Apple‘s first smart home device will finally make its way to the market on October 13th, according to Bloomberg. The long-awaited device, which supposedly looks like an iPad-esque display with a square-format screen, has been in development for a while now, but delays linked to Siri AI kept pushing its release.
“The home hub will take the form of a roughly 6-inch square display, with versions that can be mounted on a wall or placed on a countertop,” says the report. The key premise is not too different from what Amazon already offers with the Echo Show, but there are still going to be a few key standouts.
Apple’s home hub will recognize who is using it
The most notable of them will be the ability to save personalities. The device will be able to identify who it is talking to or the person it sees approaching it through the built-in camera. Based on the person who is detected, the screen will show personalized content, pulling details from resources like contacts, messages, calendar, and notes, among others.
The user interface for each person will be different, and the hub’s screen will create a unique layout for each member of the household. Facial recognition is a key part of the system. However, Bloomberg reports that it’s not as accurate as Face ID sensors on an iPhone. Users can choose to set a secondary layer of authentication linked to their iPhone, it seems.
It will also control the rest of Apple’s smart home ecosystem
Aside from tying in strongly with Apple’s software and hardware ecosystem, the upcoming device will also serve as a centralized hub for all the other smart home devices in your home, ranging from door locks to thermostats and smart speakers. Other features on the table reportedly include video calling, an intercom-style chat, and music playback, among others.
The device will sit atop a round metallic base with a metallic arm connecting the display portion to the base. Apple will supposedly offer the device only in a single gray aluminum color. It has to be plugged in through a USB-C port at all times for power delivery, as there is no built-in battery inside.
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