Will Siri AI Make The New Apple TV 4K And HomePod Mini Must-Have Upgrades?

Apple's Welcome Home event has seen the Cupertino company announce its biggest foray into the home yet, with a suite of new smart home products and Siri AI as the marquee feature. Whether or not that feature alone is enough to sell smart home gear is debatable, but Apple's aggressive new push into the smart home market is also anchored by two long overdue refreshes: The new Apple TV 4K and the HomePod Mini 2. Apple hasn't updated its Apple TV hardware offerings since 2022, and the HomePod Mini has languished without an update since 2020.

The much-needed refresh to Apple's TV streaming box includes migrating to the A19 chip, the same Apple Silicon found in the iPhone 17 lineup, which is a noticeable upgrade over the A15 found in the 2022 model. The HomePod Mini 2 will be powered by Apple's S10 chip from the Apple Watch Series 10, moving on from the aging S5 found in the original 2020 HomePod Mini, and allowing support for Apple Intelligence and Siri AI. The Apple TV 4K and the HomePod Mini 2 can also be paired together, with support for up to four HomePod Mini speakers to create four-speaker surround sound.

The Apple TV 4K and HomePod Mini 2 can both be pre-ordered starting today. The HomePod Mini 2 will cost $149, while the Apple TV 4K will cost $299. Apple's Siri AI is front and center for both products, but will also serve as two pieces to what Apple is framing as a holistic smart home ecosystem that is centered around the new $299 HomeView smart home hub and the new Apple Home Collection – which includes Apple's first ever smart locks, cameras, and thermostat.

Apple's renewed push into the smart home market will be heavily shaped by Siri AI. Apple notes that Siri AI "understands you better than ever, drawing on personal context and broad world knowledge" to shape and personalize how you interact with these devices. Apple claims that with a more capable and conversational Siri AI, it can act on personal context for a number of things: music discovery, playing messages, finding song recommendations, and novel ways to learn about new movies and shows. Many of these features will require Apple Intelligence supported iPhones or iPads, but Apple says even those without them can still benefit.

The HomePod Mini 2 can also be paired with a Mac and comes in matching colors, and the new Sound Glow feature promises a color-matched pulsing light that is unique to each song and album artwork. The new Apple TV 4K features three far-field microphones that enable users to control the box hands-free, and the new Siri Remote also has Find My support, which should make it easier to dig out of the couch. Apple notes that both products have been designed in accordance with the company's plans to hit carbon neutrality by 2030, using 100-percent recycled rare earth elements and magnets.

Smart home integration and management is a big part of these refreshes. Users can control devices with their voice via the HomePod Mini 2, and the speaker can also serve as a home hub. The Apple 4K TV can also act as a home hub, showing alerts and notifications from supported devices – like seeing who's at the door and unlocking it – without interrupting what's being watched on the TV. Apple TV 4K also supports HomeKit Secure Video, automations, guest mode, Wi-Fi, and Thread.

Like every other company, Apple is betting big on AI and making it a core pillar of its product philosophy going forward. You'd be forgiven for thinking that Apple had abandoned both Apple TV and the HomePod Mini, but now we can see why it took so long: Siri AI. Apple has spent years toiling away at developing Apple Intelligence and subsequently overhauling Siri to take advantage of it. Siri AI was originally promised at WWDC 2024, and was shown off at WWDC 2026. Apple then formally rolled out Siri AI to the public along with its 2027 software generation on September 14th. It's no coincidence that a month later, Apple is ready to raise the curtains on a new line of smart home products.

Apple seems remarkably confident in Siri AI, judging by how heavily it's being marketed here. Whether Siri AI makes the Apple TV 4K and HomePod Mini 2 must-haves largely depends on how you feel about Siri AI. Some of us here at SlashGear feel that Siri AI was worth the wait — I'm not one of them. Apple devices usually sell themselves, thanks to a mix of the ecosystem prison and lifestyle branding. Apple has a captive iPhone customer base who have wanted an Apple-powered smart home platform for years, and with Apple's penchant for integration and continuity across its hardware and software, I'm not convinced many Apple customers are going to buy these devices for the AI features.

Apple is also years behind Google and Amazon, but interestingly enough, it's coming into the market at a time when those platforms are also shifting to AI. Siri AI not only has to prove itself to customers, but also prove its worth using instead of Gemini or Alexa. Time will tell.