7 ms·

I hope this leads to some way besides Airplay to play arbitrary audio with no delay. If Apple had just included support for Bluetooth audio (or God forbid, an a

• semi-extrinsic 6y ago
  What's the trouble with buying any of the competition, if you want those features? You can get a Klipsch R51 PM for quite a bit less than the price of two HomePods. Better audio, Bluetooth, aux, optical, USB, even phono pre-amp in case you have a turntable.
  • ctvo 6y ago
    The aesthetics mainly. HomePods, for all their flaws, are very decent speakers in a small footprint. They blend in and are very minimalist, in my opinion, and that's important to me.
    • semi-extrinsic 6y ago
      Depends on your taste, I guess. For me this is quite minimalist: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41A-xmDb8nL._AC_SY400_.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41A-xmDb8nL...
      • count 6y ago
        Yes, it depends on taste. Those are just boxes...
        • reaperducer 6y ago
          They look like the sort of pack-in speakers you got free with a Packard Bell computer in 1993.
          • mlavin 6y ago
            They look like reasonable bookcase speakers to me, not enough hard gray plastic with yellowing from heat to be vintage OEM like these: https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzY4WDEwMjQ=/z/Bi0AAOSw5cRZICJN/$_86.JPG https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzY4WDEwMjQ=/z/Bi0AAOSw5cRZICJN/$...
          • zrobotics 6y ago
            Not to dogpile, but do you remember the 90s? In 1993, computer hardware that wasn't SGI wasn't allowed to be any color besides Beige, to the point that in the late 90s having a black PC was a design trend instead of the default.
            • reaperducer 6y ago
              do you remember the 90s? I do remember the 90's. I wasn't a fan of it. computer hardware that wasn't SGI wasn't allowed to be any color besides Beige I used to dream about one day pounding away on SGI gear. I eventually (early/mid-2000's) got moved to an office with meteorologists that had Indigos and Octanes, and I think Irisseseses. Blue was awesome. But then they all got replaced by generic Dell machines. Ick. I remember back before all computers looked the same. Back when keyboards were vastly different between models, and would have blue or red or brown or very rarely green keys. Standardization? That was for the Telex at work. Computers were going to free us from that tyranny. Except they didn't.
              • fennecfoxen 6y ago
                If what you really want from your computing experience is freedom in the form of a colorful keyboard, there's options out there for you. Perhaps you would like to start with some cute pastels? https://thekey.company/products/dsa-magic-girl-keycaps-round-2 https://thekey.company/products/dsa-magic-girl-keycaps-round...
            • FireBeyond 6y ago
              > computer hardware that wasn't SGI wasn't allowed to be any color besides Beige Not true. Digital (DEC) PCs were "almost white" (maybe stightly off-white but still approaching a cream, not beige). Hard to find a picture that shows this without having aged but this does a good job: https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/68/16/product-96816.jpg https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/68... Note the marked difference between the beige floppy drive and the case. Also: https://www.speedhelp.net/Bilder/Computer/ISA/P1/digital_venturis_fx_5133.jpg https://www.speedhelp.net/Bilder/Computer/ISA/P1/digital_ven...
      • askafriend 6y ago
        I personally would not want these monstrosities anywhere in my house.
      • turtlebits 6y ago
        There is a reason they call those "bookshelf" speakers. No great place you can put them outside of an office or a dedicated space you can give them enough separation.
    • reaperducer 6y ago
      for all their flaws, are very decent speakers in a small footprint This is an understatement. I bought one just yesterday, and was very very surprised by how small it is. It just blends in unobtrusively with the room. It's like it's not even there. A pretty good step on the route to making computers blend in with the world. If you're a tech nerd who is OK with wires and blinking lights all over your home, this won't be important to you. But if you are someone, or live with someone, for whom the aesthetics of your home are important, this is a very important feature.
      • tyre 6y ago
        I'm six months into owning one and am still blow away by the quality of the sound. And yes, the aesthetics. It just looks good. Actively good.
  • tambourine_man 6y ago
    They do sound incredible. Though I don’t think I’ll ever own a voice assistant.
    • lukifer 6y ago
      I keep Siri disabled on mine, and I use a Raspberry Pi for cloudless voice control. They’re pricy for dumb speakers, but worth it IMO.
      • prdonahue 6y ago
        How are you using your Raspberry Pi to control your HomePod?
        • lukifer 6y ago
          It's a convoluted setup I'm not sure I'd recommend to anyone else! :) Still tinkering on it, but current rig is a Respeaker Core [0] running voice2json [1], which sends MQTT commands to a Mac Mini running mopidy [2], and the audio is routed through Airfoil [3] to multiple AirPlay speakers. (In theory, a Pi could drive all that directly, using shairport [4] rather than Airfoil.) The major shortcoming is that Airfoil doesn't support Airplay 2, so it doesn't take full advantage of HomePod stereo pairing; and while the sync is perfect, it comes at the cost of massive lag (5+ seconds). Sounds great though! [0] https://respeaker.io/rk3229_core/ https://respeaker.io/rk3229_core/ [1] https://voice2json.org/ https://voice2json.org/ [2] https://mopidy.com/ https://mopidy.com/ [3] https://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/ https://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/ [4] https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync
          • whoisburbansky 6y ago
            That sounds incredible, thanks for posting. Do you not use the sync at all with that kind of lag?
            • lukifer 6y ago
  • LeonM 6y ago
    I don't understand your example, those Klipsch are just speakers, you'll still need an amplifier and bluetooth receiver. This feels like comparing apples (no pun intended) with oranges.
    • semi-extrinsic 6y ago
      No, they are powered speakers - amplifier integrated in the case - which supports bluetooth and the other inputs I mentioned.
