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Apple announced two connected smart-home initiatives on October 13, 2026: Apple HomeView, a new household hub, and Apple Home Collection, a set of cameras, a doorbell, a lock, thermostats and sensors developed with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric. Together, they represent a more direct attempt to make a smart home feel like one system instead of a collection of products that each demand its own app and account.
What Apple announced
HomeView is a tabletop or wall-mounted controller with a 7-inch Liquid Retina display. Apple positions it as a shared home screen for controls, entertainment and personal features rather than merely another smart speaker. It combines Siri AI, FaceTime, home monitoring, hands-free automations and face recognition intended to personalize the experience for different household members.
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Apple says preorders opened October 13, 2026, with availability beginning November 13. HomeView is not currently available for sale in the European Union because Siri AI is not yet available there in iOS.
The second announcement is Apple Home Collection. The range includes LG indoor and outdoor cameras, an LG wired video doorbell, an LG smart deadbolt, thermostats developed with LG and Schneider Electric, plus temperature and room sensors. Apple says Collection products can be used individually or combined into scenes and automations inside Apple Home.
#1 Best Overall
- Echo Hub — An easy-to-use smart home control panel redesigned for your home. Arrange controls on your dashboard to quickly adjust devices, view cameras, start routines, and more.
- Customize your dashboard — Arrange devices into sections and resize them to focus on what matters most. Create a personalized layout that matches how your family uses their connected devices.
- Reimagined for your home - With an Alexa+ and compatible Ring subscription (sold separately), get Ring camera event summaries to stay in the know. Search your Ring footage using simple voice commands. Create routines by voice, activate modes to manage multiple devices at once, and chat with Alexa to easily control your smart home.
- Home security for the whole family — Use Echo Hub to easily arm and disarm your compatible security system, making it easy for everyone in your family to manage home security. Use the Alexa app and compatible cameras, locks, alarms, and sensors to check in while you're out.
- Works with thousands of Alexa compatible devices — WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Matter, Sidewalk, and Thread devices sync seamlessly with the built-in smart home hub.
Why this targets smart home’s persistent friction
Smart-home hardware has become easier to buy but often remains difficult to operate as a household. A camera may require one app, a lock another, and a thermostat a third. Even when products support a common standard, setup instructions, accounts, permissions and feature limitations can differ.
Apple’s answer for its own Collection is a single setup and control path: tap an iPhone to begin adding an accessory, then manage it in the Apple Home app without a separate accessory app or account. Apple also gives examples of scenes that coordinate a thermostat, camera, lock and HomePod. That does not prove every device will expose every feature through Apple Home, but it directly addresses the “which app do I use?” problem.
How HomeView fits into Apple Home
A shared control point
Apple says HomeView is designed to be shared by everyone in the home while still feeling personal to each user. Face recognition is intended to tailor information and controls, while the display provides a visible alternative to voice-only commands. The combination could be useful for household members who do not want to use a phone for every light, lock or camera check.
Home monitoring and automations
HomeView combines home monitoring with hands-free automations and Siri AI. Apple has not published independent reliability results for recognition, voice control or automation execution, so these should be treated as announced capabilities rather than tested performance.
Rank #2
- MEET ECHO SHOW 15 - A stunning 15.6" Full-HD (1080p) smart display that's perfect for your kitchen and ready to show you more. Use customizable widgets to keep your day on track, watch your favorite shows with Fire TV and powerful vibrant sound, and enjoy natural video calling, with 3.3x zoom and wide field of view.
- FAMILY ORGANIZATION HUB - See your top widgets at a glance, like your family’s calendars and to-do lists, local weather, smart home, and more.
- ALL YOUR FAVORITES, ALL RIGHT HERE - Built-in Fire TV unlocks endless entertainment, so you can enjoy your favorite content from thousands of apps like Prime Video, Netflix, YouTube, Apple TV, and more (subscription may be required). Fire TV remote included. Plus, now you can quickly add a device to play music with Active Media - start playing a song in the kitchen, then add the living room and bedroom on the fly.
- SMART HOME CENTRAL - Control smart devices with your voice or a few taps using the smart home dashboard. Easily turn on all your living room lights at once or check live camera feeds to see what's happening around your home.
- YOUR FAVORITE MEMORIES ON DISPLAY - Brighten your space (and your day) by turning your home screen into a photo slideshow that displays your favorite memories. Auto curate your images and show off your favorite family memories.
Entertainment and communication
FaceTime and entertainment features make HomeView a general household screen as well as a controller. That broader role may help justify placing it in a central room, although the announcement does not establish how it compares with dedicated displays or smart speakers in sound, camera quality or responsiveness.
Apple Home Collection: products and announced U.S. prices
The following are Apple’s October 2026 U.S. starting prices. They are announcement figures, not a guarantee of final retail pricing, and availability differs by product and country.
| Accessory | Starting price | Availability details announced by Apple |
|---|---|---|
| LG Indoor Cam Plug-In | $199.95 | United States, Canada and United Kingdom |
| LG Video Doorbell Wired | $249.95 | United States, Canada and United Kingdom |
| LG Outdoor Cam Plug-In | $299.95 | United States, Canada and United Kingdom |
| LG Floodlight Cam | $399.95 | United States, Canada and United Kingdom |
| LG Smart Deadbolt Lock | $349.95 | United States and Canada |
| LG Smart Thermostat | $199.95 | United States and Canada |
| Schneider Home Smart Thermostat | $199.95 | United States and Canada |
| LG temperature and Schneider room sensors | $39.95 | United States and Canada |
Apple says Collection availability starts in December 2026, with select accessories arriving in early 2027. Check the individual product listing before ordering because the launch window and supported market are not identical across the range.
