Look for new smart home products at Apple’s October 13 ‘Welcome Home’ event

As anticipated, Apple has announced a special event for Tuesday, October 13. It’s dubbed “Welcome Home.”

The event will be held at 9 am (Eastern). You can find a teaser video from Greg Joswiak, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, here. 

Apple almost certainly announce its long-rumored home hub, new HomePod minis, and a new Apple TV set-top box. On his first Power On podcast, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman said Apple’s upcoming home hub will tailor its display and data to different users using AI facial recognition instead of Face ID.

He didn’t say why Apple is making that decision. Gurman does says the the AI recognition tech being used is very technical.

“HomePad” is the rumored name of Apple’s upcoming home hub. It’s expected to have a speaker (of course), a 7-inch display, an operating system that’s built around Siri AI that looks “like a mashup of iOS and watchOS.”

The new ‌HomePod mini‌ and ‌Apple TV‌ set-top box aren’t expected to have any designs changes, but will pack faster processors to support Siri AI. The new ‌HomePod mini‌ will also purportedly come in five colors: green, pink, blue, white, and black. The current model comes in yellow, orange, blue, white, and midnight. 

The new Apple TV set-top box should include an A17 Pro chip or newer, an increased 8GB of RAM, Apple Intelligence and Siri AI support, an Apple-designed N1 chip with Wi-Fi 7 support, and a revised Siri Remote.

At the “Welcome Home” event, Apple will likely also officially announce a new partnership with LG. The two companies teaming for new smart home devices, including a lock, doorbell, indoor camera, thermostat, and more, according to a report from Gurman.

The products will be part of an ecosystem of devices that work with Apple’s new smart home hub, as well as an upgraded HomePod mini and refreshed Apple TV set-top box, the article adds, quoting unnamed “people with knowledge of the matter.”

I hope you’ll help support Apple World Today by becoming a patron. Almost all our income is from Patreon support and sponsored posts. Patreon pricing ranges from $2 to $10 a month. Thanks in advance for your support.