There’s been loads of curiosity in Apple’s plans for a HomePod with a show over time and now it looks like the such a product may very well be coming, however anticipate greater than a display screen on a HomePod. Apple is claimed to have a number of new sensible house associated merchandise on the horizon that can combine sensible shows and cameras and produce options from the HomePod and Apple TV along with a way to manage sensible house units.
Apple has lengthy been rumored to be engaged on a number of house units with sensible shows. As way back as 2021 Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman was speaking about how a future Apple TV and iPad may incorporate HomePod audio components and symbolize a push into the sensible house. Over the following years the rumoured merchandise have advanced and multiplied, and AI, and related Siri enhancements, are actually influencing Apple’s plans on this space.
Apple’s HomePod at the moment victims from its reliance on Siri to manage it. With Siri not capable of perceive directions in addition to could be hoped, some HomePod customers select as an alternative to interface with the machine by way of an iPhone, however this is usually a drain on the iPhone battery. Incorporating a display screen would enable customers to interface with the HomePod by way of its show. Nonetheless, with Siri set to turn out to be extra ‘clever’ due to Apple Intelligence, the necessity for this display screen to interface with the units could also be diminished. What different plans may Apple have for a sensible display screen on a HomePod – or every other units for that matter?
On this article, we are going to preserve monitor of all of the developments and rumors about these new HomeHub merchandise, which may begin arriving earlier than the tip of 2025.
What are Apple’s HomeHub merchandise?
In Gurman’s 2021 report he mentioned two merchandise:
A product that fuses the HomePod and Apple TV with a digital camera that may very well be used for video conferencing by way of the TV display screen. (Suppose Google Nest Hub and Amazon Echo Present competitor.) This FaceTime Apple TV set-top field combo, was once more rumored in January 2023.
A product that mixes an iPad with a HomePod and a digital camera on a robotic arm that would comply with the consumer across the room throughout a video chat. (Suppose Fb Portal). In accordance with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in August 2024, this machine, code-named J595, will use a skinny robotic arm to manage a big show, with actuators that enable it to spin 360 levels or tilt up and down. Gurman’s sources say the machine is envisioned as a “sensible house command heart, videoconferencing machine, and remote-controlled house safety device.”
Since Gurman’s report in 2021 the next associated merchandise have additionally been referred to:
In January 2023 Gurman wrote once more of Apple’s plans to tackle the sensible house market this time with a low-end iPad that can be used to manage smart-home methods resembling heating and lights and to make FaceTime video calls. This machine, codenamed J490, will mix an iPad-like display screen with smart-home controls to manage smart-home methods resembling heating and lights and make FaceTime video calls.
In the identical report, Gurman claimed Apple additionally plans to launch a lot of bigger smart-home shows. Is the Apple Tv not useless in spite of everything?
Proof of Apple’s sensible HomeHub undertaking
Imagen 3 (Gemini)
It’s not clear if Apple has a number of new units deliberate, or if there may be some crossover with the above, nonetheless it’s clear that Apple has groups concerned with this undertaking.
In August 2024, it was reported that Apple has a workforce of a number of hundred folks engaged on a brand new house machine.
In July 2024, code was found referring to new a tool recognized as “HomeAccessory17,1.” This might relate to the HomePod, which Apple refers to as “AudioAccessory”. There have been additionally references found to a variant of tvOS, just like what the HomePod runs.
The tvOS 17.4 beta again in February 2024 additionally referenced a tool codenamed Z314 that featured an A15 chip and ran tvOS. Each the HomePod and Apple TV already run tvOS. In accordance with a 9to5Mac report, hangtracerd (which is used to debug unresponsive UIs) has additionally been added to the HomePod model of tvOS 17.4, an enormous indication that there can be a HomePod with a show – though tvOS 17.4 arrived with out the accompaniment of a brand new HomePod.
