Apple’s October 13 "Welcome Home" event should bring a HomeView smart hub, HomePod mini 2, and Apple TV 4K.
Apple’s latest event “Welcome Home” takes place on Tuesday, October 13, at 9 a.m. ET. We’re not entirely sure what format it’s going to take, but it is going to be lower-key than the normal full hoopla; either a taped presentation, a press release drop, or both, followed by a hands-on event for invitees (an official “Apple Experience”) at Apple's Tribeca building in New York.
Apple has, as usual, confirmed no products. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, as usual, has. He namechecks a display-equipped home hub (known informally as the “HomePad” for several months, now apparently rechristened “HomeView”), a HomePod mini refresh, and an updated Apple TV 4K all to drop.
The HomeView is easily the most exciting of the three, partly because it has been rumored for so long. As an owner of an original HomePod, I can attest that it’s a great speaker, and awesomely frustrating when it comes to being anything else. It links only intermittently to other devices, is superb at mishearing what you want to play, plays the wrong version half the time even when it does manage to select the right song and artist, and cruelly exposes Siri for being the half-arsed software that it absolutely is.
Reportedly held back while Apple sorted that part of the equation out (it was originally cued up for a 2025 release, but Siri AI most definitely wasn’t) the new A18-based HomeView has a rumored 6-inch square display on a round HomePod mini-style speaker base or a wall-mounted setup. It will run a newly developed tvOS-based “homeOS” with Siri AI as the main interface, plus touch, Apple Watch, and StandBy-style customizable elements.
There’s a chance it may feature inbuilt personalization and switch calendars and notifications depending on who is looking at it. FaceTime, intercom, photos, music, smart home control: all the features you would expect will be there, but there is going to be no App Store for extending its capabilities.
Target price is $350. Given that the existing second-gen HomePod is currently $349, that feels optimistic given the screen, though Apple could conceivably have nerfed the audio side of things to shave costs. As I said, the HomePod as it stands is actually a great speaker.
That extension is going to come via third parties, specifically to begin with LG. LG has been in the Apple camp for a while now, notably with its excellent UltraFine display, but this sees it become a major player as Apple looks to expand its Home ecosystem.
Apple has helped design and engineer a whole range of new Home products that can be driven by Siri AI, including a doorbell, deadbolt, thermostat, temperature sensor, indoor and outdoor security cameras, and a floodlight camera. LG handles manufacturing, support, and a lot of the risk.
For the consumer it makes sense as LG can bring products to market at a lower price point without undercutting the rest of the business. Apple’s margins are famously high and it wants to keep them that way.
Apple is also apparently working with Schneider Electric on energy-related devices for the European market.
This will be Apple’s second attempt at kickstarting the smart home market. HomeKit arrived in 2014 and the Home app in 2016, but neither could be considered a mass-market success, leaving Amazon and Google to make hay in its absence. Whether Siri AI can be the magic glue that brings it all together will be interesting to see, but at the very least, the lower-cost LG products might give those already invested in an Apple ecosystem a reason not to go anywhere else. The arrival of the Matter and Thread standards has also made all this stuff far more interoperable than it was before, easing the pain of being locked into one system and one system alone.
Elsewhere we get refreshes. The HomePod mini 2 should gain an N1 networking chip and a faster SoC for AI. New colors are a definite, and there is even a suggestion of a small display with an Apple Watch-style interface.
The fourth-generation Apple TV 4K meanwhile potentially gets an A19-series chip, which is a serious upgrade over recent A17 rumors, more RAM, and a new remote which includes an onboard speaker that should help locate it when it (inevitably) goes missing. Code in the tvOS 27.2 beta reportedly points to pairing with up to four HomePods for surround sound.
And for those looking for more production-oriented Apple kit, in an increasingly busy schedule it looks like Cupertino will have a seperate Macand iPad event before the end of the month.