16 ms·

Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

166 points by HatchedLake721 4y ago

odysseus 4y ago
Why does Apple: * Allow you to set white noise / background sounds for sleeping * But -doesn't- allow you to turn off the glowing light on the top of the HomePod while playing those background sounds (in a pitch dark room while you're trying to sleep)
koinedad 4y ago
Interesting to see a v2, and looking forward to Matter support for more smartphone devices to work natively…right now the device support is kind of ridiculous
fassssst 4y ago
Temperature and humidity sensor is a nice perk for those of us with acoustic guitars and orchids. Presumably it can be used with Apple Shortcuts to trigger notifications. Might upgrade my first gen HomePod eventually, but it still sounds great.
- rwc 4y ago
  "With its built-in sensor, HomePod can detect and tell you the temperature and humidity of the room.8 And you can set it in automations so the blinds close if the temperature hits 80 degrees."
- gpmcadam 4y ago
  fyi HomePod Mini also has those sensors
  - layer8 4y ago
    Siri claims it can't tell me the room temperature.
    - gpmcadam 4y ago
      I wonder if it needs an update because I've just asked one for both temperature and humidity and it was able to tell me. Also see the comparison table at the bottom of this page: https://www.apple.com/uk/homepod-2nd-generation/ https://www.apple.com/uk/homepod-2nd-generation/
      - layer8 4y ago
        Seems like it: https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/18/homepods-now-feature-temperature-humidity-sensor/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/18/homepods-now-feature-te... Maybe the update also requires iOS 16 on a connected device, I’m still on 15.
        yborg 4y ago
        I think it depends on HW version. I got a Mini right when it came out, and with the latest beta 16.3 firmware it still says "I'm sorry, I can't do that" for requests about room temperature or humidity.
        layer8 4y ago
        I don’t think so, the sensor was reported fairly shortly after the initial release, and there hasn’t been a second gen of the mini. It’s probably just a staged rollout.
andrewbarba 4y ago
Worth noting: - We lost two tweeters (7 down to 5) - We lost two mics (6 down to 4) Really curious how the sound compares to the original.
- thechao 4y ago
  I still don't know why it doesn't come with an equalizer built into Home. Sometimes I want grumbly bass; sometimes I want to understand Bane without subtitles.
  - nntwozz 4y ago
    Not an equalizer but Reduce Bass setting does exactly this. I actually have it on at all times because it makes the HomePod sound more flat, the default has too much bass for my taste.
- distantsounds 4y ago
  [flagged]
- AlanYx 4y ago
  The description of the tweeters has changed on the spec page as well. I wonder if they're still using balanced mode radiators (BMRs) like the first gen HomePods? Perhaps these use a newer generation BMR?
  - johnvanommen 4y ago
    I don't think they're BMRs, they're just conventional full range drivers, similar to what Apple has been using for almost two decades, going all the way back to the iMac.
    - AlanYx 4y ago
      The first gen HomePod definitely uses BMRs: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/nondestructive-look-inside-homepod.2245584/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/nondestructive-look-ins...
t3rabytes 4y ago
I love my OG HomePods that I got on close-out at Best Buy, but both of them have given me near constant connection issues over the last few months -- excited to have something to replace them with. I much prefer the appearance of the Big HomePod over the (not-really) equivalent Sonos One.
- _phred 4y ago
  I’ve got two first gen HomePods here which died slightly out of warranty, and AppleCare wanted $300 a piece just to take a look at them. Makes me quite gunshy about spending yet another $300 on a product which may not last more than 2-3 years.
  - kaypro 4y ago
    Exact same experience here. Mine died after a botched firmware update. Woke up one morning after it had auto-updated the night before. 100% Apple's fault because they pulled the update shortly after but the damage was done. Took it in thinking they would just reset it and shocked they wanted $300 to repair. Unless this one has a UCB-C port like the mini that allows user resetting I'll skip this one.
  - AlanYx 4y ago
    In case you still want them repaired, there's a guy online (Nic's Fix) who runs a mail-in $60 repair business for dead first gen HomePods.
    - jrowley 4y ago
      He even live streams fixing them. Here is a video, more on his channel https://youtu.be/FfGiuh_QH3M https://youtu.be/FfGiuh_QH3M And I think it works out to about $80 once you include shipping. Ive got a dead one right now - trying to decide if I want to source air gun to fix it myself or just send it to him. Less than $100 to have it fixed is kind of a steal.
