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I was looking through our stats on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and I noticed that about 55% of you are not subscribed to the show. That means 45% of you are subscribed and I really do appreciate your support for the other 55% of you are awesome. But I'm going to ask you for a favor. Could you please hit the subscribe button? It'll take you one second. I'm going to promise you 10 years of this podcast for free,
No pay walls. I'm not going to charge you anything ever, but I'm going to give you 10 years of this show for free. I've already been doing it for five years and I plan on doing it for 10 more. And the only way that we can continue doing this is with your support. So one second of your time to hit the subscribe button right now would help the show tremendously. Thank you so much. Apple is building Smart home hub with a display.
A recent code leaks from iOS 26 just confirmed several features we've been hearing about for years. It's been rumored that they're going to have some sort of Alexa type of ICE device sometime. Finally, there's a leak within the iOS. Now the device will have Face Ida, 1080P camera profile switching based on who's standing in front of it, and support for Apple Intelligence.
Now, Apple's been working on this product for at least 2-3 years, and internal references now place it in the iOS 26 code base. The expected launch window is March or April, right around the time Apple plans to roll out a major new version of Siri next year. So what exactly is Apple building, and how does it compare to what Google and Amazon have been selling for
almost a decade now? Now, the design reportedly resembles a small iPad with thick bezels, and one version will sit on a hemispherical base that looks like an old iMac G4. Do you remember those things? I'm going to cover the hardware details on this one, how Face ID changes the whole experience, what apps will be available for it, and what else Apple might announce alongside it. And we'll get right back into that after the short break. Now, Apple's Smart Home Hub will
come in two versions. 1 is a 7 inch display and it's designed to be mounted on a wall. The other has the same 7 inch display but sits on a speaker base that looks similar to a Home Pod Mini. Now. It's been described as a hemispherical Dome with the screen position at an angle on top of it. In the features in iOS, the whole unit is small and lightweight enough to be moved from room to room.
Now the device will know how close you're standing to it and adjust what it shows based on where you are. If no one's nearby, it might display the temperature or the time. And if someone approaches, it gets shipped to an interface for adjusting the thermostat. Or it can adjust to who you are. Maybe you listen to a lot of
music. It's camera will detect who you are, use AI and say, hey, this is Will he really likes to listen to Spotify and then it'll show me Spotify, possibly pop it right up be like what you know what kind of songs you want to listen to. That would be really interesting. Now that kind of proximity awareness is not something you get from a standard tablet propped up on a counter like we do in our kitchen.
We have an iPad. We put it on the counter and play music or look at recipes while we cook. This is going to be a little bit different, more AI involved. Now the hub will also, you know, the sensors in it will detect how many people are in a room and which person is near it. So if I walked in the calendar on the screen, screen should shift to maybe my personal calendar. When my wife walks in, it shifts to hers.
Apple is using Face ID for this profile switching, and iOS 26 codely confirms that engineers are testing the accuracy of the
system with an internal app. Right now the camera is limited to 1080P though, which is lower resolution than you might expect, but is enough for facial recognition and for video calls too, because you're not really going to be making high effort video calls, usually in your kitchen or just hanging out of your house, use your phone for that Face ID, or if you're doing something in your office, you'll have a different camera for that. It doesn't really need to be 4K
resolution. Now, Apple has been referring to the operating system internally as charismatic. The name is not been publicly confirmed, but it describes an interface built around clock faces and widgets, and the main view of this thing is a customizable home screen similar to your iPad that can show the weather, home controls, photo, slideshows, and upcoming calendar events. There will be no dedicated App Store at launch. Instead Apple plans to ship the hub with several pre installed
apps. So there will be Safari, Apple News, Apple Music, Notes, Calendar, Photos and Home app, and some sort of weather app. Now, Apple is also working on a personified Siri interface for this device. The idea is that Siri would have an animated appearance, and one concept being considered is a version that looks like the classic Mac Finder icon. That would give Siri a face, which changes how people might interact with it compared to just a glowing orb or a waveform.
