Apple’s smart home efforts have been pretty meager so far – there’s the Home app and the HomeKit platform … and, well, that’s about it. But that might all be about to change with the introduction of a couple of Apple-branded smart home devices that could transform how you operate in your home.
Right now, it looks like there are two products on the horizon: an iPad-like smart home hub that can be mounted in a dock or on a wall, and a smart screen attached to a moveable robotic arm. Neither are like anything Apple has developed before.
Here, we’ve put together all the latest rumors so you know what to expect from Apple’s upcoming smart home devices. Let’s see what’s on the way.
When might the products launch?
At the moment, it looks like Apple is going to space out the two devices. Starting with the more modest smart home hub, this is expected to arrive this year. Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman has predicted it’ll launch later in 2025, since it apparently relies on features coming in iOS 18.4 and iOS 19. Apple usually releases major new iOS updates in September, so with iOS 19 likely to arrive then, that could be the month we also see the smart home hub.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, meanwhile, has pegged the date on either the second or third quarter of 2025.
As for the robotic arm, Gurman says this is coming “as early as 2026 or 2027,” which seems to leave the door open to the possibility that it could be delayed beyond that timeframe.
Now let’s talk pricing. We haven’t had much in the way of price indications for the home hub, but given it sounds like it will have similar features to the Amazon Echo Show, which can cost anywhere from $90 and up, a price tag of between $100 and $200 wouldn’t seem unreasonable.
The robotic arm, though, is going to be far more expensive. Gurman describes it as “pricey” and says that Apple is currently “looking to get the price down to around $1,000.”
Design: reminiscent of a classic Mac
While pricing and launch windows are pretty vague right now, we’ve got a lot more information on what sort of designs to expect. Starting with the home hub, this will comprise of a display that is roughly the size of two iPhones side by side, Gurman says. News outlet 9to5Mac has claimed that the screen will be in a “squarish” orientation and will be about six-inches across.
Rumors indicate that the device is small and lightweight enough to be moved around, and you’ll be able to mount it on a wall. There will also be a dock for desktop use, and this dock could include speakers.
Gurman also believes the base will be reminiscent of the iMac G4 from the early 2000s, and that the screen will be positioned at an angle when mounted on this base. Gurman also says the home hub will come with silver and black colorways.
The key design element of the other product is, unsurprisingly, the robotic arm. At the end of the arm is a “large screen,” Gurman has reported, and the arm can move up and down and rotate through 360 degrees.
Performance and features
Given that both devices will come with displays, we’d expect touch interaction to feature prominently, and this will be used for apps and controlling connected devices. On the inside will be an A18 chip with 8GB of memory, which will enable Apple Intelligence. You’ll be able to use this to control the product, alongside Siri and the touch controls. Gurman adds that the user interface will be a mix between watchOS and iOS’s StandBy mode and will also come with a Dock.
There’s expected to be a camera on the front for FaceTime calls. This could also be used in conjunction with other sensors to detect when a person is approaching the home hub. When that happens, the content on-screen could change. That might be handy for home automations, such as turning on a set of lights when you enter a room. It may also be able to distinguish between users and be controlled using hand gestures.
AirPlay is also expected to feature in the home hub, which will let you connect various devices to its speaker.
Turning to the device with the robotic arm, Gurman says that this is “envisioned as a smart home command center, videoconferencing machine and remote-controlled home security tool.” Like the home hub, it’ll primarily be controlled by Apple Intelligence and Siri. It could also respond to user commands (such as “look at me”) and Gurman believes it will “understand different voices and adjust its focus accordingly.”
In early February 2025, a video emerged from Apple’s labs showing a Pixar-like robotic lamp that could interact with people in a remarkably human-like way. Although Apple will likely never release a lamp like this, it could well have been an early prototype or tech demo of the home hub with a robotic arm. If so, we might see similarly realistic movements and behaviors from Apple’s smart home device when it launches.
Lastly, it’s expected that both products will run on the as-yet-unreleased homeOS operating system. Traces and mentions of this have been discovered within Apple’s code, but we don’t know many of the details at the moment.
