Apple HomeView Review: $300 Kitchen Display Tested Against Custom Dashboard

The Apple HomeView costs $300 and, in hands-on testing by Smart Home Solver, wins at exactly two kitchen jobs: recipe guidance and music playback. Everything beyond those tasks — smart home control, shared family use, widget flexibility — favors a custom Home Assistant dashboard built for the same room.

The review pits Apple's dedicated kitchen display against a self-built Home Assistant panel already mounted in the reviewer's kitchen. The verdict is split along a clear line: appliance versus platform.

How well does the HomeView handle cooking tasks?

Recipe assistance is the device's strongest workflow. A user holds an iPhone near the HomeView, and the recipe transfers to the display, reformatted as a step-by-step view with swipeable pages. A separate ingredients view stays accessible during cooking, and multiple timers run simultaneously, set either by tapping the screen or through Siri. Hands-free Siri navigation moves the cook forward through steps without touching the device.

FaceTime also works well in a kitchen context. The adjustable display and wide-angle camera can zoom in, follow the user, or widen the frame for group calls — a hands-free communication pattern suited to someone whose hands are occupied. The camera additionally recognizes faces and surfaces personalized apps and contacts for the identified user.

What does the audio deliver?

The HomeView's sound quality earned the review's most unqualified praise: clear, full, and well-suited to a kitchen. AirPlay integration works seamlessly, with intuitive playback controls and album artwork displayed on screen. The limitation is reach — the speakers lack the power to fill an entire house, so the device functions as a single-room audio source rather than a whole-home one.

Where do the widgets fail?

The widget system is the review's central technical finding, and it rests on one architectural constraint: widgets are extensions of a paired phone. If the phone is absent or disconnected, the widgets stop working. There is no app store, so users cannot add applications beyond the pre-installed set.

Third-party widget performance proved inconsistent in testing:

• Home Assistant automation widgets function correctly
• Home Assistant widgets displaying all entities fail to load
• The Home Assistant voice assistant widget does not work
• The YouTube search widget does not work

Widgets cannot be resized, and neither can buttons, which wastes screen space. The Google Calendar widget illustrates the problem: it renders at a very small fixed size and cannot be enlarged. Users add widgets by swiping up and selecting apps, but the layout control ends there.

Does face recognition switch users?

No. The camera recognizes faces to personalize apps and contacts, but widgets remain tied to the user who added them and do not switch between household members. For a shared family device — the HomeView's stated positioning — this is the decisive shortcoming. Widgets become inaccessible whenever the connected phone is not nearby, creating confusion in a multi-user kitchen.

The custom dashboard tested alongside it requires no phone connection and offers quick glances and taps without navigating deeper menus. The reviewer's household preferred it for shared use. The HomeView retains some features the custom build lacks, including Snoopy.

What are the physical design problems?

Two hardware issues emerged. The power cord is visible and difficult to conceal; Apple's own promotional video suggests drilling a hole in the countertop to hide it, a solution most users will find impractical. The square screen displays video with black bars unless the content is zoomed in, compromising playback.

Smart home integration is otherwise reasonable. The device offers three control views, integrates with Apple Home devices, supports Home Assistant hardware through Homebridge, and displays live camera feeds such as doorbell footage directly on screen.

What should buyers expect?

Reed, the reviewer, pre-ordered the HomeView — the first smart home device he has ever pre-ordered — and the host's advice is to lower expectations. The summary judgment: the HomeView is "a step above a potato" but "a really good potato," with its functionality anchored to a connected phone.

For households weighing the $300 outlay, the practical question is whether the device's cooking and FaceTime strengths justify a purchase whose widget layer may improve in future software updates Apple has not yet detailed.