tvOS 18.4 Beta Further Hints at Apple's Work on Smart Home Hub

Tuesday March 4, 2025 2:50 pm PST by Juli Clover

In the latest beta of tvOS 18.4, there are new hints of Apple's work on a smart home hub accessory that's rumored to be coming as soon as this year. MacRumors found that Apple has added ChatKit framework to the tvOS code, which is curious as there is no Messages app available on the Apple TV or the HomePod.

Apple AI Command Center Concept Mock 1 Textless
The ChatKit framework added to tvOS 18.4 includes reactions and notifications for tapback reactions added to iMessages, like "[person] disliked this" or [person] reacted with [emoji]," which would not be applicable to Apple's current devices that run tvOS.

Both the ‌Apple TV‌ and the ‌HomePod‌ are built on tvOS, and the upcoming smart home hub will be as well. While the ‌Apple TV‌ and ‌HomePod‌ would not work with the ChatKit code features added to tvOS 18.4, Apple's home accessory likely will.

The smart home "command center" that Apple is developing is expected to have built-in Apple apps, and it's possible that one of those apps will include Messages.

It is worth noting that there is a shared codebase for tvOS and iOS, so this addition could mean nothing, but these ChatKit features were already included in iOS and have just been added to tvOS with the tvOS 18.4 beta.

Apple's upcoming device will serve as a central hub for smart home management, but it will also support video calls, viewing photos, browsing the web, listening to music, getting news, and more. It is said to look something like an iPad with an all-display design, but it will be smaller, coming in at only six inches square.

Users will likely be able to set it on a table or mount it on a wall, and the expectation is that there would be multiples throughout the house. It will include some sensors for features like sensing the temperature or detecting nearby people.

There is no concrete word on when Apple's smart home hub will launch, but it could come in the second or third quarter of 2025.

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Top Rated Comments

Dave245

16 months ago

I'm actually looking forward to this, Apple need to do more in the Home space.

Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)

HiRez

16 months ago

If they're going to do this, I'd like to see them refine the Home interfaces. Way too much frosted glass and weirdly shaped and responding touch targets.

And of course better Siri. I've found that on my phone, Siri for Home controls works consistently and very quickly. By contrast, I simply turned Siri off on the HomePods because it was neither quick nor reliable.

I bought 3 HomePod Minis and while they generally work well for setting timers (which I do a lot of), they're not much good at anything else. First of all, after having them for something like 3 years, all 3 of them constantly have this issue of "I'm having trouble connecting to the internet", but I have great coverage all over the house with an Eero mesh with 3 base stations and 2 beacons. I've got literally dozens of other devices connected to the same wifi and none of them have connection problems except the HomePods. Second, Siri still sucks at anything more than the bare basics. Too often she mis-understands the question/command, or offers the unhelpful "I can send that to your phone" response (which also fails half the time, and if I had had to look it up on my phone I wouldn't have asked in the first place).

So the bottom line is that while I've got an obscene number of Apple devices in my life, I am highly skeptical of another "sprinkle these around your house to make your life better" product line (don't even get me started on HomeKit).

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Weaselboy

16 months ago

My show performs fine, but it’s getting more and more aggressive with displaying sponsored content. And there’s no way to stop it. Not even PiHole. I didn’t drop $180 on a billboard for my kitchen.

Yep... I had two and sold them both because of all the ads.

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Dave245

16 months ago

Please please please give me a reason to side arm my Echo Show 15 like a frisbee and replace it with something better from Apple.

I feel your pain, we have a show 15 in the kitchen and half the time it’s simply useless. Half the time it gives the wrong recipes, plays the wrong songs and adds the wrong things to the shopping list. People say Siri is useless but at least it manages to preform those tasks at a better rate than Alexa (at least on my HomePod it does).

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)