Thinking of Buying Apple HomeView in India? Rs 39,900 Is Only the Entry Fee

Apple HomeView costs Rs 39,900 in India, for both the tabletop model and the wall-mounted one. That is the price of the screen. It is not the price of the smart home Apple showed you on stage.

For once, India is in the first wave. We are one of eight launch markets along with the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa. Pre-orders are already live and deliveries start on November 13.

There's something more worth noting before considering the purchase of this smart home hub. The Apple Home Collection, the set of LG and Schneider Electric cameras, doorbell, smart lock and thermostats that Apple launched right next to HomeView, is not coming to India. It is not on the December list, and India is not on the early 2027 list either.

So I sat down and did the maths. What do you need to own before HomeView makes sense, and what can an Indian household actually plug into it at what price?

Your iPhone decides how smart HomeView gets

HomeView will not even set up without an iPhone on iOS 27.2 or later, or an iPad on iPadOS 27.2. That part is easy, since iOS 27 runs on everything from the iPhone 11 onwards.

The harder part is Siri AI, the feature Apple has built the whole device around. When HomeView pulls context from your Messages or Calendar to answer a question, it needs a paired Apple Intelligence iPhone. That means an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, any iPhone 16 model including the 16e, or the iPhone 17 and 18 families. A regular iPhone 15, 14 or 13 runs iOS 27 but gets no Apple Intelligence.

Think about how this plays out in a typical Indian family. HomeView can enrol up to six members, and each one needs an Apple Account plus an iPhone or iPad on the latest software. Anyone in family who's on an iPhone 13 can still get their own profile on the screen. But Siri cannot pull their reminders or messages, because their phone does not run Apple Intelligence.

If you need to upgrade, the cheapest new Apple Intelligence iPhone is now the iPhone 17e at Rs 79,900, after Apple raised its price from the launch price of Rs 64,900 in September.

Two more things to know before you pay. Siri AI on HomeView is officially a beta in software version 27.2, and in India it works only in English, so there is no Hindi yet. Apple also says server-heavy Apple Intelligence features carry daily usage limits, with expanded access coming for a fee later.

The accessories Apple built HomeView around are not coming here

The Apple Home Collection is where HomeView's best tricks live. The LG doorbell rings a chime through HomeView, the LG lock unlocks itself over Ultra Wideband as you walk up with your iPhone, and the thermostats adjust themselves when the house empties out. None of it is listed for India.

Rupee figures are straight currency conversions, not Indian prices. Apple says sales start in December, with some items in early 2027, and India is not on any product's country list.

Honestly, even an importer cannot fix this for most Indian homes. The LG lock is an American-style deadbolt, built for US doors. The two thermostats are made to run central heating and cooling systems, while most Indian homes cool one room at a time with split ACs. Apple's Clean Energy Guidance, which shifts cooling to cheaper power hours, is limited to the contiguous US anyway.

That leaves Indian buyers with the open route: Matter and HomeKit accessories from other brands.

What you can actually plug in today

Apple lists HomeView as a home hub, and it has Thread built in, so you do not need an Apple TV or HomePod sitting around to run your accessories. Anything carrying the Works with Apple Home, HomeKit or Matter label should show up on it.

The bad news is that India's Apple-friendly shelf is thin and pricey. Most of the useful pieces come from Aqara, and both the doorbell and the lock below are sold on Amazon India by Dubai Tech World AE, a UAE-based seller. We could not confirm what warranty, if any, applies to these units in India. Prices were checked on Amazon India on October 15, during the Great Indian Festival sale.

Check the lock before you check out. The U200 fits over your existing lock and works with Euro-profile cylinders, so ask a carpenter whether your main door's lock uses one. It also does tap-to-unlock, not the walk-up Ultra Wideband unlock that the LG lock offers.

For the AC, only buy a Matter model if you are replacing an old unit anyway. HomeView has a temperature and humidity sensor built in, so it can switch the AC on through an automation.

Watch out for the Tapo P110M listings on Amazon India as they are UL-certified US-plug imports. The India model is the P116M, rated 6A, which suits lamps, fans and chargers but not a geyser.

Lighting is the bigger surprise. None of the mainstream smart bulbs on Amazon India from Wipro, Philips WiZ, Havells or Qubo mention Matter or Apple Home on their listings, so they stay in Alexa and Google territory. Philips Hue works with Apple Home, but in India it is now priced like an import.

The monthly bill nobody puts on the box

The moment you add a camera, iCloud+ becomes compulsory. Camera clips are stored through HomeKit Secure Video, which keeps 10 days of encrypted recordings and does not eat into your storage. How many cameras you can connect depends on the plan.

There is a sweetener for Indian buyers. Since Apple discontinued Apple One for new subsribers here, every iCloud+ plan in India now bundles Apple TV and Apple Arcade at no extra cost.

The expensive part is the new AI layer. With iOS 27, Apple Intelligence can write short summaries of what a camera saw. Apple's support page caps it at one camera on the 2 TB plan, two on 6 TB and five on 12 TB. In India that works out to Rs 5,900 a month for a five-camera home, or Rs 70,800 a year, which is more than the HomeView itself. Apple has not said whether video summaries are live in India, and its support page only says availability varies by country.

Then there is music. HomeView comes with three months of Apple Music free, after which it costs Rs 139 a month. iCloud+ in India only includes Apple Music Select, a set of ad-free radio stations, not the full catalogue.

The maths: four ways to buy into HomeView

A HomeView-run Indian home with a smart front door, a camera, plugs, colour lights and a Matter AC costs about Rs 1.8 lakh upfront, plus roughly Rs 10,000 a year in subscriptions. Each level below includes everything in the one above it, and assumes you already own an Apple Intelligence iPhone.

Year-one subscriptions at Level 4 are the 2 TB plan for 12 months (Rs 8,988) plus nine paid months of Apple Music (Rs 1,251). Over three years, Level 4 comes to about Rs 2,11,656. The plug price is the festive sale price; at the Rs 2,999 MRP, four plugs cost Rs 11,996.

Three add-ons can move the bill sharply:

• No Apple Intelligence iPhone? Add Rs 79,900 for an iPhone 17e, which takes Level 4 to Rs 2,60,005.
• AI summaries on both the doorbell and the camera? That needs the 6 TB plan, and Level 4's year-one subscriptions jump to Rs 37,239. For five cameras, the 12 TB plan alone is Rs 70,800 a year.
• Want the wall-mounted HomeView? Same Rs 39,900, but the mount is sold separately. The USB-C version is Rs 6,900 and needs a 20W adapter, the AC wired version is Rs 8,900, and the PoE version is Rs 14,900 in early 2027.

Should you buy it now?

If you already carry an iPhone 15 Pro or newer and mainly want a kitchen screen for FaceTime, music, recipes and a few Matter plugs, HomeView at Rs 39,900 is a reasonable buy. You stay at Level 1 or 2, and the monthly bill stays at zero.

If the security side is what interests you, I would suggest to wait. The doorbell, lock and camera experience Apple demoed depends on hardware that India cannot buy, and the alternatives cost more here than they do abroad. Apple has not given India a date for the Home Collection, and until it does, a Rs 1.8 lakh HomeView home is built largely on imported third-party gear with doubts on warranty.