Apple announced HomeView quite recently, its smart home hub to compete with the likes of Amazon and Google in a big push by the company to enter the smart home market. However, the successor to the HomeView that Apple is working on will be very different to the current model that the company has just showed off.
HomeView as a robot
Imagine this but if it was connected to a robotic limb. | Image by Apple
Unlike the model that has just come out, the successor that Apple is working on will be a HomeView that is attached to a robotic arm. Details about this model have leaked in the past but a new feature has just been revealed today by Apple insider Mark Gurman in his newsletter Power On.
The robotic HomeView will apparently be able to recognize who’s talking to it and turn to face that person. For example, if you enter the room where the HomeView is and start chatting with it, it will swivel around automatically so that the display faces you.
In addition, if there are multiple people using the HomeView at the same time as shown in Apple’s trailer, it will turn around to face whoever is currently using it.
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Today’s model is very limited
As Gurman points out, the HomeView that has just come out is limited in several ways. For example, the display cannot swivel, and Apple’s own trailer for the device makes this painfully obvious. Instead, each family member in the trailer has to pick up the device and fully turn it to face them.
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The wall-mounted version doesn’t come with either a power supply or wall mounts and you’ll have to pay extra for third-party mounts. This means that customers not currently designing a new house have to arrange something drastic if they want to put up the HomeView in a way that doesn’t look ugly. The customer base was quick to notice that the wall-mounted version feels like an objectively worse deal, as both versions also cost the same.
The wall-mounted HomeView doesn't seem like the best deal. | Image by Reddit
Gurman also points out the HomeView’s older hardware and thick bezels. The HomeView is powered by the older A18 chip and only has 8 GB of RAM. Ex-Apple employees who haven’t worked at the company in a while were seen touting their work on HomeView when it launched.
Apparently, the device itself has been ready for years and Apple kept postponing it while waiting for Siri to catch up and make it a viable product.
Robotic HomeView could feel a lot more alive
You wouldn't have to turn it around to face you, for starters. | Image by Apple
The current HomeView has a pretty neat feature, it can keep separate and private profiles for each member of a household. Apple’s trailer shows the HomeView hiding the text messages for one person when said person moves away.
A robotic HomeView could feel a lot more alive as it could turn to face whichever person is speaking to it, which could come especially handy if it’s placed in the middle of a table during a family dinner. It could also keep following a person around if that person is talking to it while engaged in some other task.
But are Apple and Siri up to the task?
Siri isn't exactly the smartest digital cookie. | Image by Apple
The only problem I see with this robotic HomeView is the fact that Siri is still a pretty incompetent smart assistant. Will Siri AI actually be able to recognize who’s talking to it and follow them around, especially if multiple people are talking over each other? I don’t think even other AI assistants on the market are capable enough to do this reliably.
HomeView was delayed for years because of how far behind Apple Intelligence was compared to the competition, so I won’t be surprised if the robotic successor also takes a long time to hit the market. But if it does when Siri has finally caught up with its rivals, or at least improved drastically compared to today, then it could be an ambitious Apple product that actually delivers.
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Abdullah loves smartphones, Virtual Reality, and audio gear. Though he covers a wide range of news his favorite is always when he gets to talk about the newest VR venture or when Apple sets the industry ablaze with another phenomenal release.
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