Apple's $1,000 Robotic HomeView: A Smart Display That Follows You

Apple is reportedly planning a robotic smart display that could cost up to $1,000, according to a report from The Information — and the hardware has reportedly been finished for a couple of years already. The device, codenamed J595 and expected to be announced as early as 2027 with shipments starting in 2028, may carry the branding HomeView Ultra. What's holding it back isn't the arm or the screen. It's the software.

The timing is striking because Apple hasn't even shipped its first smart home display yet. The standard HomeView, a 7-inch smart panel starting at $299, goes on sale next week. It features a speaker that doubles as a stand, and Apple will also sell a wall-mounted option. Before the first unit reaches a customer's kitchen counter, reports are already circulating about its more ambitious successor.

What do we actually know about the 'HomeView Ultra'?

The details come from The Information, which reports that Apple is working on a higher-end smart display for 2027. The key specifications attributed to the report:

• Codename: J595
• Likely branding: HomeView Ultra
• Display: a 9-inch screen, larger than the 7-inch HomeView launching next week
• Price: up to $1,000
• Announcement: as early as 2027, with shipments starting in 2028
• Hardware: a robotic arm mounting the screen

The mechanical arm isn't a gimmick in search of a purpose, at least on paper. The display would swivel to track users during FaceTime calls, keeping them on-screen as they move around a room. That's the headline feature, but not the only one.

The report also indicates the device could support proactive smart home automations. Examples cited include turning on devices or triggering a room scene when someone walks into a room. In other words, the Ultra wouldn't wait for a command. It would react to presence and movement on its own.

The one-sentence version: Apple's next smart display would watch where you are, physically turn toward you, and act on your routines without being asked.

Why has a finished device been sitting on a shelf?

Here's the most revealing detail in the report. The Information says the hardware for the robotic display has been complete for a couple of years. The launch delays come down to software development issues.

Specifically, integrating advanced AI features and proactive automation has been a challenge for Apple, according to the report. That admission — or at least that reporting — matters beyond this one product. Apple has spent the past several years positioning itself around on-device intelligence, and a product whose core promise is anticipatory, movement-aware automation depends heavily on exactly that kind of AI working reliably.

A robotic arm that swivels the wrong way is an annoyance. A proactive system that triggers the wrong scene, or tracks the wrong person, is a trust problem. The gap between finished hardware and shippable software suggests Apple knows the difference, and isn't willing to launch the arm until the intelligence behind it catches up.

The takeaway: Apple built the easy part first, and the hard part — AI that can act proactively without misfiring — is what's keeping a $1,000 device in the lab.

Hasn't Amazon already tried this?

Yes, and that history is worth knowing. Amazon used to sell the Echo Show 10, a smart display with a screen that tracked users to keep them in the camera's view during video calls. That model has been discontinued.

So the concept of a swiveling, person-tracking smart display is not new, and its track record in the market is, at best, mixed. Amazon's exit from the form factor is the cautionary data point. Apple's bet, as ZDNET's reporting frames it, is that the calculus changes inside the Apple ecosystem — given the popularity of FaceTime calls and the prevalence of iPhone users, a robotic display that integrates natively could land differently than Amazon's version did.

That's a plausible argument. FaceTime is a default behavior for hundreds of millions of iPhone owners, and a device that keeps you framed during a call while you cook or tidy up solves a real, small friction. Whether that convenience justifies a price up to $1,000 — more than three times the $299 entry HomeView — is the question the market will answer in 2028.

In short: Apple is reprising a discontinued Amazon idea, betting that its ecosystem and FaceTime habits can succeed where the Echo Show 10 didn't.

Would people actually want a camera that follows them?

The report itself raises the discomfort. As ZDNET notes, there's reason to doubt whether most smart home users would welcome such technology in their homes or consider it too invasive. A screen that physically rotates to track your movements, combined with proactive automation triggered by your presence, asks a lot in terms of trust.

There's a meaningful distinction here. A wall-mounted camera is passive infrastructure. A device on an articulated arm that visibly turns to face you is a physical, visible act of tracking. Even users comfortable with a smart speaker's microphone may feel differently about a moving screen following them across a room.

At the same time, the broader signal in this report cuts the other way. Premium robotic smart displays, as ZDNET observes, indicate that companies are standardizing interactive central hubs for the home. The industry direction is toward a single, capable, screen-based command center — with Apple, Amazon, and Google all competing to be that hub. The robotic arm is Apple's attempt to make its hub physically present in a way competitors' flat panels aren't.

The plain-words takeaway: the privacy objection is real, but the industry has decided the smart home's future is a central screen — and Apple wants its screen to move.

What happens next?

The immediate milestone is next week, when the $299 HomeView reaches customers and Apple enters the smart display market for the first time. Its reception will shape the case for the Ultra.

The longer arc runs to 2027 and 2028. If The Information's reporting holds, Apple will announce a 9-inch, robotic-armed HomeView Ultra at up to $1,000, shipping the following year — provided the AI and proactive automation software that has delayed the project finally comes together. A finished device waiting years for its software to catch up tells you where Apple thinks the real bottleneck in smart home hardware now sits.