25 ms·

HomePod Mini

301 points by axg 6y ago

jrowley 6y ago
It's unfortunate that isn't battery powered/more portable.
mmastrac 6y ago
Curious how much market share this homepod line has. My gut feel is that Amazon has the lion's share, followed by Google and everyone else has crumbs at the bottom.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Siri lives in on your wrist, in your pocket, or even in your ears with AirPods. It's a pretty significant difference. When you can access Siri anywhere, you only need to put speakers out where you want music. Google and Amazon need to work harder to get presence so they push them out using aggressive pricing.
  - mmastrac 6y ago
    I have the same options with the Google assistant/Chromecast etc. That doesn't answer the question of what the homepod line's market share is.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      "Speaker" market share is irrelevant when 30-50% of iPhone owners have speakers in their ear or on their wrist.
      - mmastrac 6y ago
        You appear to be intentionally obfuscating for whatever reason. I found something from 2019 that appears to show Apple in a distant third place, with Amazon as #1 in the USA and some supporting research showing similar trends world-wide. [1][2] So yeah, as I expected it's Amazon's game, Google trailing but a strong presence, and Apple virtually missing from the race. [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/08/homepod-smart-speaker-market-share/ https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/08/homepod-smart-speaker-m... [2] https://macdailynews.com/2020/02/13/apple-homepod-took-4-7-share-of-global-smart-speaker-market-in-2019/ https://macdailynews.com/2020/02/13/apple-homepod-took-4-7-s...
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    It's true, I have so many places that I can set timers. Beyond that piece of functionality, Siri is still a very developmentally disabled assistant and has never proven useful in my experience.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  Globally or in the US? Because they only sell the HomePod in a handful of countries.
- millstone 6y ago
  I think it is best to understand this as two different markets. Amazon Echo and Google Home devices are mainly about their smart assistants. Homepod is for music, and it competes more directly with Sonos devices.
  - lmedinas 6y ago
    after today's presentation i'm pretty sure that HomePod Mini is the Apple answer to Amazon Echo and Google Home. Maybe the HomePod (original) can compete with the Sonos One or Five at sound level but not in terms of features people are looking for listening music such as: virtually all music streaming services available, integration with all the remaining Sonos products for Home cinema or for Home sound system. To me Homepod Mini is after the home assistant market. The HomePod (original) well it seemed like a shot in the dark now it will most likely get the Homepod mini features.
- tootie 6y ago
  I also think the market is pretty saturated if not about to taper. Amazon and Google have been all over this market for years and there's just no big value prop. 99% of the use is just as a smart speaker. I'd bet very few do home automation. Some are doing a bit of voice commerce if they're bought into the Amazon ecosystem. Apple doesn't offer much beyond cool product design. If someone was going to bust open this space it would be Spotify.
ipsum2 6y ago
Looks like the Echo Dot that was just released a few weeks ago: https://www.amazon.com/All-New-Echo-Dot-4th-Gen/dp/B07XJ8C8F7 https://www.amazon.com/All-New-Echo-Dot-4th-Gen/dp/B07XJ8C8F...
- leecb 6y ago
  They look to both be almost exactly the same size- 3.9 inches in diameter. Echo Dot: 100 x 100 x 89 mm HomePod Mini: 98 x 98 x 84mm
  - seppin 6y ago
    1/2 the price
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - shagie 6y ago
      With the prime day sale, it's even a smaller fraction. However, there's probably a bit of a difference with the amount of on board processing that the two devices can do. For example, my iPhone can do voice to text while on airplane mode. {guessing} Similar on board processing would allow a HomePod Mini to work with HomeKit without needing to go to the cloud - Amazon working with Hue does need to go out to the cloud to get that voice to text to command layer. {/guessing}
      - seppin 6y ago
        I trust apple with privacy, I don't trust Amazon. That extra money is well worth it imo
wtmt 6y ago
I was expecting a refresh of the HomePod too, though rumors mentioned only the HomePod mini. I also thought that a price of $79 would’ve been quite attractive compared to the $99 price. Just have to wait for holiday sales, I guess. I can’t wait for reviews and comparisons on the sound of HomePod vs. HomePod mini.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  > I also thought that a price of $79 would’ve been quite attractive compared to the $99 How did you arrive at that? Is $20 really the deciding factor for you?
  - jagger27 6y ago
    Probably not relevant to what GP is trying to argue, but it would likely mean they’d price it at CAD $99 instead of CAD $129. Fairy significant psychological difference there.
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    It's not about $20, it's about 20%. If you're thinking about buying 4 or 6 of these things, 20% adds up. Also for some people, $20 does matter. Lots of people are out of work — unemployment hasn't been this high in decades.
noodlesUK 6y ago
One of the interesting things is that on the specs page it says it supports “Thread”, which is a new wireless protocol championed for home automation tech, as an alternative to zig bee and Zwave. One thing I didn’t see was any mention of if it would support being a “Home Hub”, allowing for remote access to smart home stuff.
- section_me 6y ago
  Thread is not exactly new, July 2014[0], and it uses the same base standard as ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4), just using 6LoWPAN which is a low power personal aera network using IPv6. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(network_protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(network_protocol)
- ndrake 6y ago
  The footnote on that item is a bit disappointing: "Not compatible with non-HomeKit Thread devices."
  - gerash 6y ago
    Lol. Adopt an open protocol built by Nest and then make it exclusive to Apple devices. Very revolutionary indeed
    - nkristoffersen 6y ago
      Pretty sure that means HomeKit certified devices, not Apple-built devices.
    - stingrae 6y ago
      Honestly it is very much Nest's decision to not support Homekit.
- FerdSlav 6y ago
  I think personally this is one of the biggest details that is being entirely overlooked. In past keynotes Apple has mentioned they are actively working with other companies on the new Project Connected Home Over IP working group[1], which according to the limited marketing material available, seems to indicate will at least partially operate over Thread. [1]: https://www.connectedhomeip.com/ https://www.connectedhomeip.com/
athenot 6y ago
HomePod mini works with your iPhone for requests like hearing your messages or notes, so they are completed on device without revealing that information to Apple. This is the big differentiating feature, along with the seamless integration within the rest of Apple's product line. EDIT: HomePod does this too but it was not at a price point nor size that competed with other assistants.
- ChrisLTD 6y ago
  Maybe that’s why my HomePod feels so slow?
  - AceJohnny2 6y ago
    The SoC in the Homepod is old. It's the Apple A8, which was used on iPhone 6 (2014). The HomePod Mini uses Apple S5, which was in the Apple Watch 5 (2019)
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Note that the S5 is essentially identical to the S4 chip.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - Synaesthesia 6y ago
      It's not that bad of a CPU. It's powering my iPad Air 2 (A8X) which doesn't do too badly. Remember when we were freaking out about the unprecedented performance of the A7, the first 64-bit mobile chip? And now it's in a speaker.
      - duhi88 6y ago
        For real. Maybe, just maybe, a voice-controlled speaker doesn't need the latest cutting edge CPU. I wasn't expecting new Homepod hardware until after they announce on-device Siri. That seems like the only thing that would warrant a better CPU.
llampx 6y ago
Can anyone with a Homepod comment on the usability compared to the Google and Amazon spy systems... err speakers?
- AceJohnny2 6y ago
  I haven't used Alexa, but Siri on HomePod is way behind Google Assistant in capabilities and recognition reliability. I use it moderately for setting timers, reminders, shopping list, controlling my HomeKit lights, and getting weather. I'd judge it to be 80% reliable in picking up commands (but the way human memory works, it's likely much higher than that but the times it fails are more memorable) But HomePod is a phenomenal speaker.
  - AceJohnny2 6y ago
    I just tried to tell it to play music, but my closer iPhone picked up the order instead -_-;
    - hinkley 6y ago
      If we keep making these, you're going to need to name each device. Hey HomePod, play something sinister.
  - ballenf 6y ago
    That's true, unless you have privacy options enabled in your Google account. In which case your Google Home becomes a doorstop. At least that was my experience before I gave away a gifted Google Home because it refused to let me proceed through setup without disabling a bunch of privacy settings across my entire Google account.
- cloudengineer 6y ago
  I use it for home automation using hoobs, and as a primary speaker. They are the best sounding of all, and in stereo mode, they sound even better.
- iwasakabukiman 6y ago
crooked-v 6y ago
I have to wonder if Apple will ever release a sound bar or the like, for Sonos-style 'sound bar plus two rear speakers' surround sound rather than just stereo.
josteink 6y ago
Sounds okish and very nicely priced. Too bad it seemingly relies so much on Siri. I haven’t been able to make Siri play me any music what so ever, despite multiple attempts. Once I’ve started playing, I can’t even make Siri skip tracks forward or backwards. Absolutely worthless. Caveat: not using Apple Music.
justusthane 6y ago
I think this is big. I've never gotten an Echo because I don't trust Amazon, but at $99 I'll buy one or two of these.
- karmakaze 6y ago
  I haven't gone looking, but I wouldn't assume that you can get sync'ed stereo unless specifically a feature.
  - qchris 6y ago
    > If you want to take the amazing sound experience of HomePod mini even further, you can create a stereo pair. Two HomePod mini speakers paired in the same room create left and right channels for an immersive soundstage. Fwiw, it does look like they are advertising stereo pairing as an out-of-the-box feature
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    The stereo pair feature was hobbled at release (only iTunes on MacOS, but from any app on iOS), but subsequent MacOS updates apparently solved this. But beware if you're running and older MacOS and don't want to update just to get stereo pairing!
jagger27 6y ago
