Apple's first smart home device, the HomeView, is here

• Apple’s first smart home device is here.
• The Apple HomeView is a new device with a screen and speaker that acts as a control hub for your connected home devices.
• It’s the latest attempt by Apple to make its ecosystem more “sticky,” or harder to leave.

Apple has officially entered into a new product category: the smart home.

The company on Tuesday announced the HomeView, a new AI-powered hub designed to reside in your home and control your connected home accessories. The device consists of a 7-inch Liquid Retina display that sits atop a domed speaker base and works with Siri AI. The device can be placed on a tabletop, and a separate model can be mounted to the wall.

“Apple HomeView is designed to be shared by everyone in the home yet feel completely personal to each user,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said in a statement.

The product, he said, “recognizes your face to shift from a household screen to your own experience, fills the room with incredible sound, keeps you connected to the people who matter most with FaceTime, and makes it easy to control your smart home.”

HomeView can recognize up to six people and surface personal content for the user in front of it, such as messages, calendar information, and apps.

It draws on “personal context from your iPhone to help you find what you need and get more done, all while keeping everyone’s information private and secure,” Joswiak said.

The device is priced at $299, with preorders opening Tuesday ahead of a November 13 launch.

Part of Apple’s new smart home lineup

HomeView anchors Apple Home Collection, a new lineup of smart home cameras, thermostats, and a lock that Apple developed in collaboration with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric.

As a smart home dashboard, the device can display camera feeds, adjust thermostats and lights, lock doors, and close blinds using touchscreen or voice commands.

Apple said it can livestream up to nine video feeds at once.

“With a supported iCloud+ subscription, HomeView works with compatible cameras to deliver intelligent, end-to-end encrypted recognition of people, familiar faces, pets, packages, and vehicles, notifying the household the moment someone arrives at the front door,” Apple said.

HomeView marks the second major new device announced under new Apple CEO John Ternus, who took over for Tim Cook in September ahead of the company’s iPhone event. At that event, Ternus also unveiled the first folding smartphone, the iPhone Duo, which begins preorders later this week.

Apple has long supported the smart home ecosystem with its HomeKit standard that third-party device makers could choose to use to help their devices more seamlessly integrate with the iPhone. The HomeView underscores that Apple views the smart home market as one worth competing in with its own hardware.

If the new device takes off, a consumer moving outside the Apple ecosystem — or “breaking up with Apple” for Amazon or Samsung or Google or another rival — becomes a harder decision. Apple is famous for deeply integrated software and hardware.

This is a developing story…