Apple's 'Welcome Home' Event Is Today — Here's Everything Reportedly Coming, Led by a HomeView Smart Display

Apple's Smart Home Push Gets a Name — Reportedly

Apple has confirmed it's holding a media event today, October 13, under the banner "Welcome Home," with invitations sent for a 9 a.m. ET gathering in New York. Apple itself hasn't said what's being announced. But in the days leading up to it, a cluster of reports — most tracing back to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, with corroboration from 9to5Mac, MacRumors, and Six Colors — has converged on roughly the same story: Apple's long-rumored entry into dedicated smart home hardware is reportedly arriving, and it's reportedly called HomeView.

None of this is official yet. Apple has a habit of changing names, specs, and pricing between the leak stage and the actual keynote, so treat everything below as what's being reported, not what's confirmed.

What HomeView Reportedly Is

According to Gurman's reporting, HomeView is a touchscreen smart home hub — something between an Amazon Echo Show and a wall-mounted intercom panel — built around a 6-inch square display, a FaceTime camera, and a speaker-and-microphone array. Multiple outlets, including iPhoneinCanada and PhoneArena, report it will reportedly ship in two physical forms: a countertop version with a rounded speaker base, said to come in space gray, silver, starlight, and pink, and a flush wall-mounted version limited to space gray and silver.

Under the hood, it's reportedly powered by an A18 chip with 8GB of RAM — specs pulled essentially unchanged from the iPhone 16 line, which would be plenty for a device meant to run a handful of first-party apps rather than demanding software. And that's reportedly the point: multiple reports say HomeView will launch without a third-party App Store, leaning instead on a limited set of Apple's own apps and, centrally, a Siri experience built on the Gemini-powered overhaul Apple has been reportedly rolling out this year with help from Google.

On price, the figure that keeps surfacing — first from Gurman, repeated by Thurrott, BGR, and others — is around $350. That would put it well above Amazon's $220 Echo Show 11 and Google's $99 Nest Hub, a gap Apple would presumably justify with tighter HomeKit integration and the Siri rebuild rather than raw hardware specs.

Not Just the Hub

Reporting suggests Apple isn't stopping at HomeView. The same leak cluster points to a refreshed Apple TV box and a second-generation HomePod mini landing alongside it — both described as more incremental updates than reinventions. Timing-wise, Gurman's reporting splits the lineup: the Apple TV and HomePod mini are reportedly on track to ship this month, while HomeView itself reportedly won't actually reach customers until mid-November, roughly a month after today's unveiling — a staggered rollout Apple has used before with hardware that needs more manufacturing runway.

The LG Angle Nobody Expected

One of the more specific — and more surprising — threads in the reporting involves LG. According to Gurman, Apple has worked with LG to help design a matching lineup of smart home accessories meant to plug into the HomeView ecosystem: a video doorbell, a smart deadbolt lock, a thermostat, a temperature sensor, and security cameras. LG is reportedly handling manufacturing and customer support for these, positioning them as third-party hardware designed in close coordination with Apple rather than an Apple-branded product line. Reports are less certain on timing here — these accessories are described as unlikely to ship before later in 2026 at the earliest, well after HomeView itself.

If accurate, it would mark one of Apple's more direct hardware collaborations with an outside manufacturer in years, and a sign that Apple wants the smart home ecosystem to extend beyond anything it builds in-house.

Why This Matters for the UAE

Apple hardware launches typically reach UAE Apple Stores and authorized resellers within weeks of the US rollout, and HomeKit-compatible smart home gear has a genuine local market here given how many new Dubai and Abu Dhabi residential developments already ship with smart lighting, locks, and climate controls. A $350 starting price in the US has historically translated to a meaningfully higher AED sticker price locally once it clears distribution and VAT, so UAE buyers curious about HomeView are better off waiting for Apple's own regional pricing rather than assuming a straight currency conversion. Neither Khaleej Times nor Gulf News had published hardware pricing details at the time of writing, which tracks — Apple itself hadn't confirmed anything yet either.

What We Actually Know vs. What We Don't

Confirmed: Apple is holding an event today called "Welcome Home," and it has told invited media to expect smart home news. Reportedly, not confirmed: the HomeView name, its specs, its $350 price, the no-App-Store approach, the LG accessory partnership, and the shipping timeline split between this month and mid-November. All of it comes from pre-event reporting, however well-sourced. By the time you're reading this, Apple may well have already confirmed, contradicted, or renamed half of the above on stage — which is exactly why it's worth checking Apple's own newsroom post before treating any of these specifics as settled.