In October 2023 ‘Kotsutami’ posted (in a since-deleted tweet) a picture of what they claimed to be a prototype of the following HomePod with “totally different glass” for the show on the prime (which may very well be used as a touchscreen).
An Engineering construct HomePod frameshell with a totally totally different glass on top- it’s set for touchscreen, with black bezel
The design of shell is just like HomePod 2nd gen’s, not the first gen—it stands may determined add 🖥️ for two’s however not eventually, OR it’s subsequent technology pic.twitter.com/W5zRIVGPiK
Kosutami (@KosutamiSan) October 21, 2023
On the time 9to5Mac claimed to have sources that verified Kotsutami’s footage as respectable. That website additionally reported that the codename of the HomePod is B720, and that Apple is utilizing a model of tvOS with rewritten Apple Music and Podcasts apps which are suited to the show of the prototype HomePod which may present colours based mostly on the album artwork whereas audio is taking part in, and present notifications.
In April 2022 Gurman referred to Apple’s plans, stating that Apple is “completely” nonetheless engaged on a brand new HomePod, which Gurman says will mix a HomePod, Apple TV, and FaceTime digital camera right into a single “mixture product will in all probability be on the heart of Apple’s strategy.”
HomePod with display screen/HomeHub: Launch date
It’s thought that the units is not going to be launched on the identical time.
J490, the iPad/sensible show that can be utilized for FaceTime and controlling house home equipment might arrive first. This might launch in 2025, in line with Mark Gurman.
Nonetheless, the discharge date has been pushed again on account of delays referring to Apple Intelligence and Siri particularly. In March 2025, Mark Gurman claimed that: “The corporate had hoped to announce a brand new sensible hub product in March 2025, however as a result of the machine, to an extent, depends on the delayed Siri capabilities, it has been postponed as properly.”
Apple Intelligence-powered Siri updates that had been promised for iOS 18 have been delayed to later in 2025. Certainly, it’s attainable these Siri options received’t be totally rolled out 2026, so we may very well be ready that lengthy for this HomeHub product.
Nonetheless, testing is underway, in line with Gurman, with Apple stated to have begun an inner testing program for the hub. The testing apparently entails members of Apple employees being permitted to take prototypes of the machine house for testing and suggestions.
Mark Gurman isn’t a mortgage voice in all this. Again in March 2023 Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote about Apple’s smart-home plans. He indicated that Apple “will unveil a redesigned HomePod that includes a 7-inch panel in 1H24,” and that this machine “may allow tighter integration with Apple’s different {hardware} merchandise.” On the time Kuo gave the anticipated launch date for the HomePod with a display screen as the primary half of 2024 (which clearly didn’t occur).
Then in December 2024, Kuo indicated that the HomePod with display screen received’t arrive till after WWDC 2025. He wrote on Medium: “The mass manufacturing schedule for the display-equipped HomePod has been delayed a number of instances. Initially forecasted for 2024 (as I predicted in 2023), it was postponed to 1Q25, and extra not too long ago, additional delayed to after WWDC 2025/3Q25.”
Kuo blamed software program growth for the delay in manufacturing, though he didn’t make clear why the software program is taking longer than anticipated to develop.
Nonetheless, in March 2025 Kuo tweeted that the HomePod with display screen can be additional delayed not simply due to Apple Intelligence delays, however as a result of it must align with different new Apple merchandise.
Screenshot
Foundry
J595, the iPad-like show with tabletop robotic limb is anticipated to reach a lot later.
HomePod with display screen/HomeHub: Worth
The units could have totally different capabilities and pricing.
The value of J490 will depend upon what it incorporates. If it’s a HomePod with display screen, the worth is probably going be on the excessive finish of the HomePod product line, so it may have a worth of round $599.
J595, which mixes an iPad-like show with a robotic limb and is meant to perform as a sensible house “command heart,” may price $1,000 or extra, in accordance to Gurman in September 2024.
