Apple Thinks Small, Amazon Thinks Huge, and the Smart Display Gets Interesting Again Apple's 7-inch HomeView and Amazon's 16-inch Echo Show 16 arrived two weeks apart. One bets that a small screen with a smarter voice assistant is enough; the other bets the smart display should swallow the kitchen TV, the family calendar, and the smart home remote in one giant panel. After years of drift, the category finally has a story: the shared family computer.
HomeView pairs a 7-inch Liquid Retina display with an A18 chip and a brand-new Siri AI assistant, according to the MacObserver. CNBC reports the device works on a table or mounted on a wall, recognizes household members by face, and surfaces personal information for each of them. It handles FaceTime calls, music, photos, recipes, calendars, and smart home controls, and can show up to nine camera feeds at once for as many as six household members, per Ars Technica, which notes the Siri chatbot remains in beta. Apple opened pre-orders on October 13 in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India, with Singapore following on October 15 and South Africa through authorized resellers, priced at $299, with both the tabletop and wall-mounted versions shipping November 13.
Amazon answered by going big. The Echo Show 16 has a 16-inch full HD screen, costs $499.99 with a standard display or $569.99 with a glare-fighting Nanomatte finish, and carries a $100 pre-order discount, with pre-orders from October 28 and shipping later this year, per Tom's Guide. Its headline feature is customizable Screen Styles that stay on: a family organizer with calendars, meal plans and recipes, a smart home dashboard, an Alexa widgets view, and a photo frame, plus a favorites bar, according to The Verge's hands-on. TrustedReviews notes it runs full Fire TV with Netflix, Disney+, YouTube, and Prime Video, ships with a remote, and supports Alexa+ voice control, which per CNET handles conversational multi-step tasks. CNET adds a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera with night vision, and Visual ID whose range more than doubles from 8 feet to 17 feet.
Price draws the brightest line. PCMag points out the Echo Show 16 costs $200 more than the HomeView, before a $69.99 basic stand or a $124.99 swivel-and-tilt stand. The Verge recalls that in 2023 the Echo Show 5 cost $85 and the Nest Hub $99, so even the cheaper of these two newcomers costs three times that. Apple is selling continuity: paired with an Apple Intelligence device, HomeView pulls in personal context from Calendar, Messages, and apps. Amazon is selling consolidation: one always-on wall screen for schedules, shopping lists, doorbell feeds, lights, and thermostats, with a 3D Home Map of every connected gadget built from Ring camera feeds, as shown in Tom's Guide's and PCMag's demos.
Reviewers on both sides landed on the same phrase. The Verge argues these two devices could finally make the smart display the family computer: not a desk for homework or bills, but a communal screen for checking the calendar, seeing who is at the door, and deciding what is for dinner. CNET is blunter about Apple's mismatch, saying a 7-inch screen is too small for Apple's own TV shows no matter how good the audio, which is exactly why Amazon keeps making Echo Shows bigger. PCMag, meanwhile, calls the Echo Show 16's person-and-vehicle tracking around the house amazing and terrifying in the same breath.
The calendars favor Apple: HomeView arrives November 13, while the Echo Show 16 ships later this year. Households deep in iPhones, iPads, and HomeKit get a near-instant control center with HomeView. Households running on Ring doorbells, Alexa plugs, and Fire TV get more from the Echo Show 16's size, sound, and map view. Neither company is selling a cheap countertop clock anymore. The smart display has grown up into something with a point of view, and shoppers finally face a real choice about which wall deserves a screen. Discussion: If your household could keep only one shared screen, would you pick the small one that recognizes each person and continues phone tasks, or the big one that doubles as a TV and runs the whole home, and what would tip your decision?