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tvOS 18.4 Beta Further Hints at Apple's Work on Smart Home Hub

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In the latest beta of tvOS 18.4, there are new hints of Apple's work on a smart home hub accessory that's rumored to be coming as soon as this year. MacRumors found that Apple has added ChatKit framework to the tvOS code, which is curious as there is no Messages app available on the Apple TV or the HomePod.

Apple-AI-Command-Center-Concept-Mock-1-Textless.jpg

The ChatKit framework added to tvOS 18.4 includes reactions and notifications for tapback reactions added to iMessages, like "[person] disliked this" or [person] reacted with [emoji]," which would not be applicable to Apple's current devices that run tvOS.

Both the Apple TV and the HomePod are built on tvOS, and the upcoming smart home hub will be as well. While the Apple TV and HomePod would not work with the ChatKit code features added to tvOS 18.4, Apple's home accessory likely will.

The smart home "command center" that Apple is developing is expected to have built-in Apple apps, and it's possible that one of those apps will include Messages.

It is worth noting that there is a shared codebase for tvOS and iOS, so this addition could mean nothing, but these ChatKit features were already included in iOS and have just been added to tvOS with the tvOS 18.4 beta.

Apple's upcoming device will serve as a central hub for smart home management, but it will also support video calls, viewing photos, browsing the web, listening to music, getting news, and more. It is said to look something like an iPad with an all-display design, but it will be smaller, coming in at only six inches square.

Users will likely be able to set it on a table or mount it on a wall, and the expectation is that there would be multiples throughout the house. It will include some sensors for features like sensing the temperature or detecting nearby people.

There is no concrete word on when Apple's smart home hub will launch, but it could come in the second or third quarter of 2025.

Article Link: tvOS 18.4 Beta Further Hints at Apple's Work on Smart Home Hub
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/04/tvos-18-4-smart-home-hub-hints/
If they're going to do this, I'd like to see them refine the Home interfaces. Way too much frosted glass and weirdly shaped and responding touch targets.

And of course better Siri. I've found that on my phone, Siri for Home controls works consistently and very quickly. By contrast, I simply turned Siri off on the HomePods because it was neither quick nor reliable.
 
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Maybe we'll be able to indicate our likes and dislikes about what the characters are doing while we're watching programs on our Apple TV.
 
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CarAnalogy said:
If they're going to do this, I'd like to see them refine the Home interfaces. Way too much frosted glass and weirdly shaped and responding touch targets.

And of course better Siri. I've found that on my phone, Siri for Home controls works consistently and very quickly. By contrast, I simply turned Siri off on the HomePods because it was neither quick nor reliable.
Click to expand...
I bought 3 HomePod Minis and while they generally work well for setting timers (which I do a lot of), they're not much good at anything else. First of all, after having them for something like 3 years, all 3 of them constantly have this issue of "I'm having trouble connecting to the internet", but I have great coverage all over the house with an Eero mesh with 3 base stations and 2 beacons. I've got literally dozens of other devices connected to the same wifi and none of them have connection problems except the HomePods. Second, Siri still sucks at anything more than the bare basics. Too often she mis-understands the question/command, or offers the unhelpful "I can send that to your phone" response (which also fails half the time, and if I had had to look it up on my phone I wouldn't have asked in the first place).

So the bottom line is that while I've got an obscene number of Apple devices in my life, I am highly skeptical of another "sprinkle these around your house to make your life better" product line (don't even get me started on HomeKit).
 
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I wonder why articles about Apple's upcoming Home Command center still feature the design concept that isn't the one that the more "reliable rumors" say Apple has chosen, which apparently will be like a small iPad you can mount on a wall or set into a base that sits on a horizontal surface. Instead, we keep seeing these renders/prototypes of a device with a non-detachable base that you couldn't mount on a wall in any practical fashion. Not to mention that with the small size of the base shown on the design in the article's photo, it would tip over backwards if you were to tap near the upper edge of the display.
 
HiRez said:
I bought 3 HomePod Minis and while they generally work well for setting timers (which I do a lot of), they're not much good at anything else. First of all, after having them for something like 3 years, all 3 of them constantly have this issue of "I'm having trouble connecting to the internet", but I have great coverage all over the house with an Eero mesh with 3 base stations and 2 beacons. I've got literally dozens of other devices connected to the same wifi and none of them have connection problems except the HomePods. Second, Siri still sucks at anything more than the bare basics. Too often she mis-understands the question/command, or offers the unhelpful "I can send that to your phone" response (which also fails half the time, and if I had had to look it up on my phone I wouldn't have asked in the first place).