      - _phred 4y ago
BasedInfra 4y ago
Siri is the main issue holding me back from buying a homepod. Alexa & Google just bypass it in cleverness while also understanding my accent way better. The only major plus of Siri is tight integration into ios.
- yalogin 4y ago
  Am curious. How often do you use a voice assistant and what tasks?
  - dewey 4y ago
    I'm not the parent commenter but I'm using Siri on my HomePod minis all the time. Turning on / off lights. Regulating the temperature, setting timers, asking for temperature outside, stopping the music. Unfortunately Siri isn't that great so you'll often run into "Waiting for it", "One moment" and "Working on it" replies.
    - pasc1878 4y ago
      Also often siri cannot tell the difference between on and off.
  - BasedInfra 4y ago
    Lights, Time, Timers, News, Podcasts/Audiobooks. Asked Alexa today: - ‘Can dogs eat apples’ - ’How far is it to <location>‘ ‘How long to <location>.’ - ‘How many calories does 100g grams of cornflakes have’ Just stuff not worth picking my phone up and typing for the most part. Though just tried all 3 of them on siri and only how far/long is <location> gave me a voice answer (the other 2 were just search results).
- criddell 4y ago
  There's one thing keeping my Echo plugged in: AnyList integration. I can say "Alexa, add eggs" and it adds eggs to my AnyList shopping list. With a HomePod, I have to say something like "Hey Siri, using AnyList add eggs to my grocery list" or something like that. It's way too clumsy.
shapefrog 4y ago
tbh find the full size a bit expensive for my personal needs - more interested in the mini (still overpriced). Certainly makes the mini a more compelling option however if they add more functionality. "Apple's HomePod mini includes a dormant hidden sensor that can measure temperature and humidity, potentially providing the means to power upcoming features that could arrive in a future software update, according to Bloomberg." https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/22/homepod-mini-temperature-humidity-sensor/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/22/homepod-mini-temperatur...
- galad87 4y ago
  Apple website now lists the temperature and humidity sensors even on the mini, I guess the next software update will enable them.
- chid 4y ago
  according to this page the mini (current model) will have it activated I suspect when the Homepod 2 comes out.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    Ahh thanks, I checked the actual mini product page which doesnt seem to be updated yet.
dustedcodes 4y ago
In our house we have Google's home speakers and the original Nest cameras and also some new cameras which only work with the Google home app and over the years I could see a gradual decline in reliability, functionality and just in general a decline in the usefulness of those things. The camera feed is so slow since Google took over Nest, it barely works with the Google home app and keeps cutting out, doesn't load at all or keeps hanging sometimes. When someone rings the door bell then it takes forever to bring up the feed and let me talk to the person by the door. The Nest doorbell has become completely useless in its latest iteration combined with the Google home app. The person is long gone before I get to see who it was, which makes it really annoying and super unreliable to receive parcels when not at home. I have never tried Alexa + Ring, but speaking to friends they are also getting more frustrated with the Amazon brand. Is Apple a viable option today? If this stuff works well then it's worth having, but currently I wouldn't go for any smart gadgets and actively refuse anything from Google. I don't think they care about their hardware products. I've seen the same decline with their Pixel series.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  I played with a cheap wifi camera vs an actual wired (network) cctv camera. The difference is night and day, even just viewing the stream in VLC. Speed, stability etc. "Consumer" stuff just feels underpowered and little more than a toy. I hope matter brings a better landscape for all this stuff - but then I have been sitting on my hands waiting for years as the next version of everything is just 12 months away.
  - kawsper 4y ago
    Matter might be the thing you've been waiting for. I only have 3 light switches in my apartment, but I made sure they had Matter support.
    - shapefrog 4y ago
      Matter is certainly taking its time coming into existence!
chid 4y ago
been very happy with my homepod mini - doesn't seem like there's many additional features in the larger size one (except for higher sound levels?)
- satysin 4y ago
  I enjoy the HomePod mini we were gifted in the kitchen. It sounds fine for what it is but Siri is basically a glorified kitchen timer as it fails at least 70% of the time at answering a question or even turning lights on and off. Is it too much to ask to say “Siri turn off all lights except kitchen island” and expect it to do it? No matter how many times I have reconfigured things in the Home app it just can’t do it I have to ask it to turn off all lights then turn on the kitchen island :facepalm:
  - garblegarble 4y ago
    Yeah, that sort of low hanging fruit is a bit annoying... although if you find yourself doing that a lot, adding a named shortcut / scene for it is a decent workaround.
