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The Apple Home Hub might look something like this concept design
AI image: ChatGPT/Cult of Mac

The long-rumored Apple home hub is shaping up to be the brain of your house. The smart display will reportedly expand Siri AI beyond your phone, using facial recognition to identify who it’s talking to.

The iPhone already serves as your personal AI hub. Now, Apple seems to want a second one for the whole household. And that shift could redefine how Siri handles daily life at home.

How the Apple home hub works

Apple CEO John Ternus outlined the idea of an “intelligent personal hub” at Apple’s Surprise and Shine event earlier this month, with the iPhone as the model for personal AI. The rumored Apple home hub would extend that same idea to the rest of the household.

The device, expected to arrive next month, reportedly will pack a small smart display designed to serve as the central control point for your home. It could combine HomeKit controls, video calls, media playback and personalized information with a more capable AI-powered Siri. 

The device is internally code-named J490, according to code found in macOS 26.7 Release Candidate. And it’s being tested inside Apple employees’ homes right now, according to Sunday’s Power On newsletter from Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman. 

The report says the hub will act as the center of the user’s connected life. It could manage smart devices like lights and thermostats, but also display recipes, make video calls and play music and video.

Two shapes, one screen

Gurman describes the device as a square display with thin bezels and rounded corners. He previously reported that the screen would measure roughly 7 inches, so it could be smaller than the iPad mini — closer in spirit to the Amazon Echo Show.

He says Apple built two versions of the hardware: One sits on a stand “resembling a HomePod mini chopped in half” and the other attaches to the wall using magnets.

Facial recognition without Face ID

The hub reportedly uses its front-facing camera to identify who’s in the room. That way, it personalizes notes, calendars, news, music and podcasts for every person in the household.

Gurman says Apple is doing this without a Face ID-level depth sensor. This approach could eventually let Apple bring facial recognition to the iPhone Duo without making room for a full sensor array.

• See also: Face ID could be coming to iPhone Duo — but you’ll need to be patient

Siri AI takes center stage

Gurman says the device’s home screen will come with widgets and clock faces. But the headline feature is Siri AI, which can pull information from across your devices and accounts on command.

Siri AI would serve as the home hub’s conversational digital assistant. Rather than requiring specific commands like Siri Classic does, an artificial intelligence-powered version would enable users to ask natural-language questions, control multiple HomeKit devices at once and get answers based on context.

No release date yet

The Bloomberg report says Apple’s home hub is coming soon, possibly as early as next month. But other reports sound less optimistic, with some launch predictions stretching into early 2027.