I've been a smart home user for 10 years, and the Apple HomeView looks like a game-changer

Smart displays are a category that, to me, have always felt like they’re on the cusp of being the next big thing for the smart home. I was excited when I first got my Nest Hub. The idea that I could control connected devices with a tap, without having to shout commands at a speaker or pull out my phone, was incredibly appealing. Want to turn off the lights? Just tap a button. Simple, practical.

Fast forward to today, and it’s hard not to feel like the category has gone nowhere. Google’s Nest Hub displays are getting long in the tooth, while Amazon’s Echo Show lineup has become increasingly difficult to recommend when so much of the screen real estate is effectively used as a digital billboard. For something that’s supposed to make your home more convenient, that’s a pretty disappointing state of affairs.

After years of dealing with Google Nest speakers dropping out and Alexa routines that barely worked, I eventually moved everything I could to Home Assistant. My setup now runs on dedicated local hardware, and my lights, sensors, and automations work as you’d expect them to.

But while I’m perfectly happy with my current setup, Apple’s new smart display, the HomeView, has caught my eye for a few reasons. Between the premium hardware and some rather interesting software decisions, it could shake up the smart home segment and be the wake-up call that Google and Amazon need, and maybe even convince me to migrate over from Home Assistant. Here’s why.

A wall-mounted smart display makes more sense than you think

Checking out the announcement, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Apple is taking the rare decision to tackle both desk and wall-mounted configurations with the first-generation HomeView. Google is yet to offer a product in a wall-mounted configuration, and Amazon has barely dabbled in it, but I think this could be one of Apple’s key hardware differentiators. Yes, the speaker-mounted configuration will probably be the more popular choice for its versatility, but hear me out for a second.

Tabletop smart displays are great, but personally, I’m of the opinion that if building a smart home is the priority, a wall mount is the best place for one. It keeps your kitchen counter free, gives everyone in the house easy access to smart home controls, and turns the screen into something that’s integrated into your home instead of taking up shelf space.

That’s how I’ve set up my own smart home control panel in the common passageway between bedrooms. I like to think of it as a modern home intercom, except it can also show you the weather, your calendar, and who’s at the front door.

Amazon clearly understood the appeal when it launched the Echo Show 15. The hardware looks great, and a large screen mounted on the wall makes a lot of sense for a shared household display. The problem is that it’s absolutely massive. A TV-sized screen isn’t necessarily what you want for a control panel.

Apple’s 7-inch square display, on the other hand, is much more compact and, in my opinion, a better fit for common areas. It takes up less wall space than a standard tablet while leaving enough room for essential smart home controls. As someone who already has a large rectangular display mounted on the wall, I’d pick the smaller, purpose-built option any day.

Look, as a tech enthusiast, I’ve poured hours into designing a Home Assistant control surface suited to my needs. I even designed and 3D printed the mount myself. However, that’s not what most customers want or need. By focusing on an architectural design, the HomeView is targeting an audience that cares about balancing functionality with aesthetics.

Elsewhere, I’m honestly surprised that Apple is making a Power over Ethernet mount for the HomeView. It’s a fairly nerdy detail that you wouldn’t usually expect from Apple, but a PoE mount would give the display a direct wired connection to your router, which is a much more reliable approach for a device that’s supposed to control your smart home. In fact, my own setup makes copious use of PoE wherever possible to avoid Wi-Fi dropouts.

That said, while I love that Power over Ethernet is available as an option, I certainly don’t like that it costs an extra $130 over buying just the HomeView display. In fact, even the basic USB mount costs an extra $60, power adapter not included. It makes no sense to not include a mount with a product that literally cannot function without one. Suffice it to say, I’m not a fan of Apple’s nickel-and-diming approach to mounting options.

A curated experience is more important than sticking an iPad on the wall

Hardware and build quality are important, but they only go so far, as we’ve seen with existing smart home displays. Software is the real deciding factor here, and I have high hopes, though perhaps not for the reasons you’d expect.

To begin with, Apple differs from Amazon because it doesn’t design its hardware around selling you more stuff. Instead of turning the standby screen into a digital billboard, the HomeView focuses on smart home controls, FaceTime calls, photos, calendars, and music. That’s it.

It’s a more locked-down approach, and as someone who runs one of the most open smart home platforms available, I can see the value in it. I’d much rather have a clean interface with widgets for weather, security cameras, and lights than a screen constantly cycling through things I don’t care about.

I’ve seen the complaints that the HomeView is little more than an Apple Watch with a larger screen, and I know I’m going to be in the minority here, but I just don’t want an open-ended iPad mounted on my wall.

My current smart display is effectively an Android tablet in a 3D-printed wall mount, with Home Assistant in kiosk mode and access to a world of apps. The problem is that when an app crashes or doesn’t scale properly, there’s no telling what will pop up on screen. All too often, the Kiosk mode interface crashes, and I wake up to a tablet sitting on its lock screen.

I’ve even been on video calls while on vacation, guiding family members through the steps needed to bring back the smart home controls. It’s fantastic for me as an enthusiast, less so for someone who mostly just expects smart home controls and music playback. The fact of the matter is that a tablet doubling up as a smart home control center approach doesn’t work. Fire tablets have tried it, so has the Pixel Tablet, and it just didn’t move the needle forward. A smart home display needs to be a foolproof appliance.

