• Apple is preparing a wall‑mounted smart home display with a 6 to 7 inch screen, camera, speakers and tight HomePod integration
• The device is expected to ship in two versions, wall hub and tabletop, and run a new homeOS interface built around widgets
• Launch is tracking for spring 2026 alongside a major Siri upgrade powered by large language models and Private Cloud Compute

Apple’s Smart Home Wall-Mounted Display Marks Major Shift in HomeKit Strategy

Apple finally enters the smart display market after years of absence

Apple is getting ready to do something it has avoided for more than a decade. It is building a smart display that lives on your wall and ties the whole HomePod and Home app experience together.

For years, Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest Hub have defined what a smart display looks like. Apple stayed on the sidelines while it focused on the iPhone, Apple Watch and services. Even Apple’s own Newsroom updates about the home mostly highlighted software and incremental HomePod changes.

That is now changing. Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, widely regarded as one of the best sourced Apple journalists, has described a dedicated smart home hub with a built in display that slots directly into the HomePod ecosystem. It is Apple’s clearest hardware bet on the smart home since the original HomeKit push.

Stan Ng, Apple’s vice president of Apple Watch, Audio, Health and Home Product Marketing, summed up the company’s home ambitions in June 2024. “We design our Home products to elevate users’ everyday lives, and our latest updates reinforce that goal by delivering even more convenience and connection.” Those words from an official Apple Newsroom post now read like a preview of this new hub.

If you want to follow how this fits into Apple’s wider software shift, we broke that down in detail in our feature on how Apple’s new AI stack is reshaping app experiences.

A smart display engineered for every room in your home

According to repeated Gurman reporting and follow up coverage from outlets like MacRumors and 9to5Mac, Apple is working on two hardware variants.

The first is a wall mounted unit that looks closer to a modern security panel than a tablet. The second sits on a desk or kitchen counter with an iMac style stand or HomePod mini like base. Both share the same core design.

The screen is described as a roughly 6 to 7 inch square display, “about the size of two iPhones side by side,” with relatively thick bezels and silver or black finishes. Multiple reports, including detailed breakdowns from GadgetHacks, mention a built in rechargeable battery, front facing camera for FaceTime calls and integrated speakers that behave like a HomePod when playing music.

The device is expected to act as another node in the HomePod family, working alongside existing HomePod and HomePod mini speakers and Apple TV. If you are already building up that ecosystem today, you can browse and pre order current Apple hardware like HomePod, Apple TV 4K and iPad through this curated Amazon selection while you wait for the wall hub to land.

Recommended Tech.

The TechBull recommends an affordable short throw projector for readers turning their living room into a screen centric smart space. If you want a big picture on the wall to complement Apple’s upcoming home display, you can check out this budget friendly smart projector on AliExpress. It will not replace Apple’s hub, but it pairs nicely with a streaming box or Apple TV for large format movies and dashboards.

The intelligence layer that demanded a three year wait

Apple could have shipped an iPad on a stand years ago. Instead, it waited for its new Siri foundation to be ready.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, explained the scale of this overhaul in comments cited by multiple reports. “The work we’ve done on this end-to-end revamp of Siri has given us the results we needed. This has put us in a position to not just deliver what we announced, but to deliver a much bigger upgrade than that we envisioned.”

Behind that statement is an aggressive move to large language models running under Apple Intelligence and processed through Apple’s Private Cloud Compute system. Reporting from MacRumors on iOS 26.1 through 26.4 outlines Siri upgrades that include deeper personal context, better on screen awareness and more direct, per app controls.

The new display is expected to launch alongside the iOS 26.4 wave in spring 2026, which is also when the revamped Siri moves from phones and Macs into the heart of the home. For a more critical take on whether this is coming too late against rivals, see our analysis on Apple’s Siri intelligence revolution.

Presence detection transforms how your home responds

Apple’s design philosophy for the home has always leaned toward invisible tech. Instead of a tablet that is always busy, this hub is being tuned to react to who is actually in front of it.

Industry analysts following the project describe a presence aware system that uses sensors and the front camera for proximity and identity. When no one is nearby, the display behaves like a calm ambient screen showing time, temperature or a soft photo feed. As someone approaches, it wakes into a control center view tailored to that person’s profile.