The coolest part to me is that they're using the S5 watch SoC to power it. Pretty cool that Apple's various hardware teams can just grab a part off the shelf to use in a completely different class of device. I'd love to see them reintroduce AirPort routers powered by an A-series chip.
- duhi88 6y ago
  Agreed. I wonder what the cost is on that chip. Apple Watch S5 - Sensors + Speaker + Markup = $99
  - jagger27 6y ago
    I'm having a hard time finding out which node it's on and the die area. The S5 is essentially a re-badged S4 which as far as I can tell is made on standard TSMC 7nm. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say the BOM is dominated by the casing and speaker hardware. That chip has been in production for about 2 years now.
  - jonfw 6y ago
    Display + restrictions on internals/construction due to size constraints will make up a large part of that cost as well. I'd imagine that the chip itself is a pretty small percentage of the price of an Apple Watch.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  I'd love to see them put AirPort tech inside their smart speakers. That's one great way to differentiate from Alexa devices. We're still running AirPorts at my house, though I know eventually they'll die and we'll have to find something else. In the meantime, they're super convenient for having my Time Capsule back up my Mac, and for piping audio via an Airport Express to the speakers I use with my projector setup.
  - jagger27 6y ago
    Oh yes that would be nice. A bunch of PoE HomePod minis with WiFi 6 would work great in my house to replace my 802.11ac UniFi setup. I'm really dreaming big now, but some sort of AirPort central base station with SFP+ for my FTTH connection and 4xPoE to power and feed a bunch of HomePods would be brilliant.
mstade 6y ago
If they could make these work in a wireless atmos setup seamlessly with the apple tv I'd buy like 14 of them and place all around my living room. Syncing video and audio in real-time wirelessly is really difficult apparently, there's a standard for it called WiSA but almost no adoption sadly. I'd love to cut down on wiring.
- mttjj 6y ago
  The comparison table makes is seem like the mini can't be paired with an AppleTV at all like the regular HomePod can.
  - mstade 6y ago
    Oh that's a real shame if so.. missed opportunity!
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    > Pick up an incoming call from your iPhone, listen to music on your Mac, or upgrade your TV experience by taking the sound from your Apple TV to the next level — they all connect to HomePod mini. From the Apple website
    - mttjj 6y ago
      Weird. I see that too. Not sure what the table is trying to state then. https://www.apple.com/homepod/ https://www.apple.com/homepod/
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      Apple's site is a bit contradictory on this. In another place it lists speaker features and it lists "Home theater with Apple TV 4K" as a feature of the full size HomePod but not the mini. Inquiring minds want to know.
      - X-Istence 6y ago
        Home Theater uses the full size HomePod's to do 5.1/7.1/Dolby Atmos surround sound. It requires the spatial processing to allow for the surround sound experience. The HomePod Mini can be used as a stereo pair, and connected to an Apple TV with no issues.
kasperset 6y ago
Come with the power adapter. With the size constraints, I guess it was not possible to have it built in.
jnwatson 6y ago
This is so me-too. The only newish feature is a better privacy argument. This is a full 5 years after the Amazon Echo was introduced. This just adds to my creeping feeling that innovation is dead at Apple.
- agd 6y ago
  The big difference is seamless integration with other Apple products. This is why they’ll take market share, it will just work with your iPhone better than the echo does.
  - jnwatson 6y ago
    A limiting factor is Siri. It took them 8 years to allow asking to play a particular song on Spotify. Usually the first thing I say to Siri is 'Hey Google' so it goes to Google Assistant. I'm not really sure what "seamless integration" is left. I (and my friends that have similar devices) use smart speakers for power control, getting the weather, playing music, and setting timers/alarms. It doesn't take an sole-source ecosystem to make that work well.
- asciimo 6y ago
  I agree with this "innovation is dead" sentiment. Apple used to be pioneers and futurists. Now they focus on retaining their well-defined market. This almost makes sense, except they have such a tremendous amount of cash they can afford to take risks.
turtlebits 6y ago
I don’t get it. Siri is the absolute worst compared to Google assistant, the only compelling reason to buy the HomePod is for sound quality. So unless this has some other redeeming quality over “Siri in your living room”, I don’t think it will sell well. The original HomePod regularly went on sale for 33% off already.
- untog 6y ago
  I'm curious to know what 90% of people do with their home assistant devices. I have a Google Home. I know it can do a huge array of things, but almost all I do with it is play music, control lights, and set timers. Siri can do all of those things.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - crooked-v 6y ago
    For me it's that plus voice-controlled NPR or audiobooks while doing other things (often cooking) and weather for later in the day (while getting ready in the morning). It'd also be temperature control, but I'm stuck with a millivolt thermostat and apparently nobody's interest in selling to us gas fireplace people.
  - jon-wood 6y ago
    I have a couple of Echo devices, predominantly I use them for lighting control, alarms, timers, speakers for music and podcasts when cooking, paging out messages round the house rather than yelling down the stairs. My six year old son has picked up that he can use them to call me despite not having a phone of his own, so I also occasionally get calls when out and about asking for urgent Zelda help.
  - bart_spoon 6y ago
    For one, I can use them as a speaker for my non-Apple devices. My household is almost entirely Apple products, but considering I have a few devices I would like to occasionally pair like a PC, it makes more sense to buy a home assistant/speak device from Google or Amazon that will work with everything I own, rather than a Homepod that will work with 90% of what I own, even if I like everything else about the Homepod more.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
thomasfl 6y ago
No Spotify support. Spotify’s market share is probably so large that Apple will sell fever of this speakers because of that.
- manmal 6y ago
  They are a direct competitor with Spotify Connect.
  - accrual 6y ago
    I wish there could be a better partnership between Apple and Spotify. I consider Spotify to be best in field for my music needs and a tighter integration would be a win-win for me as a consumer. Just the other day: > "Hey Siri, favorite this song on Spotify." > "Sorry, Spotify hasn't added support for that." (paraphrased)
    - andruby 6y ago
      According to Spotify, it’s Apple that’s making life hard for them [0]. And here is Apple’s rebuttal [1] [0] https://www.timetoplayfair.com/timeline/ https://www.timetoplayfair.com/timeline/ [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/addressing-spotifys-claims/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/addressing-spotifys-c...
      - zepto 6y ago
        Spotify has to drag it’s heels and blame Apple now to support its legal case.
        npunt 6y ago
        Exactly. Its a charade that's not in the best interest of customers of their service in order to get regulatory leverage on the 30% cut. I think people confuse the means (not support functionality that their customers want) with the ends (have a more level playing field against a competitor). I respect the ends they're trying to achieve but the means make me a dissatisfied customer.
ValentineC 6y ago
It doesn't look like the HomePod Mini would support Bluetooth devices as an audio source [1] (the older HomePod has the same issue), even though it lists Bluetooth 5.0 as a connectivity option. [1] https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/specs/#specs:~:text=Audio%20Sources https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/specs/#specs:~:text=Audio... [2] https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/specs/#specs:~:text=Wireless https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/specs/#specs:~:text=Wirel...
- import 6y ago
  Bluetooth used for Homekit stuff IMO.
- krrishd 6y ago
  Am I the only one that finds this astounding? Not to mention the inability to take an aux cord. It's one thing for phones to have these lock-in properties, but not being able to aux in audio into a speaker feels wild to me.
  - ptd 6y ago
    Welcome to the future
  - hjnilsson 6y ago
    Sonos has not supported this for over 10 years, and seem to be doing quite well. It is a “smart speaker”, not a speaker, so expectations are different.
    - aemreunal 6y ago
      Are you talking about aux? Because Sonos Move supports plain bluetooth audio connections; I use it all the time.
      - neuronic 6y ago
        Bluetooth wasn't an option for Sonos before the Move. All my Sonos devices support WLAN only, no other way to connect.
m3kw9 6y ago
I think the killer feature is the Intercom
- gnicholas 6y ago
  My initial reaction was the same — maybe we'd get one for our kid's room. But then I saw that Intercom supports all iOS devices, so probably we'd just put an old iPhone or iPad in there instead. But it's not 100% clear if when they say Intercom supports all iOS/WatchOS/MacOS devices, they mean you can communicate from one of those devices to a HomePod, or whether you can communicate amongst any of those devices (no HomePod required).
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    Most likely if the iOS device is new enough to have iOS14 and Intercom support, you can sell it for more than $99 and get the Homepod =)
    - gnicholas 6y ago
      We have a first-gen iPhone SE that runs iOS 14 fine but probably wouldn't fetch more than $99+tax, especially when the hassle factor is accounted for. Also, it's nice to have a backup phone around the house, in case something happens to one of our primary phones.
    - rcarmo 6y ago
      I just asked Siri on my iPad to “tell everyone to go to bed” and it told me you can only intercom from one HomePod to another.
      - gnicholas 6y ago
        From Apple's website: > Intercom offers a quick and easy way to send messages to everyone in a household — from one HomePod to another, or across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and CarPlay. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/10/apple-introduces-homepod-mini-a-powerful-smart-speaker-with-amazing-sound/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/10/apple-introduces-home...
gnicholas 6y ago
Wish I could get 4 or 5 of these and use as a home theater setup. It'd be significantly cheaper than a Sonos Arc, and presumably offer better surround (though worse low-frequency response).
- fossuser 6y ago
  You'd be limited to only getting audio through the content of your Apple TV right? You wouldn't be able to get the audio from an Xbox for example?
