Siri’s AI lags ChatGPT, Claude as Apple enters smart home market
Apple on Tuesday announced a $299 HomeView smart home hub alongside updated HomePod speakers and a line of smart-home accessories developed with LG Electronics, in a new push under Chief Executive John Ternus. The accessories include a thermostat, video doorbell, door lock, and indoor and outdoor security cameras.
The smart-home push is part of Ternus’s strategy to expand the product line and draw consumers deeper into the Apple ecosystem, and the Journal wrote that it gives Apple’s new chief executive a chance to reinvigorate a stalled category. Apple already has announced the foldable iPhone Duo, which goes on sale in 10 days, and the company is expected to release new variants of other core products soon, the Journal reported.
The global market for smart home displays is both small and shrinking, and the Journal wrote that it seems ripe for reinvention. Research firm IDC estimates that sales in 2025 were $2.3 billion, down from $2.5 billion in 2023.
Amazon and Google are the top players, but their products come with limitations, the Journal reported. The Amazon Echo Show displays ads that can’t be turned off, Google hasn’t released a new Nest Hub device since 2021, and the two companies’ added artificial-intelligence features haven’t reignited sales. In China, the largest player, Baidu, shipped half as many smart displays last year compared with 2023 — all of which, the paper said, suggests Apple has an opening.
“Apple is late to the game in this market segment,” said Elizabeth Parks of research firm Parks Associates, who noted the company has lots of fans who reflexively buy its products. “The loyalty play is huge for Apple. That puts the company in a unique position to capture customers in the home.”
That is especially true, Parks added, if Apple’s hub and its companion LG devices just work easily. Consumers have long complained about how much of a pain smart devices are to set up and later troubleshoot when they go offline — friction that has stalled growth as people cobble together smart systems from a variety of vendors.
Michael Levin of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners said Apple “is still fighting an uphill battle.” His firm’s survey data shows Amazon has captured two-thirds of the U.S. market and that once families install smart speakers and other smart-home devices, it is hard to get them to switch ecosystems, according to the Journal.
Whether Apple has a killer app to tempt buyers is a question, the Journal reported. Apple touts its new Siri AI as an ideal pilot to manage a family’s digital life, with the HomeView as the device to access it. Among its capabilities, according to Apple, is that Siri on the HomeView can take voice commands to add items to a shopping list while the user is cooking dinner for the children.
The problem is that Siri is still slower and less intelligent than OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, and it can’t complete tasks like personal-assistant apps such as Meta’s Muse or Instinct, the Journal reported. Instinct doesn’t just compile a shopping list — it can buy the groceries for you, comparing prices at different store websites and placing a delivery order with the cheapest, the paper noted. Siri AI still stumbles over basic requests such as playing songs and placing calls, according to Wall Street Journal tests.
The same is true for smart-home security products, led by cameras, doorbells, and locks, which IDC said was a $27 billion market in 2025. Many people who want home-security cameras have already installed Ring devices from Amazon.
Apple says another reason to use its system is privacy, though it remains to be seen whether that is enough to persuade people to go through the trouble of replacing their existing system.
Apple says it knows more about its users and that the HomeView will be able to use such “personal context” to do more than rival devices. Here again, the Journal reported, the challenge for Apple is to prove that the device can actually do useful things with people’s data. Apple has always been good at making great hardware — a strength expected to continue since the new CEO led Apple’s hardware engineering — but has struggled in the past to develop software features to match.
Apple shares traded up on the news, briefly pushing the company’s market capitalization above $5 trillion before closing below that level. The story appeared in the October 14, 2026, print edition of the Journal as “Apple’s New CEO Takes First Big Swing.”