MKBHD Calls Apple’s HomeView a Skip for Most People

Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) isn’t sold on Apple’s new HomeView smart home hub. In his HomeView impressions video, he says he spent a day with the $300 display and still can’t place its audience: “I cannot figure any group that this is actually ideal for.”

Brownlee calls the facial-recognition account switching “actually pretty clever,” and notes the 7-inch display and iPhone handoff work well. His bigger issues are price and positioning. HomeView starts at $300 for both the tabletop and wall-mounted models—above Google’s Nest Hub Max ($229) and Amazon’s Echo Hub ($179)—while the wall unit drops the tabletop’s subwoofer and needs a separate mount ($60–$130). There’s no App Store; third-party media rides CarPlay-style casting from a phone.

His first-impressions verdict: “I think it’s a skip for most people. But maybe the second generation … can be more convincing.” That’s one reviewer’s early take after the Oct. 13 Welcome Home unveil—not a market forecast. Apple lists HomeView at $299 in the U.S., with availability set for Nov. 13.

Sources: MKBHD on YouTube, Dexerto