Apple’s Smart Home Update Brings 2 Real Barometers to Watch

As we previewed in Monday’s video, Apple’s (AAPL) “Welcome Home” event on Tuesday morning was all about the smart home, and that’s exactly what it delivered. Apple unveiled four new offerings built around Siri AI, all designed to make the home a bigger, stickier part of the Apple ecosystem. As was widely expected, Apple’s accessory partners turned out to be LG Electronics and Schneider Electric.

Here’s the rundown:

Apple HomeView: Apple’s first smart home display and the centerpiece of the event. Both the multi-color option countertop model and the wall-mounted model are priced at $299. HomeView is voice first with Siri AI at the center and runs a limited set of Apple apps rather than an App Store. Pre-orders opened on Tuesday, with availability beginning November 13. Notably, HomeView won’t be sold in the EU because Siri AI isn’t available in iOS there… yet.

HomePod Mini 2: Priced at $149, up from $129 for the existing model, and offered in pink, green, blue, white and midnight. Pre-orders opened on Tuesday, with availability beginning October 30. Siri AI isn’t there on day one and will come via a future software update.

Apple TV 4K (4th Generation): Priced at $299, compared with $199 for the current model. Beyond streaming, it doubles as a home hub that can display doorbell notifications, control locks, run automations and locally process HomeKit Secure Video. Siri AI is available in beta and runs on second-generation and later Apple TV 4K models. Pre-orders opened on Tuesday, with availability beginning November 13.

Apple Home Collection: A lineup of connected-home accessories developed with LG and Schneider Electric, including video doorbells, indoor and outdoor cameras, a floodlight camera, a smart deadbolt, thermostats and sensors. Prices run from $39.95 to $399.95. The collection begins arriving in December, with select accessories in early 2027, initially in the U.S. and Canada, with the cameras and doorbell also coming to the U.K.

Here’s the thing: Odds are that none of these products will move the needle on Apple’s revenue the way the iPhone or the Services segments do. That said, the real value is in building a Siri AI-powered ecosystem that keeps customers inside the Apple tent and gives the company another avenue for Services.

To us, there are two barometers to watch. The first is overall Siri AI adoption and usage across these Apple’s array of devices, which squares with our broader focus on AI usage over adoption. Second, as it relates to measuring the success of Apple’s Home Collection, we will want to pay attention to comments from ADT (ADT). While we flagged Google’s (GOOGL) investment in ADT on Monday, it appears ADT is making room to include Apple’s Home Collection products as part of its offering. Per Apple’s website:

For customers who prefer to have their smart home accessories professionally installed, Apple Retail now offers third-party installation from ADT for an additional charge, available in the U.S. starting this fall.

We’ll also want to see if ADT’s competitors add Apple’s Home Collection line-up to their offering.

Getting back to Apple, we’ll get our next look at Apple’s product pipeline with the Mac-focused announcements reportedly slated for later this month. The next known catalyst for Apple’s overall business, especially iPhone, will be quarterly results from Taiwan Semi (TSM) later this week, and odds are that a press release over the weekend or early next week will show that Apple’s initial supply of the new iPhone Duo has sold out. After that, Apple will report its quarterly results on November 2, and Foxconn should report its Q3 2026 results a week or two later.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro was long AAPL and GOOGL.