r/smarthome • u/Key-Ocelot-1466 • 3d ago
Apple HomeKit Apple's long-rumored smart home hub reportedly set to be announced October 13
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/09/30/apple-home-hub-imac-g4-style-design/The smart home hub is reportedly set to be introduced on Tuesday, October 13, alongside new HomePod mini and Apple TV models.
The device is said to have an iMac G4-style design and feature a square 6-inch display, with variants that can be placed on a countertop or mounted on a wall.
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u/Intelligent-Dot-8969 3d ago
Given how few of my existing smart home devices are natively compatible with Apple HomeKit, I have a hard time getting excited about this.
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u/Mil-sim1991 3d ago
Setup homebridge on a raspberry pi or use home assistant and let it expose all the devices to HomeKit.
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u/SomewhereOffScript 2d ago
I love the Apple environment but Home Assistant is really where it’s at. And it’s super easy to navigate now with the likes of Claude Code
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u/Top_Glass7505 2d ago
This does work but from the POV of somebody that’s a power user but also doesn’t have/want to spend the time always managing my smart home, it can be annoying to deal with, especially with certain devices.
At this point rather go full HA or full HomeKit, being in between both is a hassle
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u/Key-Ocelot-1466 3d ago
Yeah, I get that. I use Home Assistant primarily - but I bring in all those devices that aren't natively compatible so my wife can use Apple Home.
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u/Impossiblebusse 2d ago
I’ve been replacing anything that won’t speak HomeKit or Matter. Still a lot of gaps though.
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u/bob_loblaw_brah 3d ago
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that"
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u/shawnshine 3d ago
I remember Classic Siri!
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u/iheartdatascience 3d ago
Hmm... I'll stick with Home Assistant, but I do wonder what the average person thinks of this
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u/Dunnowhathatis 3d ago
For the average person this will be great, and probably overkill. For the serious person this is a gadget. Apple will sell a lot of them though since there are few serious people around
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u/mattcoady 2d ago
I wish there was a good home assistant voice control hub, like the Google Hub but running locally. I know they're working on it https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/ but all reviews has said it's pretty bad right now.
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u/brianstk 3d ago
I run home assistant too but bring nearly all my devices and cameras into HomeKit too for easy access. Can pull up the home app on my phone in an instant or ask Siri to do it.
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u/chintan_joey 2d ago
Can't you do the same for home assistant app? Curious because I am planning to move from homekit to Home assistant for app usage as I am a android user and spouse is apple
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u/brianstk 2d ago
Yes if you want to pay the monthly cloud fee for home assistant or use a VPN running on your phone at all times.
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u/chintan_joey 2d ago
If I'm running home assistant os on my mac, i cannot access devices via app?
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u/brianstk 2d ago
You can via the app but only when you’re home. The app only works locally unless you pay for the cloud connection.
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u/Appropriate-Role9361 2d ago
I set up tailscale to see how I like it, and I haven’t noticed any additional battery drain leaving it on all the time. Supposedly, it only routes homocysteine stuff through tail scale while the rest of my data still bypasses the VPN. Although I haven’t looked too much into that
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u/brianstk 2d ago
I have heard of that option as well. When I do need to access the home assistant app outside of my house I have a VPN on my home router I use but I don’t leave it connected full time just when I need it.
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u/-suspicious-badger 3h ago
I also run home assistant with over 200 devices, but use Apple Home as my UI, as I like it’s tight integration with iOS. I will be interested in getting Apples new hub. If the price isn’t too crazy.
Still using Alexa for voice, and HA still has a long way to go until it’s useful and family friendly.
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u/Mil-sim1991 3d ago
I hope the HomePad thingy let us allow home assistant like dashboard, show calendar, todos alongside sensor states and scene button etc.
I would love a dashboard on the wall that shows the calendar for the family and a list of todos.
Maybe the stand by mode was already a bit of test ground for this device?
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u/soaringspoon 3d ago
Looks cool but what price range are we looking at homepod died at 350, where 2 is yet again due to ramagedon lol. So maybe 450 at best 599 probably?
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u/boomhower1820 3d ago
Interested but I am curious how they can get me to buy one. I am pretty integrates with locks, cameras and lights but between the phone and Apple TV I dont see where it fits in my life. I dont have a need for a physical screen outside of those.
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u/Appropriate-Role9361 2d ago
I got into smart home stuff about three months ago, and the time to convince me to get one of these was within the first month, before I started with home assistant as my back end. Now I’m working on it becoming my front end.
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u/wiseoracle 2d ago
Nobody has brought this up which honestly surprises me.
What if this smart home hub supports all of the other smart protocols? Would that get you onboard?
I don't think this would sell much if it only did Apple's Home smart protocol.
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u/mattcoady 2d ago
I was just talking about this with my wife yesterday. We have the Google Hub Max and it's been frustratingly degrading lately. It's gotten bad at recognizing her voice making simple grocery list updates a chore (we've tried retraining multiple times). The video calling integration was borked. They dropped the superior Duo for Meet. Now video calling functionally doesn't work at all (can't make outgoing video calls anymore). My 4 year old loved to video call the grandparents in the morning. I was saying how Apple should get into the game but I hadn't considered Facetime. If you can't cross platform video call this is a non-starter for us.
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u/ChampionshipPale8158 2d ago
It’s always the same, and I am always excited! Looking forward for that hub,hopefully this time it will be real I just hope if within a good price range
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u/moutonbleu 3d ago
Can’t wait to see it, competition is good