Apple Launches HomeView, Its First Smart Display For the Home (theverge.com) 55
Apple has unveiled the $299 HomeView, a 7-inch smart display that combines Siri AI, FaceTime, customizable widgets, and Apple Home controls in a countertop or wall-mounted design. It also acts as a Matter controller and Thread Border Router, supports up to six facial-recognition profiles, and can use personal context from messages, calendars, and email when paired with a nearby Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone. The Verge reports: The device's square shape makes it feel less imposing than larger smart displays like Google's Nest Hub Max or Amazon's Echo Show 11, and I can see it fitting nicely on my kitchen counter -- though it might be a hair too big for my bedside table. The HomeView is the centerpiece of Apple's new push into the home. It costs $299 and launches alongside a new collection of cameras, thermostats, and a door lock designed for Apple Home.
As a smart home hub, Matter controller, and Thread Border Router, the HomeView can orchestrate these and other Apple Home and Matter smart home devices. It's available in eight countries at launch: the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and India. Pre-orders are open now, with devices shipping November 13th.
As a smart home hub, Matter controller, and Thread Border Router, the HomeView can orchestrate these and other Apple Home and Matter smart home devices. It's available in eight countries at launch: the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and India. Pre-orders are open now, with devices shipping November 13th.
Rectangles (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Rectangles (Score:4, Funny)
notoriously imposing and scary....
But rounded corners! And Apple has a design patent on rounded corners.
What about any other protocol? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice that they support their own protocols + matter / thread; what about anything else? Is that going to be a game of "find the app to dim the lights"?
Why don't these fools ever learn from Home Assistant - build integrations, not protocols.
What consumers want: Home Assistant, without hours of setup and scripting.
Is that a serious question? (Score:3)
Re: Is that a serious question? (Score:2)
Instead of a walled garden, apple is more like a movie theater with airport grade screening to make sure you can't bring in your own snacks. And when the Usher Agent gropes you, he says it's for safety because outside food might be past its use-by date. Then the snack bar only has a choice of two different candy bars, one costs $999, the other that adds peanuts is $1,799.
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what about anything else? Is that going to be a game of "find the app to dim the lights"?
Presently, nope. Apple is yet again insisting that one of their new devices does not actually need 3rd party developer support to succeed. If your smart devices are from an unsupported ecosystem, you'll have to do the usual sort of workarounds to get them to play nice with this thing.
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Because integrations are a feature of an open system, Apple doesn't provide an open system. Vendors have to pay Apple to support HomeKit.
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"What consumers want: Home Assistant, without hours of setup and scripting."
And without being forced to be a full time support staff.
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Sounds like a task for AI! :)
Re:What about any other protocol? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well each Matter release is supporting more device classes so hopefully fewer devices will need apps over time.
Apple support of Thread will help it gain momentum. Ikea helped but people want to sell to Apple customers.
I run OTBR nodes alongside ZigBee devices and Thread is much less reliable even though it should be better in every way.
I've stopped buying Thread devices for now even though it will eventually own the market.
The one thing I won't buy is Thread over Wifi devices, i want home stuff on completely different networks.
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Home assistant is pretty easy these days, visual scripting, drag and drop UI, and HomeAsssitant Green that even takes out the pain of installation and updates. Apple could make it a little better, but it isn't anything like five years ago.
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To be clear, I run Home Assistant and have integrated it with a local LLM and MCP server to allow for useful voice commands like "play the next episode of Landman in the living room" and it will look at the state of each required device and remediate them, while also searching all available services including my local Plex host for Landman, and launch the proper app with a deep-link intent.
But none of that was easy, and every time a device changes it's firmware (looking right at you, Android TV) there's a v
Re: What about any other protocol? (Score:2)
Why not just get an iPad? (Score:1)
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Asking for a friend.
For those that want / need a full time matter or homekit hub (and don't want / have one of the other Apple devices that can perform those roles)?
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Or just take the phone you already have out of your pocket and use that instead? The main advantage of using smart hub/speaker devices is that you can program them to know what room they're in, so you can say things like "lights on" and just have it activate the lights within that room. But at three hundred doll hairs per room to do that with Apple hardware, that'd be a nope from me, dawg.
