Apple’s long-awaited smart home hub could be available by the end of this year, according to a recent report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Rumors about it started circulating back in 2022, when the product was first greenlit. However, the path to its release was thorny, as the product was expected to rely heavily on Apple Intelligence. Earlier in March, Gurman reported that Apple had postponed the announcement of its smart home hub due to problems with the Siri update.
Since then, Gurman has updated the expected release date for Apple’s upcoming product, claiming that a lower-end version will be released “not before the end of this year.” Gurman also said that a more advanced version that can “move across a person’s desk at the end of a robotic arm” should arrive a year or two after the launch of the basic model and is “a top priority for Apple.” To meet this deadline, Apple will reportedly drop some “bold features” in the robotic arm model. Gurman added that these features may be carried over to later models.
Apple has said very little about its smart home hub, but rumors detail a design that borrows from HomePod and iPad. According to rumors, it will have a seven-inch display, a new operating system called homeOS, and a dashboard that resembles the iPhone’s standby mode. Apple will have to compete with existing smart home hubs, such as Amazon’s Echo line and Google’s Nest Hub, but there are rumors that the starting price for the robotic arm version could start at $1,000.
