Apple's new home lineup is here, and HomeView is the real value winner

Apple just gave its home lineup the biggest shakeup it's had in years. Today the company announced the all new HomeView, a refreshed Apple TV 4K, HomePod mini 2, and a brand new collection of smart home accessories built alongside LG and Schneider Electric. There's a lot to like here. But there's also a pricing story running underneath almost all of it, and it isn't a great one.

HomeView is priced beautifully, as long as you put it on a table. Nearly everything else got more expensive.

HomeView: Apple's smart display is finally real

HomeView pairs a 7 inch Liquid Retina display with a domed aluminum speaker base, joined by a stainless steel hinge (homage to the iMac G4) so you can tilt the screen to whatever angle works on your counter, desk, or nightstand. It comes in silver, starlight, rose pink, and space gray, each with a color matched cable.

The display reaches 500 nits for a sunny kitchen and drops all the way to 0.3 nits at night, with True Tone adjusting to the room. The interface even changes based on how far away you're standing, showing simpler information from across the room and more detail as you walk up.

What excites me most is how personal Apple made a device the whole household shares. HomeView recognizes up to six people by their face, and each person gets their own Home Screen with their own apps and widgets. Your Messages and Calendar only appear when HomeView sees you and your paired iPhone or iPad is nearby and was recently unlocked. Apple's pitch is a shared screen that still feels "completely personal to each user," and on paper, that's exactly what it is.

HomeView is also the launch vehicle for Siri AI, Apple's rebuilt and far more conversational Siri. With an Apple Intelligence capable iPhone or iPad, it can tap into your personal context, and conversations you start on HomeView carry over to the Siri app on your other devices. Even without one, you still get the broader world knowledge and better music discovery.

The rest of the feature list is long:

• Two full range drivers in the display, plus a down firing woofer and two passive radiators in the base
• FaceTime with Center Stage, Intercom, Find My, and Live Activities
• A Home Camera face that streams up to nine camera feeds at once
• Faces for your photo albums, interactive art, and yes, Snoopy
• Smoke and carbon monoxide alarm detection, with alerts sent to your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch
• An A18 chip with Secure Exclaves that keep camera and microphone data walled off from the rest of the system

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At $299 with the full speaker base and a power adapter included, this is the best priced product Apple announced today. Preorders are open now in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India, with availability starting November 13. It won't be sold in the European Union, since Siri AI isn't available on iOS there yet.

The wall mounted HomeView is a different story

There's also a wall mounted HomeView in space gray and silver, and it carries the same $299 price. That sounds like the same deal. It isn't.

The wall model ditches the base entirely, which means no woofer and no passive radiators, just two drivers tuned for wall placement. It also doesn't include a power adapter, and it can't go on a wall at all without one of Schneider Home's Power Mounts, sold separately:

• Power Mount Wall Connector: $59.95, available to order now
• Power Mount AC Wired: $79.95, available to order now
• Power Mount PoE Wired: $129.95, coming in early 2027

Add it up, and the cheapest way to get a wall mounted HomeView up and running is $397.95 once you include the entry level mount and a power adapter. That's roughly $100 more than the tabletop model for a version with less speaker hardware and less in the box.

Honestly, this is a real disappointment. The wall model is the one I'd expect a lot of people to want for a hallway or entryway, and right now it's the worst value in the lineup. I'm hopeful Apple walks this back once customers start speaking up, whether that means bundling a mount, including an adapter, or simply pricing the wall model below the tabletop one.

Apple TV 4K: faster, smarter, and pricier again

The new fourth generation Apple TV 4K is a genuinely meaningful upgrade. The A19 chip brings up to 50 percent faster CPU performance and up to twice the GPU performance of the last model, plus a dedicated AV1 decoder for more efficient streaming. Three far field microphones mean you can finally talk to Siri hands free, even with audio playing.

Siri AI takes over the full screen when you're looking for something to watch, and you can ask follow up questions mid episode with answers appearing in a small overlay. The Siri Remote keeps its design but adds Find My with Precision Finding and the ability to play a sound, which, if your remote lives in the couch cushions like mine does, is a bigger deal than it sounds. That remote also works with older Apple TV models and can be purchased separately for $60.

The headline audio feature is a four speaker surround setup using HomePod mini 2 or HomePod (2nd generation) speakers in matching front and rear pairs, with the system calibrating timing and levels to your room automatically.

Then there's the price.

The new Apple TV 4K costs $299, up from $199 for the previous model, which was already up from the original $129 launch price. That's more than double where this product started. It's a much better box than it used to be, but that's a tough jump for a streaming device, especially when Siri AI is coming as a beta to Apple TV 4K (2nd generation) and later. If your current box still runs well, you'll get the headline software feature without upgrading. Preorders are open now, with availability starting November 13.

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HomePod mini 2: new colors, new chip, new price

HomePod mini 2 runs on the Apple S10 chip and comes in pink, green, blue, white, and midnight. The fun new trick is Sound Glow, which turns the top of the speaker into a light show that pulses with your music and pulls colors from the album art. It can recognize up to six voices in a household, work as a speaker for your Mac, and slot into that new four speaker surround setup.

It's worth noting that Siri AI isn't there on day one. Apple says it's coming to HomePod mini 2 in a future software update.

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The price is now $149, up from $99. That's a 50 percent increase on what used to be Apple's easy, low commitment entry point into the Home ecosystem.

It also adds up fast: an Apple TV 4K plus four HomePod mini 2 speakers for the new surround setup runs $895 before tax. Preorders are open now, and it arrives October 30.

Apple Home Collection, built with LG and Schneider Electric

Apple also introduced Apple Home Collection, its first lineup of smart home cameras, thermostats, and a lock, designed with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric. Everything sets up with a tap from your iPhone and lives entirely in the Home app, with no separate app or account. Every device supports Thread, and camera video is stored in iCloud+ for 10 days, so there's no extra camera subscription on top.

Here's the lineup:

• LG Video Doorbell Wired: $249.95, with dual cameras for visitors and packages
• LG Floodlight Cam: $399.95
• LG Outdoor Cam Plug In: $299.95
• LG Indoor Cam Plug In: $199.95, which physically tilts down to stop monitoring when someone gets home
• LG Smart Deadbolt Lock: $349.95, using Ultra Wideband to unlock automatically as you approach, with Matter and Aliro support
• LG Smart Thermostat and Schneider Home Smart Thermostat: $199.95 each
• LG Temperature Sensor and Schneider Home Room Sensor: $39.95 each

The cameras record up to 2.5K video. Availability starts in December, with some accessories slipping to early 2027. The cameras are coming to the U.S., Canada, and the UK, while the lock and thermostats are U.S. and Canada only. Apple Retail will also offer professional installation through ADT for an added fee in the U.S.

Apple clearly wants HomeView at the center of all of this, and at $299 for the tabletop model, it priced it to get there. That's the one product today where I think Apple got the value equation exactly right. The wall mounted version, the Apple TV 4K, and HomePod mini 2 all ask you to pay noticeably more than you would have yesterday, and in the wall model's case, more for less.

I'm cautiously optimistic that customer feedback pushes Apple to fix the wall mount situation. Until then, if you're buying one thing from today's announcements, make it the tabletop HomeView.