I'm honestly still pretty happy with the Echo Dots that I got from some Black Friday sale an eternity ago. They were
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You mean I'd actually have to physically take the phone out of my pocket? Man, way too much effort.
Re: Why not just get an iPad? (Score:3)
Homekit requires a full time, on site device as hub, ipad or apple tv. Sadly not imac last I checked
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Well, ipads start at $600 and this is under $300. On the other hand, if you buy apple hardware you probably don't care about the price.
Durable goods from commodity companies (Score:5, Informative)
I don't trust commodity-manufacturers who need to keep rapidly iterating their products to maintain profits to supply me with something intended to be affixed for the long term.
Even though Apple might do a better job than many vendors, they still release products that stop receiving updates and other maintenance long before the physical hardware is worn out. Something that's going to be with me for a very long time, like something permanently installed in my house, or something integrated into my car, is not something that I want from a commodities-supplying tech firm.
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The only tech company that even remotely understands the concept of "durable goods" appears to be Tesla. And even then it's a little shaky, but they've proven themselves by continuing to update software in 10+ year old cars OTA with no bullshit.
Buy this thing if you want to replace it 5 years from now.
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The only tech company that even remotely understands the concept of "durable goods" appears to be Tesla. And even then it's a little shaky, but they've proven themselves by continuing to update software in 10+ year old cars OTA with no bullshit.
Unless you bought into full self driving all those years ago, only to never get it year after year after year of promises, and are now being told you will need new hardware (which is not available).
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Why was this downvoted?
I mean that as a legit question: I thought the coward accurately described Tesla's self-driving promise ... but I'm no Tesla expert, so what's wrong about his take?
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Why was this downvoted?
It wasn't.
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Why was this downvoted?
I mean that as a legit question: I thought the coward accurately described Tesla's self-driving promise ... but I'm no Tesla expert, so what's wrong about his take?
AC posts start at score 0. The score may increase, or decrease, based on those voting with mod points, but AFAIT, if the net result is zero, the score still shows as zero, so it is not at all clear if that post was downvoted, or just any potential upvotes and downvotes cancelled themselves out.
It is (as it has always been) some people who will try to manipulate the scores to increase engagements. If there was any actual accountability in this forum, all the voters would be publicly visible, so that tho
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The only tech company that even remotely understands the concept of "durable goods" appears to be Tesla.
I'm assuming you forgot about the time their cars were wearing out their flash storage modules.
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"The only tech company that even remotely understands the concept of "durable goods" appears to be Tesla."
Appears to whom? Worst cars on the market, not even controversial.
"And even then it's a little shaky, but they've proven themselves by continuing to update software in 10+ year old cars OTA with no bullshit."
Tesla invented the car that got continuous updates, but also invented the car that needed them. Tesla is the worst thing to ever happen to the auto industry.
And Tesla updates have, in the past, be
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Even worse, this is an initial hardware release from Apple. Apple does eventually keep their hardware updated for a fairly long time... on the third or fourth iteration. But the early versions tend to see only a couple of years of updates before Apple drops them.
You can see that with the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV: their original versions only received a couple of years of updates before Apple demanded people update to the newer ones. The original hardware in all of them was also severely under
If I wanted a smart home controller... (Score:5, Insightful)
...it would need to be 100% local.
No cloud, no internet connection.
I would block it at the router.
Good thing I don't want a smart home controller
Re:If I wanted a smart home controller... (Score:5, Informative)
Although you might need to buy a Pi 4 2GB ( $80 ) to run it.
https://www.home-assistant.io/
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And commit unlimited personal time, and prepare to be continuously disappointed.
I bought an HA device to evaluate against competitors and chose a device that came with HA preinstalled to make a fair comparison. It worked, took a couple of test devices and implemented a couple simple automations, just like the other devices. Then I let all devices sit powered on an unused. In a week, the HA device had completely failed and could not longer boot, owing to a bluetooth device that wasn't even used (needed fo
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Oh, but wait, Apple's OS is based on - nooooo! - Open Source scourge software.