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    Good point, this is a limitation for some. We have a projector setup that we plug iPhones/iPads/MacBooks into, so we can AirPlay the audio from those to the speakers at the front of the room. Currently we AirPlay to an Airport Express (c. 2009?) that sends sound out to speakers. This works around the challenge of having video going out at the back of the room (to the projector) and needing audio to come out at the front of the room. This system doesn't work when we're playing Nintendo Switch, in which case the audio just comes out of the projector. For our purposes, that's fine; but I could see how someone playing Xbox would want that to be hooked into their audio system. I wonder if there would be some way to pipe audio through an old Mac mini to accomplish this. At that point it's probably worth just paying the Sonos tax.
  - lozaning 6y ago
    I think it could withy something like HDMI ARC.
    - gnicholas 6y ago
      But how would you get the audio from an HDMI cable into the HomePod? Does Apple TV offer some sort of HDMI passthrough? I don't know since I've never had one.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
tunesmith 6y ago
There are no power cords in any of the images I've found yet.
- bouke 6y ago
  In the presentation there’s a cable when it’s placed on the kitchen’s counter. But other than that the lack of cables caught my eye as well!
brundolf 6y ago
I was tempted, but my partner has an Android and I'm pretty sure these can't even function as a basic Bluetooth speaker for non-Apple devices, so unfortunately it's a no-go. Apple got this right with AirPods: special integration with other Apple devices, but basic functionality with everything. Hopefully they will with these too one day.
- turtlebits 6y ago
  You're right about not being able to pair as a Bluetooth speaker, but there are some advantages of Airplay (if you're using an Apple device). No pairing required (just shows up as an output device), no wrangling of Bluetooth connections to switch devices. Surprisingly, it also supports peer to peer play if you don't have a wifi connection.
  - brundolf 6y ago
    Of course AirPlay is more streamlined, just like Google Cast is more streamlined. The point is to have a fallback, for the cases when you want to use your expensive device from outside of the golden path.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  This exactly. Apple is consistently releasing products that I would absolutely buy if they didn't do everything they could to get a horizontal monopoly of microprocessor devices in my house.
  - brundolf 6y ago
    Usually I can live with it; I don't see myself switching to Android anytime soon. But the story is different when it's a communal device for everyone in the household.
- davmar 6y ago
  break up with them /s jk jk
auggierose 6y ago
Do these work together with the old HomePod?
ssully 6y ago
Oddly enough this was the most exciting thing for me today. I use a Google Home in my kitchen almost exclusively for hands-free timers and music control when cooking/cleaning. My Home got bricked by an update last month and was going to just forgo replacing it because I am getting tired of Google's diminishing support of their products and the privacy concerns. My only concern is Siri is easily the worst assistant when compared to Google or Amazon. I just hope it is good enough to handle my music and timer requests.
- Bud 6y ago
  I definitely agree with you that Siri is (currently) the worst assistant, but if it helps, it has consistently been just fine for me with music and timers.
  - ssully 6y ago
    Yeah I figure it should be able to accomplish that. I am sure there are people who use these home speakers for more complex tasks, but after the honeymoon period of owning it, my usage of the speakers basically broke down to: 1. Timers 2. Music 3. Asking about commute times
- gnicholas 6y ago
  I agree that this is one of the more interesting things today (especially for folks with an iPhone 11 Pro, who aren't looking to upgrade). There's already a way to use Siri skills to access OK, Google through your iPhone [1] without letting Google listen in on everything you say. It would be awesome if there were a way to do this from HomePods... 1: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3393159/how-to-use-hey-siri-to-control-google-assistant-on-iphone.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3393159/how-to-use-hey...
Bud 6y ago
Pretty disappointing that some users here flagged this post, apparently just for spite. Some of us are interested in this discussion.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
  I think it's more because people are a bit annoyed at 5 different posts effectively discussing the Apple event.
_ph_ 6y ago
Really cute :). I have a pair of Homepods which pretty much has replaced my stereo for me, as together they sound really impressive. And are very convenient to use. Most of the time, I use my iPhone to control them. Certainly will get one or two minis for the rooms I am not constantly in, but would like to have some music support. One thing I don't get, why Apple doesn't push them more as computer speakers. Mojave still doesn't support them as a pair, and the latency is too big for normal speaker usage. Should be a relative easy sell with a new Mac, if macOS supported them as a proper pair with low latency.
- 135792468 6y ago
  Was just thinking the same thing, would love to use with my Mac mini as a speaker. Cheaper than Sonos Beam I was going to get
burke_holland 6y ago
Yes, but Siri
myrandomcomment 6y ago
So here is the thing I struggle with. I have a NAS. On it is my media (music, videos, photos) collection. I do not have a subscription to Apple Music, or the reset of the streaming services and I not want one. So how do I play my own music collection with this? Right now to do this I have an AppleTV on every TV. I have an app on the AppleTV called MrMC which is basically a paid for port of Kodi for the AppleTV. The MrMC app can mount the NFS file share and play my music just fine. The AppleTV is plugged into and HDMI splitter that strips audio and outputs it to an amp which goes to my speakers. This just works, and I can remote control it with my an app on my iPhone. Given that the HomePod will not be able to access my music collection, it is useless. I would be happy with the HomePod being able to steam music from an open Music app on a Mac somewhere. I have enough spare Macs that it would be simple to just run Music on it (which mounts the network share.) But of course, I would be wasting power. Oh well. It would also be really nice if the AppleTV would just support SMB again.
- thebean11 6y ago
  I'd be sort of surprised if you couldn't "cast" arbitrary audio from a phone or laptop to the homepod.
  - turtlebits 6y ago
    You can, at least from any Airplay 2 supported device. Mac, iOS, just change the output setting. Audio will sync up with video as well. Stereo pair only works with iOS and iTunes on Mac. (Not system audio)
    - aplummer 6y ago
      It works with the TV app too FYI
- ndaiger 6y ago
  You can make it work with iTunes Match. It will upload all your music (it's not just filename or metadata matching, apparently it uses audio fingerprints). Then you can play your own stuff without needing an Apple Music subscription. It's $25/year. I moved to Apple music a while ago, but iTunes Match worked great for me before that.
deleted 6y ago
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wicket 6y ago
> Private and secure. As long as it's sending data to Apple, it's anything but private.
Jnr 6y ago
Woohoo, finally a cheaper homepod! I was looking forward to something like this to be able to remotely control my Home Assistant setup through Homebridge Hue. Without having dedicated Apple TV/iPad/Homepod at home, you can't access devices in Home app, even if you have VPN. This meant that even at home I had to unlock the phone and wait for it to connect to Wifi before Siri would do anything with devices. This delay made it impractical to use Siri for controlling devices through Siri. Maybe it's possible to make it work with VPN by also forwarding some autodiscovery packets, but I'm not sure.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
I laughed out loud when they mentioned the intelligibility of Siri. Every 6 months or so I try Siri and am shocked it still can’t understand basic things my kids are using Alexa for.
- lcfcjs 6y ago
  I love Apple, and I would have to agree with this.
m3kw9 6y ago
Get 2 of them if you are gonna do it, it sounds amazing for original HomePod and for 200 for a pair that’s the setup you want
- lmedinas 6y ago
  I doubt the HomePod Mini at 99$ has any good sound quality compared to the Sonos One or original HomePod. Except if you want to use the Apple ecosystem features in different rooms i dont see the benefit of getting 2.
danloughney 6y ago
From the video intro, it looks like the power cord is hardwired into the device. I would have thought it was going to be USB-C. I'd prefer to swap out the cable in case it comes with a standard 6' and I want to tuck the speaker next to an outlet on a shelf.
rcarmo 6y ago
It’s nice, but I wish it had a line out jack for an external amp. I would love to replace my Echo Input with one, and keep the nice speakers I have... Oh wait, it’s not available in my country...
- rcarmo 6y ago
  Both of my comments were factual. Why the downvotes?
jshen 6y ago
I'm a big apple fan, got a homepod last christmas, and it's the worst apple product that I've ever owned. Truly disappointing. Siri fails to recognize commands that work great on alexa or google, the features it does have often fail (if I transfer a podcast from playing on my phone to play on the homepod, my phone often fails to sync with the location of my homepod). There's no way I will buy one of these until I hear from multiple people I know that they have one and it's truly amazing. edit: typos
- Angostura 6y ago
  Whereas my family say that it is the best Apple gizmo we own. It sits in the kitchen and typically only gets used for Playing music setting timers adding things to the shopping list answering stupid google queries during dinner. All of which it does with aplomb. But it was bought because wanted a great sounding smart speaker
  - jen729w 6y ago
    I was gonna say it, but then you did. My non-tech partner 100% agrees. “Love it” is a term that I’ve heard. I do have a few (literally a few) custom shortcuts for weird things that it just couldn’t figure out, like playing specifically our local radio station, but other than that it’s amazing. “Hey Siri, play <whatever>” while we make dinner. “Hey Siri, turn it up!” Hey Siri good morning, turn the lights on, set a timer, she mostly does it all with aplomb. If this one broke I’d have another within half an hour. I might get the Mini just to put in another room and mess about. Now, caveat: I’ve never used Alexa or Google. I have no doubt that their voice assistant stuff would be better, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let one of those things listen to me at home. I just don’t trust them at all.
    - baggy_trough 6y ago