HomePod with display screen/HomeHub: Design
In accordance with Ming-Chi Kuo in March 2023, Apple “will unveil a redesigned HomePod that includes a 7-inch panel” in 2024. That’s not a lot smaller than the iPad mini, which has an 8.3-inch show.
This tallies with what Gurman initially prompt in April 2021. He described a high-end speaker with a contact display screen that may mix an iPad with a HomePod speaker and a digital camera mounted on a robotic arm that would comply with the consumer across the room throughout a video chat. The display screen would additionally supply multi-touch performance.
To get an thought of how this might look we want solely take a look at the Amazon Echo Present 10, which mixes a show that strikes robotically with Amazon’s speaker. The Echo Present 10 prices $249.99 / £259.99.
Foundry / Jim Martin
Swiss web site Useful Abovergleich and designer Eric Huismann have created a sequence of idea illustrations of how this new technology of HomePod may look. They’ve provide you with idea designs for 2 separate units: the HomePod TV (a combination of the HomePod and the Apple TV) and the HomePod Present (a HomePod with a touchscreen show).
Right here’s how they think about the HomePod Present—a speaker with a digital camera and a touchscreen—may look.
Swiss web site Useful Abovergleich got here up with an illustration of how an Apple TV HomePod combo may look. They name this one the HomePod TV–the bar beneath the TV turns into not solely the hub for TV, web, and sensible units but in addition a sound system with assist for requirements resembling Dolby Atmos and Apple Lossless.
For extra concepts about how Apple may reinvent the HomePod learn: How the HomePod may be Apple’s new iPod: Enjoyable, well-liked, and easy. Plus, Might Apple’s rumored HomePod really be a tiny Studio Show? and Why Apple wants a HomePod with a display screen.
Foundry / Jim Martin
HomePod with display screen/HomeHub: Software program, Siri and AI
The important thing to such merchandise tends to be their sensible assistant and Apple has plans to enhance Siri with Apple Intelligence (AI). Nonetheless, Apple has delayed the discharge of its new improved Siri and this has had an impact on the timing of those new merchandise which, Gurman famous in September 2024, “are thought-about collaborations between Apple’s synthetic intelligence and residential machine {hardware} engineering teams.”
The long-rumored sensible house hub has subsequently been postponed as a result of the Siri options it was meant to be based mostly round will not be prepared for motion.
As Macworld’s David Worth has beforehand said, when discussing why the HomePod wants wants greater than a display screen – “What would assistance is a radical overhaul of Siri: repair that, after which positive, you’ll be able to have a display screen alongside a voice management system that truly works.”
HomePod with display screen/HomeHub: Specs and options
We don’t know a lot concerning the specs of any of those units, however their must assist Apple Intelligence will imply they do require excessive finish tech inside:
Processor
The HomePod that launched in January 2023 featured the identical S7 chip because the Apple Watch Collection 7. This implies the present HomePod doesn’t assist Apple Intelligence and the brand new Siri options.
We anticipate {that a} HomePod with a display screen will use a extra highly effective processor, that’s appropriate with Apple Intelligence.
Digital camera
If the brand new machine combines a HomePod with a digital camera, or locations a digital camera on a robotic arm, that digital camera might share lots of the options of the present vary of cameras in Apple’s Macs, iPad and iPhones.
The concept the digital camera might comply with you round will not be crucial if Centre Stage, a characteristic launched in 2021 and now current in all iPads, iPhones and Macs, can carry out that perform.
This digital camera is also used to acknowledge gestures. Some years in the past a patent was filed that associated to a future HomePod that would interpret 3D hand gestures. That patent describes a HomePod that may “interpret three-dimensional hand gestures as a way of controlling the machine in order to execute an motion or perform.”
Multi-touch show
We’re hoping that Apple will give us one thing that can compete with the Echo Present, so we will view YouTube movies and use apps on the brand new hybrid machine. Maybe we received’t get the show we hope for, however a extra interactive show than the one we’ve got at the moment can be nice. We’d prefer to see extra than simply quantity controls and a Siri animation.