Found the supergenius.
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I've recently started to play around with ESP32-based Tasmota-compatible devices.
https://tasmota.github.io/docs... [github.io]
https://templates.blakadder.co... [blakadder.com]
What I like about it is that there's no single point of failure in a central server (even if it's some relatively reliable RasPi or something). If I have a switch, it talks directly to whatever device it controls and so on. Builtin capabilities for device groups, synced across local multicasting.
If needed, I *can* build a "Dashboard" of sorts, but it would instea
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...and the Hubitat C-7 really isn't that bad. No cloud, no subs, unless you want them. The C-8 looks like it might be leaning a little heavier on the internet access so your mileage may vary. My C-7 is still doing just fine without having to buy the latest thing out there or being forced into an upgrade I don't want.
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This is the one I have my eyes on, though I'd spend money if someone had packaged that with nice hardware for a complete set that I don't need to spend three days to set up.
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...it would need to be 100% local. No cloud, no internet connection. I would block it at the router.
Good thing I don't want a smart home controller
I have a specific use case for home automation, so I installed Home Assistant Green (their appliance version). This is the recommended path for new installations. I have the Silicon Labs dual protocol radio (Zigbee and Matter). Right now I'm only using the Zigbee kit until Matter and Threads matures (if ever). My data stays local and everything runs from a browser I check on stuff every other day, but really I could let it go for a couple of weeks if needed. Good to go. If you're considering Home Ass
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I have some X-10 controllers about the place. That's about it. The heat pump has its own programmable timer controller.
Dealbreaker (Score:2)
Add a holodeck feature soI can visualize the man cave remodel for the zombie apocalypse
Matter Controller? (Score:2)
WTF is a Matter Controller ?
Re:Matter Controller? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here. [getmatter.org]
I died for your sins, do I have to do everything else for you too?
Nobody should be buying Apple hardware (Score:2)
Most computer/tech hardware at least can have a second life after it's fulfilled its primary purpose.
The exception to that is Apple.
You can routinely find their iPads but if they aren't "unregistered" from whoever had the main account, they're utterly useless.
It doesn't make sense to buy products from a company that locks down its hardware like that. I can understand that for a phone, but not some old tablet.
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If you want to buy a used Apple device it's no
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Tablets are very easy to steal and the Pro ones are rather expensive. They start at $1500.
In fact Apple doesn't make anything that's hard to steal since they dropped the Mac Pro.
re: Apple hardware (Score:2)
Your comment sounds like nothing more than another anti-Apple rant with no substance behind it.
Quite a bit of computer tech gets no real "second life" once the manufacturer decides it's no longer supported. It's insane to pretend this is an "Apple thing". Just going through my small pile of formerly useful e-waste, I'd point out such things as one of my old VoIP modems/routers, which was required for a residential VoIP service that's no longer in business. Looked into it to see about potentially re-flashin
Re: re: Apple hardware (Score:2)
Oh brother... (Score:1)
See also; "Sony Dash" and "Chumby". The Dash didn't even make a credible door stop, before or after Sony chose to shut the Dash servers down, thereby relegating all Dash's to the status of e-waste. Don't bother. Same junk, different vendor.
Who is this for? (Score:2)
A homepod can already act as a hub. I guess Ican see the value of having an easy access, always in one place device for home control, music and podcasts. Maybe this necessary because siri stinks? Side note, I give apple some, but only some, grace for siriâ(TM)s challenges arising from appleâ(TM)s commitment to security, such as it is. But iirc, siri 1.0, back when connected to wolfram alpha, was pretty awesome.
The iPad mini Sqaure (Score:2)
better than the echo show (Score:1)
At least it won't have ads you can't turn off unlike the echo show.
My favorite review: 7" apple watch (Score:2)
From @sif@cathode.church (fediverse):
7" Apple Watch just dropped.
Obligatory 1984 reference... (Score:2)
Being mounted on a wall makes this the closest thing to a telescreen yet! Of course, its capabilities dwarf Orwell's version, and the malevolence of its creator are at least in the ballpark