- Tagbert 4y ago
  The main thing the full-size HomePod brings is more speakers for better sound.
binkHN 4y ago
It's nice to see Apple continuing to iterate here whereas Google, in comparison and as they often do, killed off their related Google Home Max product.
- s3p 4y ago
  Par for the course! We still have the one and only iMessage and Google is still making new chat apps.
yunwal 4y ago
The last HomePods sounded great, but it’s hard for me to imagine them taking off without fixing Siri. Siri is still remarkably dumb compared to Alexa and certainly when compared to GPT3.5 tools. If you ask Siri “What is 220°C in F” it will correctly hear the words you’re saying, then convert 220F to C. Because of this, I never use Siri outside of contexts I’m sure Apple has tested thoroughly (e.g. read my last text).
- greedo 4y ago
  Worked perfectly for me on my iPhone.
  - mechanicum 4y ago
    Same. I wondered if it was making a locale-based assumption about what you wanted, but it works converting the other way too.
  - yunwal 4y ago
    Strangely it’s working for me today, but not yesterday when I was cooking and couldn’t touch my phone with wet hands. I wonder if background noise has something to do with it. The fact that Siri accurately displayed what I was trying to say made me think it understood me perfectly, but it’s possible it will do something else in the background if it’s not confident it hears you correctly. Either way, I have issues with Siri all the time.
- Hamuko 4y ago
  I thought that the main reason between the last generation of HomePod flopping was because they're so locked down. And apparently they still don't support Bluetooth streaming even though it has built-in Bluetooth?
  - pohl 4y ago
    Only a handful of techies cared that it was locked down. The problem with the original was the $350 price point.
- deleted 4y ago
sneak 4y ago
This is extremely exciting, given the audio quality of the HomePod 1. I had been buying new old stock of HomePod 1s off eBay to make sure I have 6 working ones (I use 3 different stereo pairs) for the foreseeable future. The only real downside of HomePods is that they don't function as bluetooth audio receivers (Apple proprietary AirPlay2 only) and that you need an Apple ID (as well as iCloud enabled on that Apple ID) to set them up - the creation of which these days requires a working phone number, so it's a little expensive (burner SIM) if you want to buy and use them anonymously. People commenting about how Siri sucks I think are missing the point of these. These (presuming the sound quality is similar to the HP1) are the best consumer self-powered speakers for under $2000, full stop. The fact that they do anything else (mics, voice assistant, wifi streaming, whatever) is mostly unimportant if you understand what these things are. I'd use them even if they didn't have Wi-Fi. As far as I can tell, they (and airpods) were the latest "insanely great" product Apple made until the M1 macs dropped.
- distantsounds 4y ago
  you're aware Apple _reduced_ the number of internal speakers, right? what makes you think it will be better, aside from flashy marketing materials?
  - s3p 4y ago
    They also reduced the price by $50. In the era of inflation, I respect it.
  - sneak 4y ago
    I haven't made the assumption that more speakers = better sound. It's possible it's experiencing the same gradual and nearly imperceptible quality decline (from insanely great to merely extremely good) that most Apple products have been undergoing the last 5-7 years, but I will reserve judgement until I have one (two, actually) in hand. Apple's brain drain and productmanagerization is sadly very real. Fingers crossed that someone in Apple is holding it to the same standards as AudioAccessory1,1 (HomePod1), but not holding my breath as I think the guy who I believe was the main force behind it (Christopher Stringer) left Apple to create a company called Syng and a product called the Cell Alpha. A stereo pair of Cell Alphas is $4500. A stereo pair of HomePod2s is $600. Also, I think one of the main reasons the HP1 flopped is because it was too expensive. If this thing is 95% as good as the HP1 but stays in production because people are buying it because Apple figured out how to sell it for 15% cheaper, then it's a win. We'll see!
ZeroCool2u 4y ago
Seems like Apple executed the way Google should have with their Google Home Max. They've added stereo pairing, so you can have two of them sync up together and then connect them to an Apple TV 4k and you basically get a pretty nice wireless sound bar with Dolby Atmos enabled. Still, at $300 per pod, I really need Siri to do better than the "dumber than a bag of rocks" vibe she currently gives off for this to be at all tempting. As someone that does applied DL for work, especially NLP, I just don't understand what Apple is doing with Siri. It's like they see low user engagement metrics with Siri and assume it's because people don't want it. Instead, everyone I know that's an Apple fan uses Google Assistant, because it just works most of the time.