      I'm glad you're happy about it, but for me, Siri is a disaster. It only has about a 75% chance to get a simple music command right. Pretty hopeless.
dapangro 6y ago
It's also the same price as a braided solo loop watch band.
am_lu 6y ago
so much apple-fanboy on here. Grab a good second hand hi-fi set (cheap this days, everyone wants to be "smart"), play your own cd`s, vinyls, *.flac or other good quality digital media) and you will get a good sound... HomePod mini works effortlessly with your Apple devices. and only apple devices. Burned myself on apple years ago, got myself an ipod, learned my lesson with itunes, sold it, never come back.
ponker 6y ago
All these devices look so beautiful until you add the unsightly power cords.
chendragon 6y ago
Not much buzz about the sound quality yet, but it looks like a solid attempt. Force cancelling passive radiators with what looks like back suspension too, but I wonder if it will have vertical axis vibration issues if they arent doing something about that from the speaker driver itself.
Arubis 6y ago
This doesn't appear discussed in the copy: does anyone know if HomePod/(Mini) has been updated to be friendlier towards households with more than one adult user in them (families, roommates, whatever)? I initially found the HomePod alluring, but that it could pair only with one iPhone (and thus effectively one user) was a real turn-off when I last looked into it.
- covercash 6y ago
  They've had it for a year or so. From the HomePod site: A personalized experience. For each person in the family. Together with Siri, HomePod can learn and recognize up to six different voices and create a personalized listening experience for everybody at home. So when they say “Hey Siri, play some music” they’ll get a mix of songs customized just for them — picked from Apple Music based on their listening history and personal preferences. And with Personal Requests, they can access their own messages, reminders, lists, and calendars, and make and receive phone calls.
  - Arubis 6y ago
    Oh, that's a significant improvement; thanks for the clarification! I may consider one of these down the road.
- Gaelan 6y ago
  I believe I saw something about voice recognition to route requests to multiple iPhones, yes
varenc 6y ago
The U1 ultra-wideband chip means the HomePod can be used a fixed reference point for general purpose indoor location finding! Would be great for AirTags, if those ever become a reality. At the moment, the U1 is only be used for the nifty hold-your-iphone-close move, but I have no doubt Apple has other applications in mind. Ultra-wideband is amazing for its indoor high-resolution position finding. Down to the inch is possible. But the more reference points you have, the faster/more accurate it will be. When used with the U1 chip also in your iPhone, having a HomePod mini around could enable Apple's forthcoming AirTags to be located more quickly/precisely. Or enable a better AR experience. They're basically GPS satellites for in-home position finding. (Ultra-wideband uses time-of-flight, just like GPS)
- ehsankia 6y ago
  I really wish of a future where I can just point my phone at one of my cast devices to cast to it.
  - occamschainsaw 6y ago
    A very limited version of this feature is used in AirDrop with U1 equipped iPhones. Just point your phone to the phone you are transferring to and it shows up in the AirDrop share sheet.
    - ehsankia 6y ago
      Was that actually implemented / tested? I remember hearing about it but I never saw anyone mention or test it in any reviews. Does it actually work well?
      - varenc 6y ago
        It does exist, and it works! But both phones need U1 chips, meaning iPhone 11s and above. One thing that's cool about this is that iOS must be using the slight movements of the phone in your hand to help triangulate the other phone. Ultra-wideband position finding relies on time-of-flight, so from a single reference point you only know the precise distance something is from you, and not its direction. To get around, my guess is iOS is using the accelerometers in the phone to measure slight changes a phones position, and then using multiple ultra-wideband distance measurements from those different positions to triangulate the other phone.
s800 6y ago
Could these be used as conference room speakerphones/mics?
tuatoru 6y ago
"Hey Siri, where are my keys?" ... Nope. Not useful enough yet.
markvdb 6y ago
Even if this thing were to respect one's privacy, it still normalises the intrusion by other smart speakers.
hcurtiss 6y ago
I'm bummed the didn't release a smart display. We're an iPhone/iPad/Mac/Apple TV family, but the Nest Hub Max has become a really great part of our lives. When combined with the Nest Hello, we get video of the front door in the kitchen when the doorbell rings, and the Google Homes in the bathrooms also notify us. We have a couple HomePods that we tried to use, but there's no doorbell integration we could find, and believe it or not, I really like having a photo display and visual cues when we interact with the kitchen device. I would spend the money to transition to an Apple smart display/doorbell and these HomePods, but they have stubbornly refused to produce the product so many others are selling. I just don't get it.
noodlesUK 6y ago
One feature I wish Apple would build into this would be a 3.5mm jack or optical audio out. I have a lot of very nice speakers already in my house, but no multi-room audio, or voice assistant. I know the echos can do this, but I don’t want them spying on me.
- kart23 6y ago
  Every single amazon echo device has a 3.5mm jack. And chromecast audios are going for $90 on eBay. I just want a simple solution to stream to my old speakers that isn't bluetooth or Amazon. I would've 100% bought a homepod mini if it had an audio out.
  - whalesalad 6y ago
    AppleTV does this. I believe you can use it as a headless sound machine. Mine has optical out.
    - eh9 6y ago
      That's how I can use my sub-woofer and anything else plugged into the receiver.
    - xionon 6y ago
      Unfortunately, the newest models do not have optical audio out, only HDMI.
      - neal_jones 6y ago
        This is disappointing
    - kart23 6y ago
      They dropped it in 2015. The old airport express has audio out as well.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  Once upon a time, Apple shipped with all Macbook with 3.5mm jacks that doubled up as optical audio out. Ah, the good old days
ibdf 6y ago
I have the iPhone now and have always used MacBooks, but so far I have refused to buy other products from them because they insist in keeping the ecosystem so closed. No Spotify support is why I’m not buying this. I’ve had Spotify for years and I’m not looking to switch. And Siri, unfortunately for me it’s now a selling point. It struggles so much on my phone that I can’t bring myself to use it often enough to care about it.
- lilyball 6y ago
  They already announced earlier this year that they had a new program to integrate third-party music services. And in today’s event they specifically called out “services like Pandora and Amazon [Music]” as being available “in the coming months”. I don’t know whether Spotify is included, but I would hope so.
  - acwan93 6y ago
    It’s part of the SiriKit Media Intents that was introduced in iOS 13.
    - lilyball 6y ago
      Isn’t that for suggesting songs based on search results, or triggering songs with Siri on your phone? That’s not the same thing as using third-party music providers on HomePod.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    That will be up to Spotify. I switched from Spotify to Apple Music because Spotify won’t support cellular streaming. I would have switched back to Spotify but after the Apple One announcement, it’s too late. They lost me.
- lostgame 6y ago
  Strange. Spotify seems to work fine with my Apple Watch (Series 3)?
jiggawatts 6y ago
One thing I don't quite understand about the HomeKit "ecosystem" is that there doesn't seem to be much of one... I've looked on the Apple store, the local electronics store, but everything I would expect to see in a range of smart devices are very notably absent. For example, I can't find a reasonably sized multi-port Apple HomeKit power board. I can't find motion or person presence sensors. In fact, just about the only products that seem to exist are "smart" light bulbs, but I don't see what's so smart about paying AUD 150 for a light bulb...
- mzgaljic 6y ago
  Motion sensor: https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Motion-Sensor-Installation-Free-Exclusively/dp/B076MGK22M https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Motion-Sensor-Installation-Fr... Power strips: https://www.imore.com/best-homekit-power-strips https://www.imore.com/best-homekit-power-strips Most philips hue products are Homekit compatible, if you have a hue bridge. As far as the “best” lighting/switch products, I would recommend Lutron Caseta. Not cheap though! If you’d like to reliably detect when someone is home (their phone is on wifi), you can dive into Homebridge. The plug-in you want is this: https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-people https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-people With the homebridge-people plugin, you can expose an occupancy sensor in Homekit, and trigger a scene when everyone leaves the house, for example. Or the inverse, when someone arrives home. This is more reliable than the built in Homekit location based triggers, because those work with GPS. You don’t always want your lights turning on just because you drove past your house. :)
  - jiggawatts 6y ago
    I should have specified that I live in Australia, so US power boards are useless. It seems that vendors aren't manufacturing these for all regional power outlet formats.
    - mzgaljic 6y ago
      Oh I see, that stinks. I know this isn’t what you were looking for, but here are some options if you are willing to be creative: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeKit/comments/hzc7lr/powerboardpower_strip_for_australia/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeKit/comments/hzc7lr/powerboardp...
mcintyre1994 6y ago
Am I right in thinking this doesn’t work as a speaker for your living room unless you do everything through Apple TV? Is there a way to use it with a PS4 at all for example?
bengale 6y ago
These look great, and much cheaper than I expected. I already have a couple of the big HomePods and they're great, but I couldn't quite bring myself to buy any more for rooms that I really just want the smart assistant stuff in. But for this price I'll pick up three I think. I'm sure my wife is going to drive me up the wall with the intercom feature though!
boublepop 6y ago
Cute, an Apple themed Google Home. Is it still the case that Spotify won’t work with it? Because that really makes the device worthless to me and many others like me.
tomcam 6y ago
We own four of the standard HomePods. They are supposed to be stereo pairable. They are, but several times a week they either plain don’t work, lose the channel, or play different music on each channel. Generally speaking, while the sound is excellent that user interface and implementation are atrocious.

