Apple HomeView ad divides viewers over kitchen screen use

The HomeView commercial packs a full morning into just over three minutes. Dad is making French toast. Mom loses her keys and then finds them in her own pocket. There’s a tug-of-war over the thermostat, and a teenage son helps himself to whipped cream straight from the can.

Then a video call from the grandparents arrives at the worst moment. The biggest subplot belongs to the daughter, who gets a ride to school from a boyfriend nobody in the family knew existed. It ends with everyone crowding around the HomeView to watch the security camera footage of the couple leaving the porch.

Plenty of people watched it and felt their pulse rise. Tech analyst Benedict Evans posted on Threads that the ad felt stressful and confusing. He also pointed out that the device doesn’t really fix any of the problems in the story. When the grandparents call, the screen in the middle of the kitchen arguably makes the scramble worse.

Critics also spotted the staging. The family seems to have drilled a hole through the center of their kitchen island to hide the charging cable. And it’s hard to believe a teenager would read a text from a secret boyfriend on the family screen with a brother sitting right there, whatever Apple’s privacy features promise.

It’s also a sharp turn from Apple’s recent style. Its Vision Pro ads lean into quiet luxury and empty, tidy rooms. This one feels more like a sitcom.

For many parents, the noise was the point. Tech journalist Bridget Carey replied to Evans that the ad looked exactly like her own mornings and called it the most realistic ad Apple has ever made. Other parents on Threads said it captured real life and hit home.

One tech reviewer with two teenagers had a different nitpick: the least believable thing in the whole commercial is that nobody is holding an iPhone. That joke gets at Apple’s actual goal. If the alternative is five people each staring at their own phone, a single shared screen that shows everyone what they need could keep a family more present in the room.

Strip away the drama and HomeView is a 7-inch touchscreen sitting on a rounded speaker base, run by Apple’s new Siri AI. Apple says the assistant can now hold natural conversations, handle several requests in one go and answer general questions.

The headline trick is face recognition. HomeView uses its camera and presence sensors to recognize up to six people and switch to each person’s own home screen, with their messages, calendar and widgets, as they walk up. Apple says each person’s information stays private.

It also works as a hub for Apple Home and Matter smart home gear. It can show up to 9 camera feeds at once and, with compatible cameras and an iCloud+ subscription, write short summaries of what happened in a clip, such as a courier leaving a package. It handles FaceTime, Find My and Intercom messages, and it can hear smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and alert your iPhone or Apple Watch.

There’s a wall-mounted version at the same $300. It lacks the tabletop model’s down-firing woofer, and you have to buy a power option for the wall separately: $60 for USB-C, $80 for an AC wire or $130 for Power over Ethernet.

The ad sells a family command center, so think about how your household really works before you buy. A shared screen showing camera feeds, calendars and messages is handy, but it also puts personal information in the busiest room of the house. Check who is enrolled for face recognition and what each profile can see.

Price is the other sticking point. Google’s Nest Hub Max costs $229 and Amazon’s Echo Hub is $179. YouTuber Marques Brownlee praised the display and the account switching but said he couldn’t think of a group it was ideal for, calling it “a skip for most people” for now. He also flagged that there are no third-party apps and no built-in battery.

If your home already runs on iPhones, AirPods and Apple TV, HomeView slots in easily. If your smart home leans on Alexa or Google devices, the case is much weaker.

Apple opened preorders on October 13, and the first units ship on Friday, November 13. Demand has pushed some tabletop colors back: in parts of the US, estimated delivery dates now run from late November into early December, depending on ZIP code. The wall-mounted model had no delays at the time of writing.

If you’re on the fence, there’s no rush. Early hands-on reviews are mixed, and full reviews from real homes will land once units arrive in mid-November.