Apple’s HomeView offers customizable faces for photos, animations and smart home controls. Named faces so far include Photos, Flow, Snoopy, Calendar, Weather, Home Modular and Home Camera. Other clock and widget layouts appear in Apple’s promotional images but have not yet been named; Apple says selected faces change throughout the day, with different appearances for mornings and evenings.
HomeView faces and behavior
The Photos face turns the HomeView into a digital picture frame, displaying a single image or rotating through a collection and using Portrait-style depth effects to keep the subject sharp while blurring the foreground and background. Shared albums allow friends and family to contribute pictures remotely.
For animated displays, the Flow face responds to physical presence and movement, changing its colors and light as people move nearby. The Snoopy face features animations that reflect the time of day, weather, sporting events and holidays.
Smart home access and display
Other faces provide direct access to smart home information: Home Modular offers quick access to favorite accessories, while Home Camera can livestream up to nine camera feeds simultaneously. The HomeView interface adjusts to the user’s distance, presenting simpler information readable from across the room and more detail as the user moves closer.
The HomeView uses a 7-inch Liquid Retina display that automatically adjusts brightness, ranging from 500 nits down to 0.3 nits for use at night. Both the tabletop and wall-mounted HomeView models launch on November 13 and cost $299 in the U.S.