301 points by axg 6y ago

It's unfortunate that isn't battery powered/more portable.

Curious how much market share this homepod line has. My gut feel is that Amazon has the lion's share, followed by Google and everyone else has crumbs at the bottom.

ogre_codes 6y ago
Siri lives in on your wrist, in your pocket, or even in your ears with AirPods. It's a pretty significant difference. When you can access Siri anywhere, you only need to put speakers out where you want music. Google and Amazon need to work harder to get presence so they push them out using aggressive pricing.
- mmastrac 6y ago
  I have the same options with the Google assistant/Chromecast etc. That doesn't answer the question of what the homepod line's market share is.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    "Speaker" market share is irrelevant when 30-50% of iPhone owners have speakers in their ear or on their wrist.
    - mmastrac 6y ago
      You appear to be intentionally obfuscating for whatever reason. I found something from 2019 that appears to show Apple in a distant third place, with Amazon as #1 in the USA and some supporting research showing similar trends world-wide. [1][2] So yeah, as I expected it's Amazon's game, Google trailing but a strong presence, and Apple virtually missing from the race. [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/08/homepod-smart-speaker-market-share/ https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/08/homepod-smart-speaker-m... [2] https://macdailynews.com/2020/02/13/apple-homepod-took-4-7-share-of-global-smart-speaker-market-in-2019/ https://macdailynews.com/2020/02/13/apple-homepod-took-4-7-s...
- mullingitover 6y ago
  It's true, I have so many places that I can set timers. Beyond that piece of functionality, Siri is still a very developmentally disabled assistant and has never proven useful in my experience.
Hamuko 6y ago
Globally or in the US? Because they only sell the HomePod in a handful of countries.
millstone 6y ago
I think it is best to understand this as two different markets. Amazon Echo and Google Home devices are mainly about their smart assistants. Homepod is for music, and it competes more directly with Sonos devices.
- lmedinas 6y ago
  after today's presentation i'm pretty sure that HomePod Mini is the Apple answer to Amazon Echo and Google Home. Maybe the HomePod (original) can compete with the Sonos One or Five at sound level but not in terms of features people are looking for listening music such as: virtually all music streaming services available, integration with all the remaining Sonos products for Home cinema or for Home sound system. To me Homepod Mini is after the home assistant market. The HomePod (original) well it seemed like a shot in the dark now it will most likely get the Homepod mini features.
tootie 6y ago
I also think the market is pretty saturated if not about to taper. Amazon and Google have been all over this market for years and there's just no big value prop. 99% of the use is just as a smart speaker. I'd bet very few do home automation. Some are doing a bit of voice commerce if they're bought into the Amazon ecosystem. Apple doesn't offer much beyond cool product design. If someone was going to bust open this space it would be Spotify.

ipsum2 6y ago

Looks like the Echo Dot that was just released a few weeks ago: https://www.amazon.com/All-New-Echo-Dot-4th-Gen/dp/B07XJ8C8F7 https://www.amazon.com/All-New-Echo-Dot-4th-Gen/dp/B07XJ8C8F...

leecb 6y ago
They look to both be almost exactly the same size- 3.9 inches in diameter. Echo Dot: 100 x 100 x 89 mm HomePod Mini: 98 x 98 x 84mm
- seppin 6y ago
  1/2 the price
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - shagie 6y ago
    With the prime day sale, it's even a smaller fraction. However, there's probably a bit of a difference with the amount of on board processing that the two devices can do. For example, my iPhone can do voice to text while on airplane mode. {guessing} Similar on board processing would allow a HomePod Mini to work with HomeKit without needing to go to the cloud - Amazon working with Hue does need to go out to the cloud to get that voice to text to command layer. {/guessing}
    - seppin 6y ago
      I trust apple with privacy, I don't trust Amazon. That extra money is well worth it imo

wtmt 6y ago

I was expecting a refresh of the HomePod too, though rumors mentioned only the HomePod mini. I also thought that a price of $79 would’ve been quite attractive compared to the $99 price. Just have to wait for holiday sales, I guess. I can’t wait for reviews and comparisons on the sound of HomePod vs. HomePod mini.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> I also thought that a price of $79 would’ve been quite attractive compared to the $99 How did you arrive at that? Is $20 really the deciding factor for you?
- jagger27 6y ago
  Probably not relevant to what GP is trying to argue, but it would likely mean they’d price it at CAD $99 instead of CAD $129. Fairy significant psychological difference there.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  It's not about $20, it's about 20%. If you're thinking about buying 4 or 6 of these things, 20% adds up. Also for some people, $20 does matter. Lots of people are out of work — unemployment hasn't been this high in decades.

noodlesUK 6y ago

One of the interesting things is that on the specs page it says it supports “Thread”, which is a new wireless protocol championed for home automation tech, as an alternative to zig bee and Zwave. One thing I didn’t see was any mention of if it would support being a “Home Hub”, allowing for remote access to smart home stuff.

section_me 6y ago
Thread is not exactly new, July 2014[0], and it uses the same base standard as ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4), just using 6LoWPAN which is a low power personal aera network using IPv6. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(network_protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(network_protocol)
ndrake 6y ago
The footnote on that item is a bit disappointing: "Not compatible with non-HomeKit Thread devices."
- gerash 6y ago
  Lol. Adopt an open protocol built by Nest and then make it exclusive to Apple devices. Very revolutionary indeed
  - nkristoffersen 6y ago
    Pretty sure that means HomeKit certified devices, not Apple-built devices.
  - stingrae 6y ago
    Honestly it is very much Nest's decision to not support Homekit.
FerdSlav 6y ago
I think personally this is one of the biggest details that is being entirely overlooked. In past keynotes Apple has mentioned they are actively working with other companies on the new Project Connected Home Over IP working group[1], which according to the limited marketing material available, seems to indicate will at least partially operate over Thread. [1]: https://www.connectedhomeip.com/ https://www.connectedhomeip.com/

athenot 6y ago

HomePod mini works with your iPhone for requests like hearing your messages or notes, so they are completed on device without revealing that information to Apple. This is the big differentiating feature, along with the seamless integration within the rest of Apple's product line. EDIT: HomePod does this too but it was not at a price point nor size that competed with other assistants.

ChrisLTD 6y ago
Maybe that’s why my HomePod feels so slow?
- AceJohnny2 6y ago
  The SoC in the Homepod is old. It's the Apple A8, which was used on iPhone 6 (2014). The HomePod Mini uses Apple S5, which was in the Apple Watch 5 (2019)
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Note that the S5 is essentially identical to the S4 chip.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - Synaesthesia 6y ago
    It's not that bad of a CPU. It's powering my iPad Air 2 (A8X) which doesn't do too badly. Remember when we were freaking out about the unprecedented performance of the A7, the first 64-bit mobile chip? And now it's in a speaker.
    - duhi88 6y ago
      For real. Maybe, just maybe, a voice-controlled speaker doesn't need the latest cutting edge CPU. I wasn't expecting new Homepod hardware until after they announce on-device Siri. That seems like the only thing that would warrant a better CPU.

llampx 6y ago

Can anyone with a Homepod comment on the usability compared to the Google and Amazon spy systems... err speakers?

AceJohnny2 6y ago
I haven't used Alexa, but Siri on HomePod is way behind Google Assistant in capabilities and recognition reliability. I use it moderately for setting timers, reminders, shopping list, controlling my HomeKit lights, and getting weather. I'd judge it to be 80% reliable in picking up commands (but the way human memory works, it's likely much higher than that but the times it fails are more memorable) But HomePod is a phenomenal speaker.
- AceJohnny2 6y ago
  I just tried to tell it to play music, but my closer iPhone picked up the order instead -_-;
  - hinkley 6y ago
    If we keep making these, you're going to need to name each device. Hey HomePod, play something sinister.
- ballenf 6y ago
  That's true, unless you have privacy options enabled in your Google account. In which case your Google Home becomes a doorstop. At least that was my experience before I gave away a gifted Google Home because it refused to let me proceed through setup without disabling a bunch of privacy settings across my entire Google account.
cloudengineer 6y ago
I use it for home automation using hoobs, and as a primary speaker. They are the best sounding of all, and in stereo mode, they sound even better.
iwasakabukiman 6y ago

crooked-v 6y ago

I have to wonder if Apple will ever release a sound bar or the like, for Sonos-style 'sound bar plus two rear speakers' surround sound rather than just stereo.

josteink 6y ago

Sounds okish and very nicely priced. Too bad it seemingly relies so much on Siri. I haven’t been able to make Siri play me any music what so ever, despite multiple attempts. Once I’ve started playing, I can’t even make Siri skip tracks forward or backwards. Absolutely worthless. Caveat: not using Apple Music.

justusthane 6y ago

I think this is big. I've never gotten an Echo because I don't trust Amazon, but at $99 I'll buy one or two of these.

karmakaze 6y ago
I haven't gone looking, but I wouldn't assume that you can get sync'ed stereo unless specifically a feature.
- qchris 6y ago
  > If you want to take the amazing sound experience of HomePod mini even further, you can create a stereo pair. Two HomePod mini speakers paired in the same room create left and right channels for an immersive soundstage. Fwiw, it does look like they are advertising stereo pairing as an out-of-the-box feature
- gnicholas 6y ago
  The stereo pair feature was hobbled at release (only iTunes on MacOS, but from any app on iOS), but subsequent MacOS updates apparently solved this. But beware if you're running and older MacOS and don't want to update just to get stereo pairing!