- selykg 4y ago
  The stereo pairing was available on the 1st generation. I have three of the 1st gen models, they're fantastic. I think I paid $200 for each. At that price they're a steal.
  - highwaylights 4y ago
    Yeah, I'm a little confused as to what's actually new here from the video? I assume a newer chipset but it's not really clear what else has changed?
    - kgermino 4y ago
      They're for sale again for starters. The first generation was discontinued a couple years ago. I think they had some manufacturing issue which meant they kept dying prematurely. It's possible this is basically a small spec bump + they should actually work this time
    - robbiet480 4y ago
      The display on top is much larger. The new HomePod has 4 microphones and 5 tweeters. The original HomePod had 6 microphones and 7 tweeters. New one weighs 5.1 pounds vs. 5.5 pounds previously. Via https://twitter.com/rsgnl/status/1615719411813593097 https://twitter.com/rsgnl/status/1615719411813593097
joemaller1 4y ago
Just me, or was that a very low-energy video?
MrJagil 4y ago
I live with my partner and I’m debating whether a homepod or two minis is the correct choice for our 3 room apartment. Seems cool you can have a mini in each room and just walk around and there’s music all over. But also seems a bit like a hastle having to link/unlink them depending whos where. My airpods already give me enough trouble connecting to my comp/ipad/iphone. 1 regular homepod might just be the simpler, better choice.
- apetresc 4y ago
  What do you mean by having to link/unlink them?
- Tagbert 4y ago
  You can train the HomePod to recognize individuals to handle their tasks.
- nanidin 4y ago
  The homepod had too much bass for me to comfortably use it in my apartment. At a decent listening volume, the bass was overwhelming. EQ only worked for music streamed via Apple Music at the time. They have added a "Reduce Bass" to the settings for the homepod now, but I returned mine within the 14 day return policy around the time the original homepod came out. I switched my Alexa devices over to homepod mini's after one too many "by the way" suggestions by Alexa. Homepod mini has decent audio but I wouldn't use it for my primary music listening. If you care for music quality, buy a decent portable bluetooth speaker and carry it with you from room to room - there is a lot to be said for the flexibility, and you can also toss it in your luggage when traveling.
  - Terretta 4y ago
    Libratone Zipp, the large one
plusminusplus 4y ago
Does it work with non-Apple hardware? Amazon and Google have the "works with Amazon/Google" so you can buy any brand of hardware (smart plugs for ex) and control them all with one device.
- akmarinov 4y ago
  anything that works with Homekit works with it, similar to the "works with Amazon/Google"
- dddddaviddddd 4y ago
  I use third-party apps to stream audio to my HomePods from Android and Windows.
- Terretta 4y ago
  If your eARC TV has a ATV 4K hooked up, then a pair of HomePods can be wireless Atmos speakers for anything hooked to TV, such as an Xbox console. Still works for music, without TV on, just push to the ATV's AirPlay name. You don't need a receiver / AVR, this lets the eARC tv drive HomePods.
tcskeptic 4y ago
Happy to see this, I will be buying a couple of pairs if the sound quality is anything close to the prior generation. I love my current pair and have considered paying over retail for another eBay pair. I wish Siri were better -- it is good enough that I use it for stuff often but glitchy enough that I don't like trying new use cases.
newmac 4y ago
I would love to hear the inside story about why the old one was discontinued and it took so long for the v2. The HomePod mini is the "first device" we have given to our children. No screen, I am comfortable with apple privacy, access to music and podcasts, etc. The mini has shockingly good sound for $100 and what it is.
- strangescript 4y ago
  Just a guess, but matter compatibility probably caused some slow down. That spec was still in a minor flux until last year.
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    But wasn't that flux 100% in high-level software?
- s3p 4y ago
  kudos to you! I know they will cherish a device like that. Growing up I had a similar tech item that was my "thing", it was a tiny MP3 player that I used for years. Having a HomePod Mini is a great way to get them access to super helpful tech without the drawbacks (ads, social media, privacy) of screen-based devices.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  "The mini has shockingly good sound for $100 and what it is. " It's really something, isn't it? I mean, I'm an audio nut with genuine crazy-person speakers in my living room, but goddamn if that single mini Homepod in our bedroom isn't stupid good.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- gnicholas 4y ago
  I was going to get one for my kid but don't want her to be able to ask arbitrary questions and basically access web search just yet. When I looked into it, the only way to accomplish this was to turn off Siri entirely, and just make it into a speaker for source iOS devices. Any chance they have more fine-grained controls for this yet?
s3p 4y ago
This seems the exact same as gen 1 aside from Matter compatibility and a price drop from 349 to 299.
holistio 4y ago
I have a pair of original HomePods. Love them dearly. Just read through the page and couldn't figure out what's new. I was expecting much more from a new version.
