Lay out a new racetrack for AI applications! Apple (AAPL.US) will eventually enter the next major category: smart home. It plans to release a device hub on October 13

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Apple (AAPL.US) plans to advance its long-delayed smart home offensive on October 13, which marks the expansion of key products under the new CEO John Tenus. According to people familiar with the matter, the core of this strategy is a smart home hub codenamed J490. Apple is also planning to announce the first update to the HomePod mini since its launch in 2020, as well as the first new TV box since 2022.

This was an important early test for Tenus, who took over the company on September 1. Apple sees the smart home as a lucrative opportunity — and one of Apple's famous “next big events” — but the tech giant had trouble opening up in this category until now, falling behind Amazon and Alphabet's Google.

These products are also a showcase for Apple's new Siri AI assistant, a technology company that has been developing for years. The revised Siri has been delayed several times, and these smart home devices should help highlight Apple's efforts to finally catch up in the field of artificial intelligence.

According to the above sources, this home hub will use a square display of about 6 inches, and there are two versions that can be mounted on a wall or placed on a table. Since the product has not yet been announced, these people requested anonymity. According to the above sources, the new HomePod mini and Apple TV will keep the current design, but will be equipped with a faster processor to support Siri's more powerful AI model.

The new HomePod mini will also be available in new color schemes including green and pink. Apple's goal is to eventually update its larger HomePod speakers as well. Bloomberg News has previously reported on these new devices and their connection to Siri AI. A spokesperson for Apple, headquartered in Cupertino, California, declined to comment.

The defining characteristic of this hub is its ability to serve multiple members of the family. It's designed to recognize who's talking to or getting close to it, then display personalized content and provide answers based on that person's data and accounts.

For example, when a user approaches, the device shows the app layout for that user's contacts, messages, calendar events, notes, and their preferences. The interface can switch automatically when another recognized family member comes close. It will also have a guest mode to hide personal information.

The device uses voice or facial recognition systems to identify users, but the latter is less reliable than Face ID on iPhone. If users don't want to rely solely on voice or facial recognition, they can request a second verification on the iPhone. When that hub can't properly identify someone, the iPhone also acts as a backstop. In a dimly lit room, a virtual circle of white light illuminates the area around the screen to help the camera recognize the user.

Apple envisions that users will place multiple such displays at home. They can be used to control thermostats, door locks, and other networked products, as well as for video calls, intercom, music playback, and browsing photo slideshows stored in Apple's iCloud service.

The company also sees the device as a communication and information hub in the kitchen—users can use their voice to check recipes, watch videos, or make FaceTime calls while cooking. Since this device is designed to be stationary, it only has a FaceTime camera on the front and no rear camera. The microphone and speaker of the product are located in the base to which they are connected.

The hub is as thick as an iPhone, and the display is surrounded by a 0.5 cm (quarter-inch) black border, reminiscent of an earlier iPad. It has rounded corners and no sharp edges. The device does not include a battery, so it must always be plugged in, and there are no volume or power buttons.

The product has an Apple-standard grey aluminum exterior and includes a USB-C port for power supply. The screen sits above a round metal base with several rings of perforated speaker holes and connected to the screen through a polished metal arm. Users can manually tilt the screen forward or backward. The bottom of the base is made of rubber to help keep it stable on the desktop. The standard version looks like the famous iMac G4 from 2002 — the large display sits on a hemispherical base.

Apple has also developed a second version, codenamed J491, designed for wall mounting. It has a thin square base underneath the display to hold the speaker and microphone. The base is attached flat to the wall underneath the screen. This version also requires maintaining a power connection via a USB-C cable.

This release has been in the works for years. Apple came to the conclusion years ago that it needed to have a stronger presence in the home market — a market where rivals such as Amazon and Google have made significant progress. Apple's first attempt was the first HomePod, which came out in 2018, and it didn't perform well. The lower-priced HomePod mini performed better, but it never became a big seller.

Apple has finally decided on a new path: combining an AI-powered operating system with a voice assistant and a HomePod-like device with a screen. The company is also developing a privacy-focused home security camera and sensor, codenamed J450, that can detect which room a person is in. The product is scheduled to be released later, and no video will be recorded.

Another product under development is an upgraded version of the home hub, which combines a larger 9-inch display with a robotic arm to allow the screen to move around the space. This more advanced model's display is designed to rotate 360 degrees.

Apple's initial goal was to launch its first smart home display, the new HomePod mini, and Apple TV in 2024, in sync with the new version of Siri. But the delay in digital assistants has forced Apple to delay these home devices as well. With the launch of Siri AI on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and other Apple products this month, the company is finally ready to launch a new smart home product line.

The new Siri relies on a big language model — developed in collaboration with Google (GOOGL.US) — and can obtain information from the open web. It was designed to work more reliably than the previous version of Siri and allow users to control devices, smart appliances, and apps more smoothly.

This central device follows the dark visual style of Siri AI on other Apple products. Its operating system incorporates elements of the Apple Watch, Apple TV, and iPad interfaces, including an iPad-like app design and an Apple Watch-style icon presented on the home screen. It also has iPhone-style widgets, such as widgets to view stock quotes, calendar schedules, and weather.

The interface is heavily built around photo slideshows and clock displays, similar to the new Standby Mode (Standby Mode) on the upcoming iPhone Duo folding phone. One of the clocks looks like a lava lamp, and the time display is superimposed on it — the hour is displayed digitally, and the minutes are listed below. Users can then swipe up from the clock screen or photo interface to open the app launcher.

Apple includes many of its most-used apps, including calendar, messages, photos, FaceTime, notes, reminders, music, and podcasts. Users can select a wallpaper and rearrange apps and widgets with a long press, just like on iPhone.

The single app also draws on the iPad. For example, “Messages” has a two-column layout: when a user clicks on a conversation in the conversation list, a second column opens to show the content of that conversation. This interface continues into many other pre-installed apps.

In addition to hardware, Apple is also developing a broader smart home ecosystem, expanding on HomeKit software and supporting new categories of connected products. The company is partnering with a third-party manufacturer to develop a new device designed specifically for the Siri AI home platform.