jagger27 6y ago

The coolest part to me is that they're using the S5 watch SoC to power it. Pretty cool that Apple's various hardware teams can just grab a part off the shelf to use in a completely different class of device. I'd love to see them reintroduce AirPort routers powered by an A-series chip.

duhi88 6y ago
Agreed. I wonder what the cost is on that chip. Apple Watch S5 - Sensors + Speaker + Markup = $99
- jagger27 6y ago
  I'm having a hard time finding out which node it's on and the die area. The S5 is essentially a re-badged S4 which as far as I can tell is made on standard TSMC 7nm. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say the BOM is dominated by the casing and speaker hardware. That chip has been in production for about 2 years now.
- jonfw 6y ago
  Display + restrictions on internals/construction due to size constraints will make up a large part of that cost as well. I'd imagine that the chip itself is a pretty small percentage of the price of an Apple Watch.
gnicholas 6y ago
I'd love to see them put AirPort tech inside their smart speakers. That's one great way to differentiate from Alexa devices. We're still running AirPorts at my house, though I know eventually they'll die and we'll have to find something else. In the meantime, they're super convenient for having my Time Capsule back up my Mac, and for piping audio via an Airport Express to the speakers I use with my projector setup.
- jagger27 6y ago
  Oh yes that would be nice. A bunch of PoE HomePod minis with WiFi 6 would work great in my house to replace my 802.11ac UniFi setup. I'm really dreaming big now, but some sort of AirPort central base station with SFP+ for my FTTH connection and 4xPoE to power and feed a bunch of HomePods would be brilliant.

mstade 6y ago

If they could make these work in a wireless atmos setup seamlessly with the apple tv I'd buy like 14 of them and place all around my living room. Syncing video and audio in real-time wirelessly is really difficult apparently, there's a standard for it called WiSA but almost no adoption sadly. I'd love to cut down on wiring.

mttjj 6y ago
The comparison table makes is seem like the mini can't be paired with an AppleTV at all like the regular HomePod can.
- mstade 6y ago
  Oh that's a real shame if so.. missed opportunity!
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  > Pick up an incoming call from your iPhone, listen to music on your Mac, or upgrade your TV experience by taking the sound from your Apple TV to the next level — they all connect to HomePod mini. From the Apple website
  - mttjj 6y ago
    Weird. I see that too. Not sure what the table is trying to state then. https://www.apple.com/homepod/ https://www.apple.com/homepod/
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    Apple's site is a bit contradictory on this. In another place it lists speaker features and it lists "Home theater with Apple TV 4K" as a feature of the full size HomePod but not the mini. Inquiring minds want to know.
    - X-Istence 6y ago
      Home Theater uses the full size HomePod's to do 5.1/7.1/Dolby Atmos surround sound. It requires the spatial processing to allow for the surround sound experience. The HomePod Mini can be used as a stereo pair, and connected to an Apple TV with no issues.

kasperset 6y ago

Come with the power adapter. With the size constraints, I guess it was not possible to have it built in.

jnwatson 6y ago

This is so me-too. The only newish feature is a better privacy argument. This is a full 5 years after the Amazon Echo was introduced. This just adds to my creeping feeling that innovation is dead at Apple.

agd 6y ago
The big difference is seamless integration with other Apple products. This is why they’ll take market share, it will just work with your iPhone better than the echo does.
- jnwatson 6y ago
  A limiting factor is Siri. It took them 8 years to allow asking to play a particular song on Spotify. Usually the first thing I say to Siri is 'Hey Google' so it goes to Google Assistant. I'm not really sure what "seamless integration" is left. I (and my friends that have similar devices) use smart speakers for power control, getting the weather, playing music, and setting timers/alarms. It doesn't take an sole-source ecosystem to make that work well.
asciimo 6y ago
I agree with this "innovation is dead" sentiment. Apple used to be pioneers and futurists. Now they focus on retaining their well-defined market. This almost makes sense, except they have such a tremendous amount of cash they can afford to take risks.

turtlebits 6y ago

I don’t get it. Siri is the absolute worst compared to Google assistant, the only compelling reason to buy the HomePod is for sound quality. So unless this has some other redeeming quality over “Siri in your living room”, I don’t think it will sell well. The original HomePod regularly went on sale for 33% off already.

untog 6y ago
I'm curious to know what 90% of people do with their home assistant devices. I have a Google Home. I know it can do a huge array of things, but almost all I do with it is play music, control lights, and set timers. Siri can do all of those things.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- crooked-v 6y ago
  For me it's that plus voice-controlled NPR or audiobooks while doing other things (often cooking) and weather for later in the day (while getting ready in the morning). It'd also be temperature control, but I'm stuck with a millivolt thermostat and apparently nobody's interest in selling to us gas fireplace people.
- jon-wood 6y ago
  I have a couple of Echo devices, predominantly I use them for lighting control, alarms, timers, speakers for music and podcasts when cooking, paging out messages round the house rather than yelling down the stairs. My six year old son has picked up that he can use them to call me despite not having a phone of his own, so I also occasionally get calls when out and about asking for urgent Zelda help.
- bart_spoon 6y ago
  For one, I can use them as a speaker for my non-Apple devices. My household is almost entirely Apple products, but considering I have a few devices I would like to occasionally pair like a PC, it makes more sense to buy a home assistant/speak device from Google or Amazon that will work with everything I own, rather than a Homepod that will work with 90% of what I own, even if I like everything else about the Homepod more.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

thomasfl 6y ago

No Spotify support. Spotify’s market share is probably so large that Apple will sell fever of this speakers because of that.

manmal 6y ago
They are a direct competitor with Spotify Connect.
- accrual 6y ago
  I wish there could be a better partnership between Apple and Spotify. I consider Spotify to be best in field for my music needs and a tighter integration would be a win-win for me as a consumer. Just the other day: > "Hey Siri, favorite this song on Spotify." > "Sorry, Spotify hasn't added support for that." (paraphrased)
  - andruby 6y ago
    According to Spotify, it’s Apple that’s making life hard for them [0]. And here is Apple’s rebuttal [1] [0] https://www.timetoplayfair.com/timeline/ https://www.timetoplayfair.com/timeline/ [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/addressing-spotifys-claims/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/addressing-spotifys-c...
    - zepto 6y ago
      Spotify has to drag it’s heels and blame Apple now to support its legal case.
      - npunt 6y ago
        Exactly. Its a charade that's not in the best interest of customers of their service in order to get regulatory leverage on the 30% cut. I think people confuse the means (not support functionality that their customers want) with the ends (have a more level playing field against a competitor). I respect the ends they're trying to achieve but the means make me a dissatisfied customer.

ValentineC 6y ago

It doesn't look like the HomePod Mini would support Bluetooth devices as an audio source [1] (the older HomePod has the same issue), even though it lists Bluetooth 5.0 as a connectivity option. [1] https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/specs/#specs:~:text=Audio%20Sources https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/specs/#specs:~:text=Audio... [2] https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/specs/#specs:~:text=Wireless https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/specs/#specs:~:text=Wirel...

import 6y ago
Bluetooth used for Homekit stuff IMO.
krrishd 6y ago
Am I the only one that finds this astounding? Not to mention the inability to take an aux cord. It's one thing for phones to have these lock-in properties, but not being able to aux in audio into a speaker feels wild to me.
- ptd 6y ago
  Welcome to the future
- hjnilsson 6y ago
  Sonos has not supported this for over 10 years, and seem to be doing quite well. It is a “smart speaker”, not a speaker, so expectations are different.
  - aemreunal 6y ago
    Are you talking about aux? Because Sonos Move supports plain bluetooth audio connections; I use it all the time.
    - neuronic 6y ago
      Bluetooth wasn't an option for Sonos before the Move. All my Sonos devices support WLAN only, no other way to connect.

m3kw9 6y ago

I think the killer feature is the Intercom

gnicholas 6y ago
My initial reaction was the same — maybe we'd get one for our kid's room. But then I saw that Intercom supports all iOS devices, so probably we'd just put an old iPhone or iPad in there instead. But it's not 100% clear if when they say Intercom supports all iOS/WatchOS/MacOS devices, they mean you can communicate from one of those devices to a HomePod, or whether you can communicate amongst any of those devices (no HomePod required).
- theshrike79 6y ago
  Most likely if the iOS device is new enough to have iOS14 and Intercom support, you can sell it for more than $99 and get the Homepod =)
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    We have a first-gen iPhone SE that runs iOS 14 fine but probably wouldn't fetch more than $99+tax, especially when the hassle factor is accounted for. Also, it's nice to have a backup phone around the house, in case something happens to one of our primary phones.
  - rcarmo 6y ago
    I just asked Siri on my iPad to “tell everyone to go to bed” and it told me you can only intercom from one HomePod to another.
    - gnicholas 6y ago
      From Apple's website: > Intercom offers a quick and easy way to send messages to everyone in a household — from one HomePod to another, or across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and CarPlay. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/10/apple-introduces-homepod-mini-a-powerful-smart-speaker-with-amazing-sound/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/10/apple-introduces-home...

gnicholas 6y ago

Wish I could get 4 or 5 of these and use as a home theater setup. It'd be significantly cheaper than a Sonos Arc, and presumably offer better surround (though worse low-frequency response).