- veqq 4y ago
  Your Chinese thread's too old to reply to, sadly. But as another learner of many languages: check out "Colloquial Chinese: by Ping-cheng T’ung and David E. Pollard. (Not newer versions by other authors!) It covers the language only in Pinyin, covering the core grammar etc. very quickly, and giving you big dialogs with a lot of vocabulary. If you work hard with it, (ignoring introductory time figuring out the sound system) a month with 2-3 hours a day will give you about 3000 words of vocabulary and a good handle on the language. While the structure of Chinese is very simple, besides getting used to the phonetics, the writing system constitutes the majority difficulty of the language (but very helpful to understand a lot of complex vocabulary, due to its composition) so ignoring it first will help a lot. The normal Chinese textbooks will cover as much material as this small book in 4-5 volumes, intended for multiple years of university classes. To then learn how to read: The books "The Most Common Radicals" and then "Rapid Literacy in Chinese" are amazing. ("Intensive Spoken Chinese" is meant to be done first, but the Colloquial book is better in my opinion.) I covered these two books in about 40 hours. Then use various readers like "A new China. Intermediate reader of modern Chinese" by Chou Chih-ping, Chiang J., Eagar J or read forums, checking what each character/group of them is in the dictionary to build vocabulary.
  - holistio 4y ago
    wow, I didn't realise people check out profiles here thanks for the comment, I'll make sure to check these out asap
- nerdjon 4y ago
  For me the biggest addition is the h1 chip finally being added. Know how you can be playing music on your iPhone and hold it up to your HomePod and it will transfer? But it is kinda hit or miss on the original HomePod. On the HomePod mini thanks to that chip it is nearly perfect. This seems to just add that. Couple other things, but at least it brings parity.
perardi 4y ago
Is it time to complain about Siri again? Sure is! I am an old-school Apple fanboy. I learned HyperCard on a Macintosh SE/30—I am that old. I still appreciate the Apple ecosystem, and I do like certain aspects of my HomePod mini…but Siri. C’mon. Get it together. It just fails at the absolute basics. https://imgur.com/q0H788Y https://imgur.com/q0H788Y The basics being: please add stuff to my shopping list when I yell it into the aether while in the kitchen. It either completely mangles the speech-to-text (starches, Siri, not starships), or just…fails. It times out, or sits there, blankly pulsing a light at me. I would really appreciate a higher-quality speaker with easy integration with my iOS/Mac devices. But $299 or something that has artificial stupidity like Siri? Nah.
- kybernetyk 4y ago
  Siri complain time? Well, my newest problem with Siri is: Let's say I want to play some classic song (like Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd). So I say "hey siri, play sweet home alabama" - and what I get is not the original one but some newish remake/remix/reinterpretation. Why on earth would you play some unknown version over the popular original? Oh also ... what's the "next song pls" command in German? With Alexa I can say "Alexa, weiter" and the next track plays. With Siri? "Weiter" won't do anything. I have to say "Hey Siri, nächstes Lied" ... or I can just switch to English and say "Hey Siri, next" which then works. Oh another one: The German Siri pronouncing English song titles with the German voice-set makes my ears hurt. Like you would read an English word but pronounce it like you would a German word. But then again some Band/Song Titles she gets perfectly right. Cannibal Corpse sounds like perfect English. Those AI assistants are a hot mess and get worse with time. Seems like feeding more and more data into your model won't make it better.
  - ubermonkey 4y ago
    I've also been baffled by this. Some syntax helps (".. by $band"), especially when an album and a track have the same name (which is a related issue for me).
  - marbletiles 4y ago
    It's somehow managing to get worse in this area. You were once able to say "not this version" and it would try a different version of the same song. Now it just replies "I found some results on the web, but I can't show them here". (This is especially infuriating when it does it on CarPlay)
etempleton 4y ago
Interesting to see a follow up. I didn’t think we would get another HomePod. I suspect they realized it was priced too high and the first version was just too expensive to produce. On a side note, I still have my old Apple Hifi and it continues to sounds great. I use it as computer speaker via optical audio. I also have a pair of Sonos Ones and a Sonos Move. I am fairly underwhelmed by the Sonos One sound quality, but the Move sounds great and is very convenient as a portable speaker.
