Apple’s Smart Home Hub With Siri AI and Face Recognition Could Launch Next Month

Apple’s long-awaited smart home hub could be introduced “as early as next month,” according to Mark Gurman in the latest Power On newsletter (via Bloomberg). Gurman calls the device one of the most anticipated launches of CEO John Ternus’ early tenure, alongside the iPhone Duo and a still-pending touch-screen MacBook.

The device is dubbed J490 inside Apple and is reportedly being tested widely in employees’ homes. It has a roughly square screen, with versions that sit on a stand, resembling a HomePod mini chopped in half, or attach to a wall. Gurman says it is most similar to an Amazon Echo Show but with a considerably smaller screen.

Facial recognition through the front-facing camera lets the display identify who is looking at it and personalize apps, notes, calendar appointments, news, music, and podcasts. Apple is doing this without a standard Face ID-level depth sensor, and Gurman says that gives him confidence facial recognition could eventually come to the iPhone Duo, which currently relies on fingerprint-based Touch ID, even without the physical space typically required.

The killer feature is Siri, which Apple had planned to debut as far back as 2024 but could not launch until Siri AI was ready; Siri AI was formally released this month as part of iOS 27. On the hub, Siri can look up information across devices and accounts, play a podcast or song someone sent a while ago, find an image to display, carry out precise tasks in Notes, Reminders, and Calendar, and conduct complex searches within an Apple interface.

The hub runs a new operating system built around Siri AI, with a home screen, widgets, and clock faces similar to the Apple Watch or the iPhone Duo’s upgraded StandBy mode. The interface is a mashup of iOS, tvOS, and watchOS, and it syncs with an iPhone for setup, extending Apple’s push into Siri AI smart home devices.

It all fits CEO John Ternus’ “intelligent personal hub” vision, which positions the iPhone as the perfect AI device and anchor of mobile life, while the home hub, alongside a new HomePod mini and a TV set-top box with Siri AI, gives Apple a central role in the household, while the car remains the unresolved piece, along with what the price will be in Canada and beyond.