Apple’s ‘Welcome Home’ Event Is October 13: The Reported HomePad, HomePod Mini and Apple TV — and What Apple Has Actually Confirmed

Update — October 13: Apple has now made the day’s first fully confirmed hardware announcement: the Apple Home Collection, a smart home accessories lineup co-designed with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric — cameras, a walk-up-unlock deadbolt and thermostats, all in the Home app, arriving in December. Read our coverage of the announced lineup; the hub, HomePod mini and Apple TV hardware below remains reported until Apple confirms it.

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Today is the day, and it is worth starting with the one fact nobody has to label a rumor: Apple is holding its “Welcome Home” event today, Tuesday, October 13, in New York. Senior vice president Greg Joswiak announced it on October 8 with a short teaser, and, according to reporting by 9to5Mac cited across MacRumors, Gadgets 360 and Notebookcheck, journalists were invited to an in-person “Apple Experience” in Tribeca starting at 9 a.m. Eastern. Everything beyond that — every product name, screen size and price in this story — is reported, not confirmed, and we will keep it labeled that way all the way down.

That distinction matters more than usual today, because this is expected to be a hardware launch built entirely around software that has not shipped yet. According to Bloomberg reporting by Mark Gurman, as summarized by MacRumors and The MacRumors Show, Apple is expected to use the event to introduce a new smart-home hub, a refreshed HomePod mini and a new Apple TV 4K — three devices whose shared selling point is a rebuilt, AI-powered Siri. Gurman has reported that the hub was delayed while that assistant was finished, which is why a product category Apple has circled for years is only arriving now.

The reported hub: a screen for the home, reportedly called HomePad

The expected centerpiece is a smart display that multiple outlets, following Gurman’s reporting, have called the HomePad. MacRumors reported the device is expected to have a roughly 6-inch square touchscreen and to be offered in two forms: a tabletop version on a speaker base and a version designed to mount on a wall. TechBriefly, summarizing the same body of reporting, described a display in the 6-to-7-inch range, a new operating system referred to in reports as homeOS, and a dashboard modeled on the iPhone’s StandBy mode. None of those details — not the name, not the sizes, not the operating system — has been confirmed by Apple.

What the hub is reportedly for is clearer than what it is called. MacRumors reported it is designed as a shared household device: controlling smart-home accessories, making FaceTime calls, playing music and video, showing calendars, photos and the weather, and working as an intercom between rooms. The personalization is the reported differentiator. According to MacRumors and The Apple Post, the device is expected to use facial and voice recognition to identify who is in front of it and load that person’s profile, with a guest mode that keeps personal information private. RedShark News, in its preview, likewise described reported per-person personalization and a rumored A18-class chip. On price, MacRumors and RedShark News both put the reported starting figure at around $350 — a number Apple has not confirmed, and one readers should treat as a report until Apple publishes its own store page today.

One more naming wrinkle shows why the “reported” label matters: in the final days before the event, MacRumors reported that Gurman’s latest details suggested the hub might actually be named HomeView rather than HomePad. Two names, one unannounced product. By the end of today, Apple will settle it; until the company speaks, both names are reporting, not fact.

HomePod mini: reportedly the first update since 2020

The second expected device is smaller but arguably longer overdue. MacRumors reported that a second-generation HomePod mini is expected today — the first update to the speaker since the original debuted on October 13, 2020, exactly six years ago. According to MacRumors, the refreshed mini is rumored to add a newer chip that enables Siri AI support, improved sound, Apple’s N1 networking chip with Wi-Fi 7, a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, and new color options including pink and green, with no major design change expected. MacRumors also noted the current model’s price rose in June to $129 in the United States, up from $99 — context worth having when Apple announces whatever the new one costs.

Gadgets 360 and The Apple Post carried the same expected lineup in their previews, which is the pattern readers should look for today: independent outlets converging on the same reported details is a good sign a report is solid, but it is still not an announcement. Apple has a long history of letting a widely reported product slip a cycle, change a name, or arrive with different specifications than the rumor mill settled on.

Apple TV 4K and the Siri AI thread through everything

The third expected product is a new Apple TV 4K. MacRumors reported the box is rumored to move to an A19 or A19 Pro chip, add more memory, gain the same N1 networking chip, and ship with an updated Siri Remote, while keeping its current external design. The Apple Post similarly described substantially newer silicon intended to support Siri AI. Notebookcheck, in its event preview, added a detail from tvOS beta code suggesting the new box could pair with multiple HomePods as a surround-sound system — again, a code-based report, not an Apple confirmation.

Running through all three reported products is the same thread: Siri AI. Forkast, in its analysis of the event, reported that the full conversational Siri agent for home control may still roll out in stages after the hardware, with narrower features — such as notification summaries and natural-language camera search — arriving first. Whether that staging is right is one of the most important questions of the day, because a smart-home hub is only as good as the assistant inside it. Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest Hub, the rivals TechBriefly name-checked in its preview, have owned this countertop for years largely on the strength of assistants people already talk to.

There may also be more around the edges. The Apple Post reported that Apple has been developing smart-home accessories with LG — including a lock, thermostat, doorbell and cameras — but described those as expected to be previewed rather than released immediately, if they appear at all. Gadgets 360 reported a second Apple event could follow later in October focused on Macs and iPads; Apple has not confirmed that either. We track Apple’s home push in our preview of everything reported for today and our earlier ‘Welcome Home’ primer, and the wider AI race behind Siri’s rebuild in our roundup of a busy AI week.

By this afternoon, the reported column and the confirmed column will finally merge. Until Apple publishes its announcements, the honest summary is short: the event is confirmed, the smart-home focus is written into its name, and every product, price and specification above is a well-sourced report waiting for Apple to make it real.

More from the newsroom: everything reported for today’s event · the ‘Welcome Home’ primer · the busiest AI week of the fall