Because right now, we don't know what Siri looks like. We talked to Siri on our phones and we talked to Siri on our other devices, but we don't really have a face to this voice. Now, the new Siri coming in iOS 26 is a major part of the product too. Apple intelligence will be supported on the Home Hub, which means the upgraded Siri with better natural language understanding should be available at launch. Now that timing all lines up here.
Apple is expected to release iOS 26.4 in March or April with a new Siri, and the Home Hub is expected to ship around that same time. Now, the iOS 26 code leak also referenced the device identified as J229. This is an accessory. It has multiple sensors that can detect alarm sounds and capture images. And the sample has been rumored to be working on a home security camera for this device and have a home kit for it, and J229 fits
that description. Now, there's no confirmed launch date for this one, but if Apple announced the Home Hub in the spring, they might preview the camera alongside it. Now, personal detection could enable smart home automations beyond just profile switching. The hub might turn on the lights when someone enters the room and might recognize hand gestures
from longer range control. Apple's also considering additional sensors to plug into outlets throughout the home to interface with the hub, though it's unclear if those will actually shift. Now imagine this. You have a home full of these things, and maybe you have one
when you walk in the front door. And if it's me, I would like my office light on, might turn on my computer and might turn on some music in the kitchen because at, you know, 6 O clock at night, I'm going to go to the kitchen and I'm going to cook. So maybe that Siri when I walk in the front door, the Siri in the kitchen will start playing some some low music, some cooking music that I actually enjoy and might actually
recommend a recipe. Or maybe I could have a recipe ready the day before and Apple Intelligence will have it on the screen when I walk in the front door. Get my kitchen ready for me. Here we go. Let's cook dinner with Apple Intelligence. That would be amazing. So what do we actually know? Right now the hardware is nearly finalized. 2 versions, 1 wall mounted and one with a speaker base, face ID for authentication
and profile switching. There's a camera for video calls and face scanning, Apple Intelligence of course, a widget based interface with no App Store at launch that just got to be pre installed apps only, and a launch window of March or April of 2025. But there's competitors. Google's been selling smart displays for years. Amazon has the Echo and several smaller models. Those products already do many of the things Apple is describing now. The difference is integration.
Apple's hub will tie into the existing Apple ecosystem, including Homekit, iCloud and also Siri. For people already using iPhones, iPads and Macs. This is a big deal. For people using Google or Amazon devices, Apple century into this market might not change much. I know I have an Apple phone but we use Amazon devices at home. They just tie in with everything we already have. So we might consider having Apple devices instead of Amazon depending on the price range.
You know, Google and Amazon, you can pick them up for 100 or couple $100 and on like a Black Friday sale, you get them for under $100. So if Apple has something, you know, competitive with that, but if they have better features and also tie in with my phone better, then absolutely I would switch over to an Apple device. It's going to be like part of the home pod line up rather than just a stand alone product category to this this new device.
That would mean it can piece directly with smart speakers that have displays, not with tablets or iPad. So you can keep your iPad around the speaker based version supports that positioning built in speakers come standard in an optional dock. You can add more speakers and the wall mounted device will also have speakers in the future, possibly not at launch, but maybe there will be an add on in the future, not sure. It's basically an iPad for your wall, a small iPad, A7 inch iPad.
So iPad mini basically. So we're going to see how that goes. But can Apple differentiate enough to justify what will likely be a premium price though? Face ID and person detection are very strong features, especially for me. I would love that. I would love my house to be automated more. Apple intelligence and the new Siri could be strong features if they work as promised.
Google and Amazon have years of iteration behind the products and they sell them at aggressive price points under $100. Apple's Home Hub will need to do something those devices cannot and also do the same things that they do even better. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your support. If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly appreciate it.
It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never miss an episode. And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you caught up quickly. And please, if you want to support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stage Zero. And please take care of yourselves and each other. And I'll see you tomorrow.