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Apple Home already supports thousands of accessories carrying Works with Apple Home or Matter compatibility. Apple’s developer documentation says iOS 16.1 and later supports Matter, and that Matter accessories can be added through the Home app, Siri, Control Center and third-party HomeKit apps.
Rank #3
- Powered by SmartThings: Connect, monitor, and automate your home through the SmartThings app. Build a reliable, unified smart home using Samsung's proven ecosystem
- Matter + Zigbee Smart Home Hub: Supports the newest Matter standard plus Zigbee for lighting, sensors, plugs, switches, thermostats, and more - thousands of compatible devices. PLEASE NOTE: Z-Wave not supported
- Easy Setup with Wi-Fi or Ethernet: Get started in minutes using Wi-Fi or a wired Ethernet connection for apartments, houses, and expanding smart home systems - Z-Wave not supported
- Automations That Work for You: Create custom routines for security, lighting, comfort, and energy savings. Many local automations continue working even if your internet goes offline
- Wide Device Compatibility: Connect compatible smart devices from Aeotec and many other brands to build a unified system for lighting, voice control, energy management, and climate settings
That means Home Collection is a curated, co-developed layer on top of an existing platform. A household can still choose other Matter products, but compatibility does not automatically mean feature parity. Before buying, verify whether the specific device supports the functions you need in Apple Home, whether it requires a home hub, and whether advanced settings remain locked to the manufacturer’s app.
Privacy claims and what remains unverified
Apple says Home app data is end-to-end encrypted so Apple, LG and Schneider Electric cannot read it. For cameras, Apple says footage is processed on the user’s home hub or in Private Cloud Compute and, with a supported iCloud+ plan, stored in encrypted form for 10 days.
Those are Apple’s stated privacy terms. The announcements and platform documentation do not provide an independent privacy audit, hands-on security assessment or reliability comparison. Buyers should therefore distinguish Apple’s architecture and policy claims from externally verified results, and review iCloud+ requirements before assuming that camera history is included.
How to judge whether the approach solves your problem
- App burden: confirm that setup, daily controls and the features you care about work in Apple Home without a second account.
- Compatibility: check Matter or Works with Apple Home support for each exact model, not just the product category.
- Hub requirements: determine whether automations, remote access or camera processing require HomeView, a HomePod or another home hub.
- Privacy and storage: read the camera-processing and iCloud+ terms for your region.
- Price and timing: compare the announced starting price with the actual launch price and confirm whether your country is supported.
- Feature depth: verify which lock, thermostat, camera and sensor controls Apple Home exposes, since interoperability does not promise identical features across apps.
What Apple has—and has not—proved
Apple’s October announcements show a strategic shift toward delivering both the central interface and a coordinated set of accessories. That could reduce setup and account friction for households committed to Apple’s ecosystem. It does not establish that Apple has solved smart home reliability, security or adoption for everyone. No independent user-adoption figures, reliability comparison or market-wide measure of smart home’s “biggest problem” accompanied the announcements.
Rank #4
- New size, more viewing area: The 11“ smart display features a vibrant Full-HD touchscreen with 60% more viewing area versus Echo Show 8 (2025 release), built-in smart home hub, AZ3 Pro chip for powerful performance, and Omnisense technology for highly personalized experiences.
- Content looks and sounds incredible: Watch shows on Prime Video, Netflix, and more on the vibrant Full-HD 11" screen and enjoy room-filling spatial audio, crisper vocals, wider sound stage, and up to 2x bass versus Echo Show 8 (2023 release). With Alexa+, find the name of that song you love and discover new shows based on your preferences.
- Your everyday assistant: The 11" display makes it easy to see recipes and calendars at a glance, find meal inspo, and manage your shopping lists. With Alexa+, find recipes based on foods you love, make reservations, order groceries, and more.
- Simple Smart Home control: Pair and control thousands of devices that work with Alexa without needing a separate smart home hub. Easily view your camera feeds. Manage lights, thermostats, and more using the display or your voice. With Omnisense technology, you can activate routines via temperature, presence, or visual ID detection.
- Crystal-clear video calls: Video calls feel natural on the vibrant 11" screen with a centered, auto-framing camera, 3.3x zoom, and noise reduction technology. Use live view to check in on your family, pets, and more while you're away.
The practical test will be whether the promised single-app experience remains simple when a home mixes Collection products with older HomeKit and Matter accessories. Until those products are available and independently evaluated, HomeView and Home Collection are best understood as Apple’s most direct attempt yet to make the smart home feel coherent—not as proof that the industry’s hardest problems are finished.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Apple Home Collection accessories work without separate manufacturer apps?
Apple says setup and control for its Collection products can be handled in Apple Home without a separate accessory app or account. Advanced features and support for third-party Matter devices may still vary by model.
When does Apple HomeView go on sale?
Apple says preorders began October 13, 2026, with availability starting November 13. It is currently not offered for sale in the European Union because Siri AI is unavailable there in iOS.
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Apple’s announced U.S. starting prices range from $39.95 for temperature or room sensors to $399.95 for the LG Floodlight Cam. Prices and availability should be rechecked at launch.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
