Apple Inc. is reported moving forward with plans to develop a tabletop home device that combines an iPad-like display with a robotic arm.

The report from Bloomberg’s usually very accurate Apple analyst Mark Gurman cites people familiar with the matter saying the company has tasked several hundred people to work on the device. Along with offering an iPad-like display, the device will also feature a “thin robotic arm” that would allow the display to tilt, move up and down and rotate 360 degrees.

The idea behind the device is said to be one of a “smart home command center,” which includes support for videoconferencing through apps such as FaceTime as well as a home security monitoring tool. The device would also leverage Siri and Apple Intelligence, allowing it to respond to various verbal commands, recognize different voices and automatically orient the display to face users.

Gurman says Apple has put Kevin Lynch, Apple’s vice president of technology, in charge of the project. Lynch, who joined Apple in 2013 after serving as chief technology officer at Adobe Inc., was previously in charge of Apple Watch before being moved to lead Apple’s artificial intelligence group in April.

The idea for the device was reportedly first presented to Apple executives a few years ago before becoming public earlier this year. The idea, as described in April, was a device that has a display that mimics head movements, such as nodding, of a person on a FaceTime session and has a a feature to lock onto a single person among a crowd during a video call.

Apple executives at the time were said to have expressed concerns about whether consumers would be willing to pay top dollar for the device and there were also technical challenges with balancing the weight of a robotic motor on a small stand.

Though Apple has had a strong track record of bringing new successful products to market, often defining the spaces it enters — think iPhone, iPad, iPod and more — the company isn’t as successful as it once was under the leadership of the late co-founder Steve Jobs.

The best example of Apple’s Midas touch failing under current Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook came earlier this year with the launch of Apple Vision Pro, the company’s entry into augmented reality headsets. The pricey headset, which first shipped in February with a starting price of $3,499, is generally regarded as having been a flop: As of July, Apple had failed to sell 100,000 units of the device, in contrast to plans to ship 500,000 by the end of the year.

It’s too early to judge how the new device may go, but the Vision Pro does show that Apple customers can be price-sensitive with noncore offerings. For any chance of success, Apple needs to keep the costs down and offer something unique, but a screen on a robotic arm so far doesn’t sound all that impressive, let alone the next big thing.

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