So the bottom line is that while I've got an obscene number of Apple devices in my life, I am highly skeptical of another "sprinkle these around your house to make your life better" product line (don't even get me started on HomeKit).
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Exactly this. It annoyed me more than anything when they would fail and start going off about checking my internet connection. Phone in hand literally feet from it has perfect connection and Siri works instantly there.

I think they made these things with cheap hardware, and in an era where they were still perfectly fine with Siri being awful. And clearly they can't be upgraded. Siri got better in iOS 17 and 18 on my phone, not so on the HomePods even though they have the same version number.
 
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I would buy Apple home smart devices if they could talk to each other.

I’m going back to dumb switches after upgrading to Brilliant smart switches 3 yrs ago. If the hardware isn’t failing the software is failing. I mean how does a switch work with the same Haiku fan in every room except one?! It makes no sense as it used to work fine until they updated the software.
 
I am really hopeful about this product/initiative here. There is quite a lot of potential. I'd love to see some of the following implemented:

- HomePods and HomePod Minis be updated to have a MagSafe ring at the top, then an optional accessory could be purchased to have an articulating arm that connects to the HomePod and an iPhone and iPad (iPads would need to have MagSafe in them) which can act as an additional HomePod device that displays info.
- Widgets on the AppleTV, so you can have the weather displayed, news, some third-party Apps like a small window displaying a Live Feed or a Security Camera from your house always displayed.
 
CarAnalogy said:
If they're going to do this, I'd like to see them refine the Home interfaces. Way too much frosted glass and weirdly shaped and responding touch targets.

And of course better Siri. I've found that on my phone, Siri for Home controls works consistently and very quickly. By contrast, I simply turned Siri off on the HomePods because it was neither quick nor reliable.
Click to expand...
Assuming there’s any legitimacy to the rumors of a visionOS stile redesign of Apple’s other operating systems, i’d actually expect even more frosted glass.
 
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CarAnalogy said:
If they're going to do this, I'd like to see them refine the Home interfaces. Way too much frosted glass and weirdly shaped and responding touch targets.
Click to expand...
The home app interface is quite different from the rest of Apple's design principles. My main gripe is how pairing home accessories takes your phone hostage, and there's no reason for this behavior. The devices can pair in the background. I am also interested to see if the experience changes with a new hub hardware.
 
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Good to hear about this. Expecting it to be revealed at WWDC. Availability might be much later.
 
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If this has a camera it's an instant buy. Something that can just be part of the home that can be easily used to facetime with others instead of having to muck around with continuity cam that only works half of the time reliably on aTV.
 
BigQJohnson said:
If this has a camera it's an instant buy. Something that can just be part of the home that can be easily used to facetime with others instead of having to muck around with continuity cam that only works half of the time reliably on aTV.
Click to expand...

It has been rumoured to have a camera for FaceTime calls, interestingly it's also rumoured to have doc accessories such as one for a night stand in the bedroom and a separate one for the kitchen.

I wonder if it will be like the Google Pixel tablet, connect magnetically to each dock.
 
McWetty said:
Please please please give me a reason to side arm my Echo Show 15 like a frisbee and replace it with something better from Apple.
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I feel your pain, we have a show 15 in the kitchen and half the time it’s simply useless. Half the time it gives the wrong recipes, plays the wrong songs and adds the wrong things to the shopping list. People say Siri is useless but at least it manages to preform those tasks at a better rate than Alexa (at least on my HomePod it does).
 
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mka2802 said:
Honestly, who needs this? I'm wondering how Apple does their market research... VisionPro, missing MagSafe on the 16e. lots of odd decisions
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Who needs an Amazon Alexa device? People still buy them, millions have been sold.
 
Let me get this straight, this device will be smaller than an iPad Mini but does mostly the same things, and the selling point is that it magnetically attaches to a base?
 
With that ChadKit framework this would be a wildly popular college frat house party-machine.
 
Dave245 said:
I feel your pain, we have a show 15 in the kitchen and half the time it’s simply useless. Half the time it gives the wrong recipes, plays the wrong songs and adds the wrong things to the shopping list. People say Siri is useless but at least it manages to preform those tasks at a better rate than Alexa (at least on my HomePod it does).
Click to expand...
My show performs fine, but it’s getting more and more aggressive with displaying sponsored content. And there’s no way to stop it. Not even PiHole. I didn’t drop $180 on a billboard for my kitchen.
 
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