A London man who purchased Apple’s latest AI-powered home device has confirmed he primarily uses the £4,000 system to check whether he needs an umbrella.
James Hartley, 34, bought the Apple Intelligence Hub three months ago after watching a 47-minute promotional video featuring the word ‘revolutionary’ eighteen times. The device, which Apple claims can ‘orchestrate your entire digital ecosystem through intuitive natural language processing’, currently sits on his kitchen counter between a bread bin and some unopened post.
“It’s brilliant,” said Hartley, a graphic designer from Wandsworth. “I just say ‘Hey Apple, what’s the weather?’ and it tells me. Sometimes I ask what the weather will be like tomorrow as well.”
The Intelligence Hub features a neural processing unit capable of 17 trillion operations per second, spatial audio with computational room mapping, and the ability to control up to 200 connected home devices simultaneously. Hartley has connected his Hue lightbulb.
Apple’s marketing materials suggest the Hub can manage complex calendar coordination, compose emails in your personal style, and learn your preferences across 47 different categories of behaviour. Hartley remains unclear whether his counts as a preference or just looking at weather.
“I did try asking it to read my emails once,” he added. “But that felt weird. Like having someone else look at your phone.”
The device shipped with a 92-page quick-start guide, which Hartley has placed underneath it to make it slightly taller. He has not enabled 16 of the Hub’s 19 core features, including Proactive Suggestion Mode, which would have required him to grant access to his location history, browsing data, and photograph library.
Dr Emma Woodhouse, a technology anthropologist at Imperial College, said the disconnect was entirely predictable. “We see this constantly. People spend thousands on devices marketed as life-changing, then use them for the same three things their £40 version did. The weather thing is particularly common. I think we just really like knowing about weather.”
She noted that her research team had surveyed 200 owners of premium smart home devices. Seventy-three per cent primarily used them for weather, timers, or playing Radio 4.
Hartley said he has no regrets about the purchase. “It’s future-proofing, isn’t it? One day I might want to do something else with it. And the weather forecast sounds much clearer than my old Alexa. Really crisp. You can hear when it’s going to rain.”
He added that he’s considering buying Apple’s new Intelligence Display, which costs £2,800 and can show weather information with haptic feedback.