While some enthusiasts might ask for broader app support on the HomeView, this is one category where I genuinely believe the less-is-more approach works better, provided all my essential smart home devices and experiences are integrated into the native interface.

There’s some indication that CarPlay-style app experiences could carry over to the HomeView, which might help address the limited app selection. Does that mean I’ll be able to get a dedicated Spotify experience on the display? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Sharing photos on a smart display shouldn’t be so complicated

A smart display sits in a shared space, so everyone in the house should be able to use it without jumping through hoops. That includes seeing their own photos, checking their calendars, and controlling the devices they use every day, yet both Google and Amazon make this unnecessarily complicated.

Take Google Photos on the Nest Hub. A smart display should make for a great digital photo frame, especially when it can pull pictures from your existing library, but what happens when you want photos from more than one person’s account to show up?

You can’t simply connect everyone’s Google Photos library to the display. Instead, you have to create shared albums, invite the primary account holder, and make sure those albums are selected in Google Home. It’s a lot of work for something that should be incredibly simple. The whole process feels like Google designed the experience around one person and then tried to make it work for everyone else.

Similarly, Voice Match is supposed to help with personalized experiences, but it’s never worked reliably in my household, and when it gets things wrong, you can end up with the wrong person’s information or search results.

Amazon has its own problems. Managing shared photos through Amazon Photos adds another layer of complexity, while calendar reminders and delivery notifications can end up being visible to everyone in the room.

This is why, reading Apple’s HomeView press release, the company’s support for up to six individual HomeView profiles stood out to me. Instead of making everyone share a primary account, each person gets their own iCloud photos, calendar events, and preferred smart home controls, with the display recognizing who’s using it.

Given Apple’s facial recognition capabilities, I’m optimistic that this will work well, though it will have to prove itself in everyday use. Coming from a setup where I have to make do with user profile tabs on my custom smart home display, genuinely good multi-user behavior could make me switch.

Apple’s smart display is missing one trick

For all the things Apple seems to have gotten right, there’s one hardware decision I find baffling, and it’s not even something that concerns me directly.

If you’re going to mount a smart display permanently on the wall, it should be able to replace a wired thermostat, too. Homes with conventional central heating and air conditioning often already have thermostat wiring running to a wall-mounted control, so Apple had an opportunity to combine two devices into one.

Instead, Apple appears to be relying on wireless integration with separate smart thermostats. Not every home’s HVAC system uses the same wiring, of course, and a universal solution would take some work, but if I’m already paying top dollar for a dedicated wall-mounted display and having it professionally installed, there should at least be an option to make it the central control point for compatible HVAC systems. Since Apple’s mounting solutions are designed to be modular, this comes across as even more of a miss.

Local control is non-negotiable, and Apple acknowledges that

Local control is one of the biggest reasons I moved to Home Assistant in the first place. Between latency, privacy concerns and the fact that I shouldn’t need an internet connection to flip a light switch, local control is non-negotiable for me. Every smart device I own remains more or less fully functional in case there’s a power outage. I expect similar behavior from the Apple HomeView.

Turns out, Apple already has a solid foundation here, and it treats local access as a first-class citizen. I’ve had a great experience with the Apple TV acting as a home hub, and compatible HomeKit accessories can already be controlled and automated locally. The HomeView should build on that same approach, communicating with devices over the local network wherever possible. On paper, Google and Amazon can also pull off these to a degree, but the experience has been lackluster to say the least, with both hubs routing most, if not all, commands through the cloud.

The other aspect that has me intrigued is Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video system, which supports encrypted camera footage and processes video on supported Apple devices. Unlike Google and Amazon’s ecosystems that are primarily designed to work with Nest and Ring cameras, HomeKit Secure Video works with any compatible camera, manages person and object detection on your own local device, and shoots over the encrypted footage to your smartphone. I’ve had great success with using it on my Apple TV, and the HomeView will bring it over to a new form factor.

For all practical purposes, it’s a simpler approach to some of the privacy and security features I’ve built into Home Assistant, and that’s a good thing. Let me be real here, this isn’t a system seller feature. But if you care about privacy, it’s unironically one of the best consumer-friendly solutions on the market.

Apple’s smart display could get Google and Amazon to step up

Look, I’m not about to rip out my Home Assistant setup and replace it with Apple’s smart home ecosystem. I’ve spent years and a lot of money building a system that works the way I want it to, and I value the flexibility that comes with choosing my own hardware, integrations, and automations. But that’s not really the point. I don’t need Apple to convince me to switch. I need it to give the rest of the industry a reason to do better.

Google’s Nest Hub hardware and software have been showing their age for a while now, while Amazon’s Echo Show devices are a let-down by the unapologetic approach to advertising. Apple is taking a different approach, with a smaller display, a more focused interface, and personalized, privacy-conscious experiences for different people in the house.

There are still plenty of questions to answer, and I’ll need to spend time with the device before drawing any firm conclusions. But for the first time in a while, there’s a smart display that makes me interested in the category again. It’s not designed to do everything, but if it can pull off being a shared display designed to make everyday smart home tasks easier, that alone will be a big win.

If Apple gets the basics right, Google and Amazon will have to respond with better hardware, more useful software, and fewer ads. And if that happens, even those of us who aren’t married to Apple’s ecosystem will stand to benefit. Win-win for all.