Apple’s “Welcome Home” Event Is Today: HomePad Smart Display, HomePod Mini 2, and New Apple TV 4K — What to Expect
Apple has spent years watching Amazon and Google fight over your living room while it sat the biggest battle in consumer tech out. That ends today. Apple’s “Welcome Home” event kicks off at 9 a.m. ET (6 p.m. PKT) in Tribeca, New York — and the star of the show is the Apple HomePad, the company’s first true smart home hub. If the reporting is right, this could be the most important new Apple product category in years.
Three products are expected, according to reporting from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, MacRumors and 9to5Mac: the brand-new HomePad display, the first refresh of the HomePod mini since 2020, and a heavily upgraded Apple TV 4K. All three are built around Siri AI — and all three were reportedly delayed until the new Siri was ready. Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak teased the whole thing last week with a short video on X showing hands stitching the retro rainbow Apple logo into fabric, captioned simply: “Welcome home. October 13.”
The HomePad: Apple’s first true smart home hub
The Apple HomePad is the one that matters most. This isn’t another speaker with a voice assistant bolted on. By all accounts, it’s a brand-new product category for Apple: a roughly 6-inch square touchscreen display — a cross between an iPad and a HomePod — designed to sit at the center of your house and be used by everyone in it.
The hardware story is charmingly Apple. Two versions are expected: a wall-mountable model and a tabletop one with a half-dome speaker base that deliberately echoes the 2002 iMac G4. There’s no battery — like Google’s Nest Hub and Amazon’s Echo Show, it’s meant to stay plugged in. Inside, an A18 chip or newer powers Apple Intelligence, with the new Siri AI as the tentpole feature. It will reportedly run a new operating system — possibly called “homeOS” — with clock faces, widgets and shared household information.
But the clever stuff is in how it behaves. A camera and presence sensor will reportedly recognize who’s in the room and surface a personalized layout of widgets, apps, news, calendar items and FaceTime controls — and the size of the interface elements will adjust as you approach or walk away. Voice is expected to be the main way you interact with it: “Hey Siri, dim the lights,” that sort of thing — but with a twist. The HomePad can reportedly tell who is talking. That sounds trivial until you say “call Mom” and realize the device has to figure out whose mom you mean.
Preinstalled apps are said to include Calendar, Camera, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Apple News, Reminders, Notes and a new Siri app with Siri AI conversation history. One notable omission: don’t expect an App Store at launch. Third-party apps are reportedly off the table for now, which means the HomePad lives or dies on what Apple itself builds for it — a very Apple gamble.
HomePod mini 2: six years in the waiting
The original HomePod mini arrived in 2020 and then, characteristically, Apple left it alone for six years. The second generation is finally expected today — and this time, it’s less about the hardware shape and more about the brains.
According to Gurman’s reporting, the HomePod mini 2 gets a faster S-series chip and Apple’s new N1 networking chip for better connectivity, alongside improved sound. The big change is invisible: support for the new Siri AI experience, which is supposed to make the little sphere actually useful instead of occasionally baffling. New colors are also rumored — green and pink joined the palette. The design itself is expected to stay close to the current model. Why fix what isn’t broken?
Apple TV 4K gets its biggest upgrade in years
The third expected product is a new Apple TV 4K — and this one might be the sleeper hit of the day. Reports point to an A19-series chip (or its Pro variant), substantially more RAM, the N1 networking chip and an upgraded Siri Remote, all wrapped in a box that looks roughly like the current one. The silicon jump matters: this box isn’t just for streaming movies anymore. With Siri AI on board, it becomes a voice-first hub for the whole room.
Here’s a detail worth pausing on. Code found in the tvOS 27.2 beta suggests the new Apple TV will be able to pair with up to four HomePods as a surround sound system. Combine that with the HomePad, and you can see the shape of Apple’s actual strategy: not three separate products, but one living room that all talks to itself.
The real story: Siri AI goes to war for your living room
Step back from the spec sheets and the real story is obvious. These three products were reportedly delayed while Apple finished its new Siri — which tells you this event is, at its core, a Siri event wearing a hardware costume. Apple is betting that an AI assistant that actually works can be the thing that ties the whole house together.
The timing is pointed. Amazon just pushed hard into the living room with new Alexa+ tablets running its upgraded assistant, and Google’s assistant has been rebuilt around Gemini. Meanwhile, the bar for what an AI can do keeps rising — just look at OpenAI’s GPT-6 rollout, which turned ChatGPT into something that builds interactive tools instead of just answering questions. Apple is entering a fight where the competitors already have years of head start and millions of devices in homes.
So what does Apple have that they don’t? Two things, honestly. First, the ecosystem: hundreds of millions of iPhone owners who already use HomeKit accessories, Apple Music and FaceTime. Second, privacy. A camera in your living room that recognizes your face is a much easier sell when the company behind it has spent a decade marketing itself as the one that doesn’t sell your data. Whether the new Siri is genuinely good enough to beat Alexa and Gemini — that’s the question today’s event has to answer.
And let’s be fair about the risk: Apple has been late to this party before. The original HomePod launched in 2018, years after the Echo, and it never really caught on beyond Apple loyalists. The HomePad is Apple’s second swing at the idea, and second swings don’t always connect.
Pricing, timing, and the LG wild card
What will all this cost? The only number floating around is roughly $350 for the HomePad — and even the sources reporting it stress that it’s unconfirmed. Given that it’s meant to be bought in multiples (Apple reportedly pictures buyers placing one in several rooms), the real price will decide whether this is a mainstream product or a luxury experiment.
Don’t expect a traditional keynote: Apple is pairing an online presentation with an in-person “Apple Experience” for invited press in New York at 9 a.m. ET (6 p.m. PKT).
Then there’s the wild card. Apple has reportedly been co-developing smart home accessories with LG — a smart lock, thermostat, doorbell and security cameras, with iPhone proximity controls and NFC-based setup discovered in Apple’s own code. Those are expected to be previewed rather than released, still months from stores. But they confirm this isn’t a one-day push: Apple is building an ecosystem, not just shipping gadgets.
Frequently asked questions
What time is Apple’s “Welcome Home” event today?
The event begins at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, October 13 — that’s 6:00 p.m. Pakistan time (PKT). It’s being held as an “Apple Experience” in Tribeca, New York, paired with an online presentation.
What is the Apple HomePad?
The HomePad is Apple’s long-rumored first smart home hub: a roughly 6-inch square touchscreen display, reportedly running a new homeOS with Siri AI, multi-user support, FaceTime, widgets and smart home controls. Two versions are expected — wall-mountable and a tabletop model with an iMac G4-style speaker base.
How much will the HomePad cost?
The rumored price is around $350, but that figure is unconfirmed. Apple hasn’t announced pricing, and we’ll likely only know for sure once the event wraps up today.
Will the HomePad have an App Store?
Reportedly not at launch. Sources say third-party apps won’t be available initially, so the device will rely on Apple’s own built-in apps — Calendar, Music, News, the new Siri app and others — until and unless Apple opens it up.
The bottom line
Apple doesn’t do new product categories often, and it doesn’t do them casually. The HomePad, the HomePod mini 2 and the new Apple TV 4K add up to the company’s first serious attempt to own the smart home — and the whole bet rests on whether the new Siri AI is finally the assistant Apple has been promising for a decade. If it is, today is the day Apple walked through the front door of your house. If it isn’t, it’s another expensive lesson in being late. We’ll know by this evening. Storion will have the full rundown of what Apple actually announced once the event wraps.