These 3 New Apple Smart Home Products Could Arrive In October, Leaker Says

Following the announcement of the iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro models, AirPods 5, and new Apple Watch updates, Apple is already preparing for another big release in October, this time focusing on smart home products. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple CEO John Ternus is readying his push for an all-new smart home hub, which has long been rumored to be introduced by Apple, the first update to the HomePod mini since its debut, and the fourth generation of the Apple TV 4K. The main feature of all of these products, per Bloomberg, is Siri AI, introduced with iOS 27 and set to expand to new languages in the coming months.

Siri AI was at first promised during the WWDC 2024 keynote as part of the Apple Intelligence announcements. While Apple was able to deliver basic AI features, it was only with the help of exclusive Google Gemini models combined with Apple's Foundation Models and Private Cloud Computing that Siri was finally released.

As the star of these products, this new Siri will be responsible for tapping into people's personal information, such as messages, e-mails, notes, and photos, and helping you with on-screen data, Visual Intelligence, which could teach you how to do a recipe based on what you show the device, in addition to other tools like creating shortcuts with natural language, including automations for home, proper Genmoji, Writing Tools, and Image Playground. Here's what Apple is expected to announce in October (and no, new Macs aren't expected for now).

After years of delays due to the lackluster Siri, this all-new smart home hub will feature a 6-inch square display that can sit on a countertop, resembling the iMac G4—similar to a robot prototype Apple itself leaked—or mount on a wall. The device is expected to be as thick as an iPhone with a big black bezel that resembles an old iPad. According to Bloomberg, this smart home hub will help several people in a household by recognizing them by voice or when they approach the product. Depending on who is nearby, this device will tap people's contacts, messages, calendar appointments, and other data.

Bloomberg says Apple will offer facial recognition that is less reliable than Face ID, so users might need to authenticate information on their iPhone if they don't want to use only voice or their face. According to the publication, Apple envisions users placing several of these products across the house so people can communicate through it, watch videos, make FaceTime calls, and so on.

As for the first generation, Apple is focusing on a main front-facing camera and several microphones and speakers. No rear camera is expected. The device will likely need to be plugged in at all times, and it will be available in standard gray aluminum. The display will be tiltable forward or backward. In the future, Apple will release a larger 9-inch display version with a robotic arm with 360 degrees of freedom.

Introduced in 2020, Apple has never updated the hardware inside the HomePod Mini. While the company has refreshed some of these speaker colors over the years, Bloomberg suggests the new version will look similar to the current iteration, but with new colors and improved processors. Among the new options, the HomePod should come in green and pink, which should be added to the dark and silver models. While the journalist doesn't mention which processor the new HomePod mini will feature, it says that it will be enough to support Siri's powerful AI models.

If that turns out to be accurate, it will be interesting to see whether Apple would be willing to add an A17 Pro or an M1 chip to this speaker, along with 8GB of RAM, since these are currently the minimum requirements for Apple Intelligence. While the company could say a device focused only on audio might not need a chip that powerful or that much RAM, we'll still have to wait for the official announcement.

That said, Apple already raised prices for the HomePod mini a few months back, so a new generation might not be costlier. Still, it's a bit concerning that we haven't heard news about the speakers' audio capabilities. After all, the HomePod mini already costs more than most speakers of its size, while lacking bass and a fulfilling sound. Even if this generation brings Siri AI, a poor audio experience might make this device a failure.

In the same report, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests that the fourth generation of the Apple TV 4K is coming in October. According to the journalist, Apple will also include a faster processor to support the new Siri AI, but the design should remain the same. Since the current Apple TV has an A-series processor, it's not far-fetched to imagine Apple adding the iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro chip to this new machine, along with 8GB of RAM.

So far, Apple has been really quiet about the Apple TV and tvOS 27. While we were finally listing some features that arrived for the Apple TV with this big software update, Apple doesn't highlight them on its operating systems webpage, and the current setup makes it weird that the Apple TV is the only platform without Apple Intelligence or Siri AI.

According to MacRumors, leaked data suggests a new model will be released soon. While the exterior design should be the same, this new version will likely get Apple's N1 connectivity chip with Wi-Fi 7 support and a revised Siri Remote. Right now, it's unclear what's new with this Siri Remote, even though proper Find My support has been a feature request for years. We also hope that once Apple introduces the new Apple TV, the company will speak more openly about tvOS 27 and whether this set-top box will also support new image and audio capabilities from the latest TVs and projectors.