Apple unveiled three home devices on Tuesday, October 13: a new generation of Apple TV 4K, the HomePod mini 2 speaker and HomeView, a touchscreen designed to control the connected home. The company did not announce pricing or a launch date for Chile.
According to CNN Chile, the announcement also included the Apple Home Collection, a line of connected home accessories that Apple developed with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric.
HomeView is the main new product. It has a seven-inch Liquid Retina display (the brand Apple uses for its LCD screens), which lets you listen to music, make FaceTime video calls, check messages and calendars, and view up to nine security cameras at the same time. It also controls compatible lights, thermostats, locks and blinds.
The device recognizes the faces of up to six people and shows each person their own content. Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said it is "designed for everyone in the home to share", with a personalized experience for each user.
According to Meganoticias, HomeView will have a tabletop version with a stainless steel hinge and another for wall mounting. It will come in silver, starlight, pink and space gray. Its audio system uses two speakers in the display and a subwoofer (a speaker for low-frequency sounds) in the base.
According to Apple, HomeView will cost US$299 in the United States, for both the tabletop and wall-mounted models. Preorders began on October 13 in the United States and other selected markets, with delivery scheduled for Friday, November 13.
The new Apple TV 4K is the small box that connects to a television to watch streaming platforms and manage home accessories. It includes the A19 chip, which the company says delivers up to 50% more processor performance and twice the graphics performance of the previous generation.
It also adds three microphones for talking to Siri without picking up the remote and an AV1 decoder, a format that compresses video so it can be streamed using less data. It can connect to up to four HomePod speakers for surround sound, and the Find My feature helps locate a lost remote.
The HomePod mini 2 is the new version of Apple's small speaker. It comes with the S10 chip, 360-degree audio and the Sound Glow feature, which makes the light on top move to the rhythm of the music. It recognizes the voices of up to six users and can alert you if it detects a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm, with compatible devices.
It comes in pink, green, blue, white and midnight black. The sources do not report pricing or a sale date for either the Apple TV 4K or the HomePod mini 2.
All three devices depend on Siri AI, the version of the voice assistant based on Apple Intelligence, the company's artificial intelligence system. Apple currently promises that it better understands the user's personal context, but that feature will initially be available only in English and in countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and India.
For people living in Chile, this means that even if you buy the device abroad, the assistant in Spanish has not been confirmed. Apple has also not announced when it will sell HomeView in the country.