Advisor reports HomeView ships with only a handful of third-party apps, such as Spotify and Audible, and no YouTube or Netflix.
- The screen shape has tradeoffs. Tech Advisor says the square-ish display can crop or distort FaceTime group calls and video compared with the rectangular screens on rival devices.
- The camera won’t watch your house. Despite a 12-megapixel sensor, Tech Advisor reports it’s limited to recognizing people and gestures, not general security monitoring; that needs separate cameras from Apple’s Home Collection.
- Early reviewer reaction is mixed. MKBHD, as reported by Dexerto, called account-switching recognition “actually pretty clever” but said his first impression is that HomeView is “a skip for most people,” citing the missing apps, no built-in battery, and no voice-based personalization.
Why It Matters to You
If your household has several people sharing one kitchen, phones get passed around all day for a calendar check or a text reply. HomeView is built around the idea that a shared screen can hand each person their own information instead, without anyone logging in. That’s a real convenience for a two-income household, a multigenerational home, or roommates splitting a kitchen, if it works as described.
The catch is cost and ecosystem. At $299 before a wall mount, plus the requirement for an iPhone (and sometimes a fairly recent one), this isn’t a budget pickup, and it isn’t an option at all for Android households or, for now, anyone in the EU. It ships November 13, so no one outside Apple has lived with one yet.
Would knowing who’s standing at the counter actually save your household time, or is it one more screen to dust and charge? That’s worth sitting with before preordering.
Sources
- TechCrunch: Apple makes another push into the smart home market with HomeView (Oct 13, 2026)
- ABC13/ABC News: What to know about new Apple HomeView smart home display hub (Oct 14, 2026)
- ProPakistani: HomeView launched as part of Apple’s new smart home push (Oct 14, 2026)
- Tech Advisor: Apple HomeView: 5 weird decisions on new smart screen (Oct 13, 2026)
- Dexerto: MKBHD says Apple’s new $300 HomeView is a skip for most people (Oct 14, 2026)