Multi user support and facial recognition are expected to drive different Home scenes, media recommendations and reminders for each family member. This approach lines up with the way the existing Home app already supports shared homes and individual permissions across Apple devices.

A customizable interface built on widgets, not apps

Under the hood, the smart display is rumored to run a new flavor of homeOS, borrowing from tvOS, watchOS and the iPhone’s StandBy mode. Apple has already shown where it is heading here with the revamped Control Center and screen savers on Apple TV and the widget centric layouts highlighted on its OS features pages.

Instead of a traditional App Store, the home hub is expected to focus on widgets and lightweight app surfaces. That may include tiles for Safari, Apple News, Apple Music, Notes, Calendar, Photos slideshows and, of course, the Home app itself.

Widgets are likely to shift based on time of day and user proximity. Morning could emphasize commute, weather and kitchen controls while evenings lean into media and lighting. This fits what Apple already encourages with Home scenes and automation templates, which you can explore today in the Home accessories catalog.

Matter integration finally solves Apple’s accessory problem

One of the biggest knocks on HomeKit has been accessory choice. It tended to be pricier and thinner than what you see in rival ecosystems.

Matter is shifting that balance. Apple supports Matter across its platforms and documents setup flows in its official guide on how to pair and manage Matter accessories. The latest Matter 1.5 spec adds camera support, which opens the door for a much broader mix of locks, lights, sensors and cameras that can all show up on this display without complex bridges.

On the networking side, leaks point to Apple’s N1 wireless chip, which already appears in recent iPhones and M5 iPad Pro coverage. The N1 combines Wi Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread so the display can work as a Thread border router and local Matter controller. That means faster, more reliable responses and less dependence on third party clouds.

Apple’s own security documentation for HomeKit stresses that home data is end to end encrypted and controlled through user permissions. Those same protections are expected to extend to the new hub’s role as a central controller.

Strategic timing positions Apple against slowing competitors

The March to April 2026 window, repeatedly referenced in Bloomberg and MacRumors coverage, puts Apple in a market where its rivals look less aggressive than they once did.

Google has slowed major Nest Hub updates and has frustrated some buyers by discontinuing older products. Amazon, meanwhile, has pushed Echo Show prices down and focused more on volume than on deep platform upgrades. We covered how Amazon is rethinking Alexa in our story on Alexa’s new everywhere strategy.

Analyst expectations collected by MacRumors suggest Apple could set the smart display price around 350 dollars. That is firmly premium in a category where rivals often dip under 200, but Apple is betting that better audio, a cleaner interface and strong ties to iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV will justify the difference.

Coming in spring 2026, with cameras close behind

Multiple Mark Gurman reports and follow ups on MacRumors’ 2026 smart home revamp roundup point to a March to April 2026 launch window for the display. That timing lines up with the expected release of iOS 26.4 and the wider rollout of the new Siri.

Supply chain analyst Ming Chi Kuo has also flagged a separate indoor security camera project targeting late 2026, positioned to plug directly into HomeKit and, eventually, into this hub’s interface. Apple is effectively building its own end to end smart home stack, from cameras and speakers to the wall control point.

For a broader sense of how this fits into Apple’s hardware roadmap, you can check our roundup of Apple’s most future ready gadgets heading into 2026.

Why this smart display matters for the future of Apple’s home

Apple’s wall mounted display is not just another screen. It is a visible sign that the company now treats the home as a first class platform, not just an accessory to the iPhone.

The combination of a purpose built 6 inch class display, tight HomePod integration, Matter and Thread support, presence awareness and a new Siri stack creates a kind of “command center” for people who already live deep inside Apple’s ecosystem.

There is still plenty Apple has not said in public. But the pieces visible in official documents, such as the evolving Home app on apple.com and the security and Matter notes on Apple Support, match what long time Apple reporters are seeing from their sources.

If Apple delivers on the spring 2026 target, this wall mounted hub will arrive at the same moment Siri finally catches up to the smarter voice assistants users have been asking for. That timing might be the real story. Not just a new screen on your wall, but a sign that Apple’s smart home strategy is finally coming together in one place.