Apple HomeView is barely two days old and already on sale. The smart home display, announced Tuesday, is up for pre-order at $299 in the US and £299 in the UK, with a release date of November 13. Amazon has cut $10 off several color options for US buyers, though the discount skips the Starlight finish entirely.
No UK retailer has matched that yet. Amazon UK isn't carrying pre-orders at all right now, leaving Apple's own store and John Lewis as the only options there. John Lewis is sweetening its listing with free named-day delivery, including on launch day itself, a perk the retailer values at £7.95.
HomeView marks Apple's entry into a category Amazon and Google have occupied for years: a smart speaker with a screen bolted on. Apple is shipping two versions at the same price. One is built for a tabletop and packs a subwoofer plus two passive radiators into its base for spatial audio. The other is designed to go straight onto a wall. Both share a 7-inch square Liquid Retina display and down-firing stereo speakers.
Each model carries a four-microphone array and a camera tucked into the bezel, enough for FaceTime calls from the kitchen counter or the hallway. The camera also lets HomeView double as an intercom of sorts, since it can pull up video from a compatible doorbell when someone rings.
Siri does the heavy lifting
Siri AI sits at the center of the pitch here. Apple is positioning HomeView as a hub for Apple Intelligence features accessible by voice, and it can recognize multiple profiles in one household, which matters for a device meant to sit in a shared space like a kitchen or living room. That's the same multi-user angle Amazon has pushed with Echo Show devices for years, though Apple is leaning on Siri rather than Alexa to do the recognizing.
The screen also handles the usual smart-display chores. Music, podcasts, and audiobooks play through it, streaming apps including Apple TV show up on the display, and connected smart home gear can be controlled directly from the 7-inch panel rather than through a phone.
What's missing so far is any word on Indian availability or pricing. Apple hasn't said whether HomeView will launch there alongside the US and UK rollout, and nothing in the current pre-order listings mentions a market outside those two.
For now, the $10 discount is the only price movement anyone's reported, and it could vanish or expand before November 13 arrives. Whether other retailers follow Amazon's lead, or whether Apple itself ever discounts a first-generation device, is the thing to watch over the next four weeks.
DDFiled by The Deals Desk
Price drops and sales on tech worth buying, with the price, the retailer and the time it was reported. Prices move; every deal says when it was seen.
More from this desk →
Be the first to comment
Join the argument. No password, just your email or a passkey.