HomeView needs an iPhone or iPad for some AI features

Despite having an A18 chip and built-in Apple Intelligence support, Apple’s new HomeView still depends on an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad for several features.

According to Apple’s announcement, Siri queries involving personal context require an Apple Intelligence-enabled paired iPhone or ‌iPad‌ running the latest software, with ‌Siri‌ AI enabled and set to a supported language. These features include retrieving relevant information from messages and calendar, as well as taking actions in apps using the user’s personal context.

HomeView will still offer several ‌Siri‌ AI features to users whose iPhone or ‌iPad‌ does not support ‌Apple Intelligence‌. Apple says these users can ask general knowledge questions, have natural conversations with ‌Siri‌, and benefit from enhanced music discovery. ‌Siri‌ requests on HomeView can be handled on-device or via Private Cloud Compute.

Customizable ‌Siri‌ voices have more restrictive hardware requirements. Users can only adjust ‌Siri‌’s expressiveness and speaking rate on their paired device, with these preferences then carried over to HomeView. This requires an iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, or ‌iPad‌ with an M4 chip or later and at least 12GB of unified memory. The feature is available in English only.

Some HomeView smart camera features also depend on another Apple device. Video summaries and natural language searches for HomeKit secure video recordings require setup using an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or ‌iPad‌ and an eligible iCloud+ subscription.

The HomeView launches on November 13, with the tabletop and wall-mounted models priced at $299 in the United States.