    • dahfizz 6y ago
      They are speakers with a built in amp, bluetooth, and various other inputs.
      • LeonM 6y ago
        My bad, I was looking at the R-51M, not the R-51PM. The 'M' is a passive speaker, the 'PM' has build in amplifier and bt
  • rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
    I think they're (one of?) the only smart speakers on the market to automatically calibrate themselves to the room. I'm sure it's just some EQ and maybe a bit of phase adjustment, but the speaker doing it automatically for you whenever you reposition it is a nontrivial feature that makes the audio sound noticably better than much of the competition.
    • niklasrde 6y ago
      The Sonos Move has "Auto Trueplay", which is the same, and allows Bluetooth playback in a "dumb speaker" mode. Weirdly, not at the same time - Auto Trueplay is only supported in WiFi mode.
      • ebg13 6y ago
        Does Sonos still spy on people? ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24680614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24680614 )
        • gogopuppygogo 6y ago
          Everything is spying on us. Privacy was traded for “free” stuff.
          • dpkonofa 6y ago
            That's a weird thing to say in an article about the Homepod which very definitively does not spy on anyone who owns one.
    • thesandlord 6y ago
      Google Home Max also does the auto calibration thing and also has an Aux jack and bluetooth support.
      • throwaway894345 6y ago
        OP may also care about privacy.
  • SkyMarshal 6y ago
    One feature I like about HomePods and Airplay is stereo pairing. If you have two, you can link them, stream to one, and they automatically play in Stereo. Can other non-Apple alternatives do anything like that? https://support.apple.com/guide/homepod/set-up-stereo-pairing-apd1ed62a52a/homepod https://support.apple.com/guide/homepod/set-up-stereo-pairin...
    • berberous 6y ago
      Sonos; KEF LSX
    • nicwolff 6y ago
      Denon HEOS
  • dejawu 6y ago
    My computer speakers live on a bookshelf in the center of my apartment, so I don't want them to sound muddy from the side that they're not facing. I wanted the Homepods because they're omni-directional, they sound great, and I think they're really cute! I would've happily paid extra for that set of traits, but Apple seems determined not to have me as a customer. What I ended up doing is getting two of the Bose Home Speaker 500, which has sideways-firing speakers. I leave them in aux mode all the time and arranged them so that no matter which side of the shelf you're on, the left audio will be on your left side and the right audio will be on your right side.
    • dpkonofa 6y ago
      >but Apple seems determined not to have me as a customer. What do you mean by that? It sounds like the Homepod, or even a pair of HomePods Mini, would be perfect for your situation.
  • turtlebits 6y ago
    For me, WAF. I have traditional speakers/amp but they sit in my office. Homepods are unobtrusive, and I don't have to worry about positioning/directing them. While bluetooth would be nice, I find Airplay a much better option. I currently hate trying to use bluetooth headphones/speakers between multiple devices and having to go to. settings to manually "reconnect" them. (Yes, even with Airpods).
• codetrotter 6y ago
  No delay but Bluetooth audio? Is that that even possible? I use Bluetooth audio a lot when only listening to media but try and use Bluetooth headphones while playing a MIDI instrument. For me I struggle when I try to do that. My headphones are Audio-Technica ATH-M50xBT. They support Bluetooth 5.0 https://www.audio-technica.com/en-gb/ath-m50xbt https://www.audio-technica.com/en-gb/ath-m50xbt I’ve been using them with a wire connection to my MPC X when doing music but a couple of days ago I used my MPC X in controller mode connected to my 2018 MacBook Air, and used Bluetooth Audio to see what that’d be like. As mentioned I found the delay to be too high. I tried to lower the sample buffer size in the MPC X software on the computer but with lower settings I got popping and clicking sounds. Besides, the buffer size settings in the MPC software were not the main contributor to the delay AFAICT. The default setting of 512 samples, when used at 48kHz will mean 10.67 ms of delay, which according to some sources online is at about the upper limit of what you’d want when playing an instrument. And some sources say that for sounds with a steep attack (e.g. drums) you’d preferably actually have sub 6-7 ms delay. But Bluetooth 5.0 adds a minimum of 32 ms of delay according to what I read online, and they also say that more likely it will be as much as a couple of hundred ms delay. All I know for sure is that when I tried to play instruments through Bluetooth audio using the headphones I mentioned and the MPC X connected in controller mode to my computer with the MPC software, the delay was sufficiently high that it became difficult to play. Whereas with a cable connection to my MPC X in standalone mode with the same headphones the delay is low enough that I personally don’t notice it, even when doing drum sounds.
  • wlesieutre 6y ago
    For hardware from Apple's walled garden, here's some numbers on AirPods latency: > What about results? The first-generation AirPods, which use Apple’s W1 chip, measure latency of 274 ms. Second-generation AirPods, released earlier this year and powered by Apple’s newer H1 chip, drop the latency to 178 ms. And AirPods Pro, which use the same H1 chip, are even better at 144 ms. https://9to5mac.com/2019/12/22/airpods-latency-test/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/12/22/airpods-latency-test/
    • londons_explore 6y ago
• _L1ngL1ng_ 6y ago
  That's what I hope this will help accomplish. The homepod has a ton of power and could easily run additional applications / protocols.
• rsanheim 6y ago
  What do you mean by "no delay" ? If you mean the delay between asking Siri to 'play music' and music to start, that is annoying and should be fixed by Apple engineers at some point. Siri is just way too slow on the Homepod. I typically use my phone and just manage what is playing that way, which is faster and has a better UI anyways. If you mean playing something with minimal latency between your source and the speaker, that is just not going to happen with any sort of speaker over wireless. Airplay is pretty good in that regard, but you can never beat just plugging in a line out to a full fledged self powered speaker, like the KEF LS50s or LSX.