Cute and compact
HomeView is nice. It may not be the most eloquent adjective, but it’s the best way to describe how I felt when I saw it for the first time. A 7-inch LCD screen floats on a rounded aluminum base on a stainless steel hinge, and you can move the screen forward or backward depending on whether it’s on a low nightstand or high counter.
The hinge is also a joy. It has a satisfyingly firm resistance, so the screen moves when you want it and stays still when you let go – not unlike how I felt about the iPhone Duo when I tested it last month. It feels high-end like Apple hardware usually does, with no creaks, no plastic pretending to be metal, and a premium solid feel throughout.
HomeView’s low-profile design will look great on a table or countertop.
Foundry
There are four color options (Silver, Starlight, Rose Pink, and Space Gray) and Apple matches the USB-C cable to the body, similar to the iMac and its accessories. They are muted tones that will combine well with everything that surrounds them: wood, tiles or painted walls. Starlight was my favorite of the four, with her warm and soft tone, but they are all lovely.
The device itself includes several rows of holes in the base and under the display for speakers, including two full-range drivers in the display, plus a downward-facing woofer and two passive radiators in the base. It looks more like a Dyson appliance than an Apple device, but it sounds great for something so compact. Think somewhere between a HomePod mini and the full-size HomePod: noticeably fuller and punchier than the mini, without the room-filling presence of its bigger brother.
If you prefer to place a HomeView in the hallway or kitchen wall, there is also a wall-mounted version, which is only available in Silver or Space Gray. That model has the same aluminum screen frame, but without the speaker base, the sound quality won’t be as good, so that’s something to consider.
Shared but personalized
HomeView can do a lot, but the feature I appreciated the most was facial recognition. HomeView can recognize up to six faces within a home, and once it recognizes it, swiping up from the bottom of the screen brings up a home screen that’s not only familiar but personalized.