fossuser 6y ago
You'd be limited to only getting audio through the content of your Apple TV right? You wouldn't be able to get the audio from an Xbox for example?
- gnicholas 6y ago
  Good point, this is a limitation for some. We have a projector setup that we plug iPhones/iPads/MacBooks into, so we can AirPlay the audio from those to the speakers at the front of the room. Currently we AirPlay to an Airport Express (c. 2009?) that sends sound out to speakers. This works around the challenge of having video going out at the back of the room (to the projector) and needing audio to come out at the front of the room. This system doesn't work when we're playing Nintendo Switch, in which case the audio just comes out of the projector. For our purposes, that's fine; but I could see how someone playing Xbox would want that to be hooked into their audio system. I wonder if there would be some way to pipe audio through an old Mac mini to accomplish this. At that point it's probably worth just paying the Sonos tax.
- lozaning 6y ago
  I think it could withy something like HDMI ARC.
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    But how would you get the audio from an HDMI cable into the HomePod? Does Apple TV offer some sort of HDMI passthrough? I don't know since I've never had one.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]

tunesmith 6y ago

There are no power cords in any of the images I've found yet.

bouke 6y ago
In the presentation there’s a cable when it’s placed on the kitchen’s counter. But other than that the lack of cables caught my eye as well!

brundolf 6y ago

I was tempted, but my partner has an Android and I'm pretty sure these can't even function as a basic Bluetooth speaker for non-Apple devices, so unfortunately it's a no-go. Apple got this right with AirPods: special integration with other Apple devices, but basic functionality with everything. Hopefully they will with these too one day.

turtlebits 6y ago
You're right about not being able to pair as a Bluetooth speaker, but there are some advantages of Airplay (if you're using an Apple device). No pairing required (just shows up as an output device), no wrangling of Bluetooth connections to switch devices. Surprisingly, it also supports peer to peer play if you don't have a wifi connection.
- brundolf 6y ago
  Of course AirPlay is more streamlined, just like Google Cast is more streamlined. The point is to have a fallback, for the cases when you want to use your expensive device from outside of the golden path.
InitialLastName 6y ago
This exactly. Apple is consistently releasing products that I would absolutely buy if they didn't do everything they could to get a horizontal monopoly of microprocessor devices in my house.
- brundolf 6y ago
  Usually I can live with it; I don't see myself switching to Android anytime soon. But the story is different when it's a communal device for everyone in the household.
davmar 6y ago
break up with them /s jk jk

auggierose 6y ago

Do these work together with the old HomePod?

ssully 6y ago

Oddly enough this was the most exciting thing for me today. I use a Google Home in my kitchen almost exclusively for hands-free timers and music control when cooking/cleaning. My Home got bricked by an update last month and was going to just forgo replacing it because I am getting tired of Google's diminishing support of their products and the privacy concerns. My only concern is Siri is easily the worst assistant when compared to Google or Amazon. I just hope it is good enough to handle my music and timer requests.

Bud 6y ago
I definitely agree with you that Siri is (currently) the worst assistant, but if it helps, it has consistently been just fine for me with music and timers.
- ssully 6y ago
  Yeah I figure it should be able to accomplish that. I am sure there are people who use these home speakers for more complex tasks, but after the honeymoon period of owning it, my usage of the speakers basically broke down to: 1. Timers 2. Music 3. Asking about commute times
gnicholas 6y ago
I agree that this is one of the more interesting things today (especially for folks with an iPhone 11 Pro, who aren't looking to upgrade). There's already a way to use Siri skills to access OK, Google through your iPhone [1] without letting Google listen in on everything you say. It would be awesome if there were a way to do this from HomePods... 1: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3393159/how-to-use-hey-siri-to-control-google-assistant-on-iphone.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3393159/how-to-use-hey...

Bud 6y ago

Pretty disappointing that some users here flagged this post, apparently just for spite. Some of us are interested in this discussion.

kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
I think it's more because people are a bit annoyed at 5 different posts effectively discussing the Apple event.

_ph_ 6y ago

Really cute :). I have a pair of Homepods which pretty much has replaced my stereo for me, as together they sound really impressive. And are very convenient to use. Most of the time, I use my iPhone to control them. Certainly will get one or two minis for the rooms I am not constantly in, but would like to have some music support. One thing I don't get, why Apple doesn't push them more as computer speakers. Mojave still doesn't support them as a pair, and the latency is too big for normal speaker usage. Should be a relative easy sell with a new Mac, if macOS supported them as a proper pair with low latency.

135792468 6y ago
Was just thinking the same thing, would love to use with my Mac mini as a speaker. Cheaper than Sonos Beam I was going to get

burke_holland 6y ago

Yes, but Siri

myrandomcomment 6y ago

So here is the thing I struggle with. I have a NAS. On it is my media (music, videos, photos) collection. I do not have a subscription to Apple Music, or the reset of the streaming services and I not want one. So how do I play my own music collection with this? Right now to do this I have an AppleTV on every TV. I have an app on the AppleTV called MrMC which is basically a paid for port of Kodi for the AppleTV. The MrMC app can mount the NFS file share and play my music just fine. The AppleTV is plugged into and HDMI splitter that strips audio and outputs it to an amp which goes to my speakers. This just works, and I can remote control it with my an app on my iPhone. Given that the HomePod will not be able to access my music collection, it is useless. I would be happy with the HomePod being able to steam music from an open Music app on a Mac somewhere. I have enough spare Macs that it would be simple to just run Music on it (which mounts the network share.) But of course, I would be wasting power. Oh well. It would also be really nice if the AppleTV would just support SMB again.

thebean11 6y ago
I'd be sort of surprised if you couldn't "cast" arbitrary audio from a phone or laptop to the homepod.
- turtlebits 6y ago
  You can, at least from any Airplay 2 supported device. Mac, iOS, just change the output setting. Audio will sync up with video as well. Stereo pair only works with iOS and iTunes on Mac. (Not system audio)
  - aplummer 6y ago
    It works with the TV app too FYI
ndaiger 6y ago
You can make it work with iTunes Match. It will upload all your music (it's not just filename or metadata matching, apparently it uses audio fingerprints). Then you can play your own stuff without needing an Apple Music subscription. It's $25/year. I moved to Apple music a while ago, but iTunes Match worked great for me before that.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wicket 6y ago

> Private and secure. As long as it's sending data to Apple, it's anything but private.

Jnr 6y ago

Woohoo, finally a cheaper homepod! I was looking forward to something like this to be able to remotely control my Home Assistant setup through Homebridge Hue. Without having dedicated Apple TV/iPad/Homepod at home, you can't access devices in Home app, even if you have VPN. This meant that even at home I had to unlock the phone and wait for it to connect to Wifi before Siri would do anything with devices. This delay made it impractical to use Siri for controlling devices through Siri. Maybe it's possible to make it work with VPN by also forwarding some autodiscovery packets, but I'm not sure.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

I laughed out loud when they mentioned the intelligibility of Siri. Every 6 months or so I try Siri and am shocked it still can’t understand basic things my kids are using Alexa for.

lcfcjs 6y ago
I love Apple, and I would have to agree with this.

m3kw9 6y ago

Get 2 of them if you are gonna do it, it sounds amazing for original HomePod and for 200 for a pair that’s the setup you want

lmedinas 6y ago
I doubt the HomePod Mini at 99$ has any good sound quality compared to the Sonos One or original HomePod. Except if you want to use the Apple ecosystem features in different rooms i dont see the benefit of getting 2.

danloughney 6y ago

From the video intro, it looks like the power cord is hardwired into the device. I would have thought it was going to be USB-C. I'd prefer to swap out the cable in case it comes with a standard 6' and I want to tuck the speaker next to an outlet on a shelf.

rcarmo 6y ago

It’s nice, but I wish it had a line out jack for an external amp. I would love to replace my Echo Input with one, and keep the nice speakers I have... Oh wait, it’s not available in my country...

rcarmo 6y ago
Both of my comments were factual. Why the downvotes?

jshen 6y ago

I'm a big apple fan, got a homepod last christmas, and it's the worst apple product that I've ever owned. Truly disappointing. Siri fails to recognize commands that work great on alexa or google, the features it does have often fail (if I transfer a podcast from playing on my phone to play on the homepod, my phone often fails to sync with the location of my homepod). There's no way I will buy one of these until I hear from multiple people I know that they have one and it's truly amazing. edit: typos

Angostura 6y ago
Whereas my family say that it is the best Apple gizmo we own. It sits in the kitchen and typically only gets used for Playing music setting timers adding things to the shopping list answering stupid google queries during dinner. All of which it does with aplomb. But it was bought because wanted a great sounding smart speaker
- jen729w 6y ago
  I was gonna say it, but then you did. My non-tech partner 100% agrees. “Love it” is a term that I’ve heard. I do have a few (literally a few) custom shortcuts for weird things that it just couldn’t figure out, like playing specifically our local radio station, but other than that it’s amazing. “Hey Siri, play <whatever>” while we make dinner. “Hey Siri, turn it up!” Hey Siri good morning, turn the lights on, set a timer, she mostly does it all with aplomb. If this one broke I’d have another within half an hour. I might get the Mini just to put in another room and mess about. Now, caveat: I’ve never used Alexa or Google. I have no doubt that their voice assistant stuff would be better, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let one of those things listen to me at home. I just don’t trust them at all.
  - baggy_trough 6y ago
    I'm glad you're happy about it, but for me, Siri is a disaster. It only has about a 75% chance to get a simple music command right. Pretty hopeless.

dapangro 6y ago

It's also the same price as a braided solo loop watch band.

am_lu 6y ago

so much apple-fanboy on here. Grab a good second hand hi-fi set (cheap this days, everyone wants to be "smart"), play your own cd`s, vinyls, *.flac or other good quality digital media) and you will get a good sound... HomePod mini works effortlessly with your Apple devices. and only apple devices. Burned myself on apple years ago, got myself an ipod, learned my lesson with itunes, sold it, never come back.

ponker 6y ago

All these devices look so beautiful until you add the unsightly power cords.

chendragon 6y ago

Not much buzz about the sound quality yet, but it looks like a solid attempt. Force cancelling passive radiators with what looks like back suspension too, but I wonder if it will have vertical axis vibration issues if they arent doing something about that from the speaker driver itself.

Arubis 6y ago

This doesn't appear discussed in the copy: does anyone know if HomePod/(Mini) has been updated to be friendlier towards households with more than one adult user in them (families, roommates, whatever)? I initially found the HomePod alluring, but that it could pair only with one iPhone (and thus effectively one user) was a real turn-off when I last looked into it.

covercash 6y ago
They've had it for a year or so. From the HomePod site: A personalized experience. For each person in the family. Together with Siri, HomePod can learn and recognize up to six different voices and create a personalized listening experience for everybody at home. So when they say “Hey Siri, play some music” they’ll get a mix of songs customized just for them — picked from Apple Music based on their listening history and personal preferences. And with Personal Requests, they can access their own messages, reminders, lists, and calendars, and make and receive phone calls.
- Arubis 6y ago
  Oh, that's a significant improvement; thanks for the clarification! I may consider one of these down the road.
Gaelan 6y ago
I believe I saw something about voice recognition to route requests to multiple iPhones, yes

varenc 6y ago

The U1 ultra-wideband chip means the HomePod can be used a fixed reference point for general purpose indoor location finding! Would be great for AirTags, if those ever become a reality. At the moment, the U1 is only be used for the nifty hold-your-iphone-close move, but I have no doubt Apple has other applications in mind. Ultra-wideband is amazing for its indoor high-resolution position finding. Down to the inch is possible. But the more reference points you have, the faster/more accurate it will be. When used with the U1 chip also in your iPhone, having a HomePod mini around could enable Apple's forthcoming AirTags to be located more quickly/precisely. Or enable a better AR experience. They're basically GPS satellites for in-home position finding. (Ultra-wideband uses time-of-flight, just like GPS)

ehsankia 6y ago
I really wish of a future where I can just point my phone at one of my cast devices to cast to it.
- occamschainsaw 6y ago
  A very limited version of this feature is used in AirDrop with U1 equipped iPhones. Just point your phone to the phone you are transferring to and it shows up in the AirDrop share sheet.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    Was that actually implemented / tested? I remember hearing about it but I never saw anyone mention or test it in any reviews. Does it actually work well?
    - varenc 6y ago
      It does exist, and it works! But both phones need U1 chips, meaning iPhone 11s and above. One thing that's cool about this is that iOS must be using the slight movements of the phone in your hand to help triangulate the other phone. Ultra-wideband position finding relies on time-of-flight, so from a single reference point you only know the precise distance something is from you, and not its direction. To get around, my guess is iOS is using the accelerometers in the phone to measure slight changes a phones position, and then using multiple ultra-wideband distance measurements from those different positions to triangulate the other phone.

s800 6y ago

Could these be used as conference room speakerphones/mics?

tuatoru 6y ago

"Hey Siri, where are my keys?" ... Nope. Not useful enough yet.

markvdb 6y ago

Even if this thing were to respect one's privacy, it still normalises the intrusion by other smart speakers.

hcurtiss 6y ago

I'm bummed the didn't release a smart display. We're an iPhone/iPad/Mac/Apple TV family, but the Nest Hub Max has become a really great part of our lives. When combined with the Nest Hello, we get video of the front door in the kitchen when the doorbell rings, and the Google Homes in the bathrooms also notify us. We have a couple HomePods that we tried to use, but there's no doorbell integration we could find, and believe it or not, I really like having a photo display and visual cues when we interact with the kitchen device. I would spend the money to transition to an Apple smart display/doorbell and these HomePods, but they have stubbornly refused to produce the product so many others are selling. I just don't get it.

noodlesUK 6y ago

One feature I wish Apple would build into this would be a 3.5mm jack or optical audio out. I have a lot of very nice speakers already in my house, but no multi-room audio, or voice assistant. I know the echos can do this, but I don’t want them spying on me.

kart23 6y ago
Every single amazon echo device has a 3.5mm jack. And chromecast audios are going for $90 on eBay. I just want a simple solution to stream to my old speakers that isn't bluetooth or Amazon. I would've 100% bought a homepod mini if it had an audio out.
- whalesalad 6y ago
  AppleTV does this. I believe you can use it as a headless sound machine. Mine has optical out.
  - eh9 6y ago
    That's how I can use my sub-woofer and anything else plugged into the receiver.
  - xionon 6y ago
    Unfortunately, the newest models do not have optical audio out, only HDMI.
    - neal_jones 6y ago
      This is disappointing
  - kart23 6y ago
    They dropped it in 2015. The old airport express has audio out as well.
sangnoir 6y ago
Once upon a time, Apple shipped with all Macbook with 3.5mm jacks that doubled up as optical audio out. Ah, the good old days

ibdf 6y ago

I have the iPhone now and have always used MacBooks, but so far I have refused to buy other products from them because they insist in keeping the ecosystem so closed. No Spotify support is why I’m not buying this. I’ve had Spotify for years and I’m not looking to switch. And Siri, unfortunately for me it’s now a selling point. It struggles so much on my phone that I can’t bring myself to use it often enough to care about it.

lilyball 6y ago
They already announced earlier this year that they had a new program to integrate third-party music services. And in today’s event they specifically called out “services like Pandora and Amazon [Music]” as being available “in the coming months”. I don’t know whether Spotify is included, but I would hope so.
- acwan93 6y ago
  It’s part of the SiriKit Media Intents that was introduced in iOS 13.
  - lilyball 6y ago
    Isn’t that for suggesting songs based on search results, or triggering songs with Siri on your phone? That’s not the same thing as using third-party music providers on HomePod.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  That will be up to Spotify. I switched from Spotify to Apple Music because Spotify won’t support cellular streaming. I would have switched back to Spotify but after the Apple One announcement, it’s too late. They lost me.
lostgame 6y ago
Strange. Spotify seems to work fine with my Apple Watch (Series 3)?

jiggawatts 6y ago

One thing I don't quite understand about the HomeKit "ecosystem" is that there doesn't seem to be much of one... I've looked on the Apple store, the local electronics store, but everything I would expect to see in a range of smart devices are very notably absent. For example, I can't find a reasonably sized multi-port Apple HomeKit power board. I can't find motion or person presence sensors. In fact, just about the only products that seem to exist are "smart" light bulbs, but I don't see what's so smart about paying AUD 150 for a light bulb...

mzgaljic 6y ago
Motion sensor: https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Motion-Sensor-Installation-Free-Exclusively/dp/B076MGK22M https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Motion-Sensor-Installation-Fr... Power strips: https://www.imore.com/best-homekit-power-strips https://www.imore.com/best-homekit-power-strips Most philips hue products are Homekit compatible, if you have a hue bridge. As far as the “best” lighting/switch products, I would recommend Lutron Caseta. Not cheap though! If you’d like to reliably detect when someone is home (their phone is on wifi), you can dive into Homebridge. The plug-in you want is this: https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-people https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-people With the homebridge-people plugin, you can expose an occupancy sensor in Homekit, and trigger a scene when everyone leaves the house, for example. Or the inverse, when someone arrives home. This is more reliable than the built in Homekit location based triggers, because those work with GPS. You don’t always want your lights turning on just because you drove past your house. :)
- jiggawatts 6y ago
  I should have specified that I live in Australia, so US power boards are useless. It seems that vendors aren't manufacturing these for all regional power outlet formats.
  - mzgaljic 6y ago
    Oh I see, that stinks. I know this isn’t what you were looking for, but here are some options if you are willing to be creative: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeKit/comments/hzc7lr/powerboardpower_strip_for_australia/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeKit/comments/hzc7lr/powerboardp...

mcintyre1994 6y ago

Am I right in thinking this doesn’t work as a speaker for your living room unless you do everything through Apple TV? Is there a way to use it with a PS4 at all for example?

bengale 6y ago

These look great, and much cheaper than I expected. I already have a couple of the big HomePods and they're great, but I couldn't quite bring myself to buy any more for rooms that I really just want the smart assistant stuff in. But for this price I'll pick up three I think. I'm sure my wife is going to drive me up the wall with the intercom feature though!

boublepop 6y ago

Cute, an Apple themed Google Home. Is it still the case that Spotify won’t work with it? Because that really makes the device worthless to me and many others like me.

tomcam 6y ago

We own four of the standard HomePods. They are supposed to be stereo pairable. They are, but several times a week they either plain don’t work, lose the channel, or play different music on each channel. Generally speaking, while the sound is excellent that user interface and implementation are atrocious.