- johnvanommen 4y ago
  I think that's the case. The original (discontinued) Homepod had a heck of a lot of technology crammed in there.
Dachande663 4y ago
Does it work with Spotify yet? I remember the first one could only be AirPlayed to (if I'm recalling correctly).
- sneak 4y ago
  To answer your question the way you meant it, no. You can use Spotify on a mac or iPhone/iPad and then set the AirPlay output device to the homepod, playing Spotify music out of them just fine. I literally do this every day.
- deanc 4y ago
  No, you're stuck with handoff or airplay.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - plusminusplus 4y ago
    You can't link Spotify to it? What does the voice assistant on a speaker do if not "Siri play Shooting Star by Bag Raiders"? Surely you can link Apple Music?
    - deanc 4y ago
      You cannot. It will try to play it with Apple Music, which you have to have a subscription for.
    - joshstrange 4y ago
      I'm like 90% sure that's on Spotify. Apple opened up APIs to do this and Spotify refused to do it because... reasons.
      - criddell 4y ago
        The reason is that Apple wants a cut of the Spotify subscription money when users sign up for Spotify on an iOS or iPadOS device. IMHO, it's a bad look for Apple. They should either get out of the music business or stop taking a cut of the money from apps that compete with Apple services.
ianai 4y ago
My first Mac was a 12” 867 mhz (I think?) PowerBook. It had the footprint of a sheet of paper in 2003. I genuinely don’t understand this product. And I similarly don’t understand the appeal of Siri. I thought the first one was a failure and they’d either walk away or change things dramatically. Like go the actual audio playback path and make it a respectable tower speaker. Add in a sound bar and satellites too. That could get a purchase from me. Or just make the Minis the interface and make Siri something people want to use. Talking to computers at this point still feels like the 3D/VR products that get introduced periodically and ultimately fail. I also similarly don’t want to be around people talking to their smartphones in the places they’re already glued to them.
TIPSIO 4y ago
If you scroll down to “Cinematic Experience” you’ll see a TV with two HomePod’s next to each other. I do an identical setup with two Alexa Studio devices. The only difference being I have to use Fire TV and there’s actually a third Alexa Studio Base only device. The setup is really good. It’s definitely not a replacement for surround sound. I argue it’s better sound than a Sound Bar though. It is even better for music. The big thing though? As much as I love Apple stuff, everything and anything is always Alexa integrated. These synced speakers beep when my garage opens, vacuum, doors, connected to lights, my security system, fans, cameras, etc… With Apple, your product selection is more limited or you need HomeBridge for ideal home automation. For me, I’d definitely rather have the Apple products but (hate or love it) Amazon is way more open and the only reason I settled for them. Finally, I am not sure why and I would never personally do this setup, but if you look at the details of both Alexa Studio and HomePod “Home Theatre” setups, they both do not support connecting additionally to Echo’s or HomePod Mini’s for additional speakers. A fun option —- but equally not supported. Bandwidth limitation of being wireless? Too few of people willing to do this?
- egman_ekki 4y ago
  Slightly different product, but there's a wireless quad speaker system from Sony (HT-A9) that even supports adding a wireless subwoofer that probably provides a much better cinematic experience with full immersion (review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHcjvdGbaa0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHcjvdGbaa0).
- jrowley 4y ago
  If you really want to you can connect additional HomePods to stereo paired HomePods via airplay, buts they aren’t permanently paired.
ra7 4y ago
I really wish Apple released a soundbar + Apple TV + FaceTime camera combo product. All I want is to be able to do FaceTime calls on my TV with my parents who live halfway across the world and have the camera track me around the room (like Facebook Portal TV).
nerdjon 4y ago
I am very happy to see the bigger HomePod come back. I have a several big ones and a few of the small ones and they just don't compare for sound so I put off putting them everywhere I really wanted. Will for sure be getting a few of these. As far as Siri being "Stupid", idk it does exactly what I need it to do for playing music, controlling my home, measurement conversations, timers, and the occasional ask about if someplace is open or not. I have long been wondering if Apple would expand the stereo audio for TV to more than 2. If they were to introduce a generic receiver (or actually make the Apple TV able to have inputs and not just use eARC) and allow me to have 4 or more HomePods for my stereo setup. I seriously wonder how that would compare to my current Atmos 5.1.2 setup. It would sure as hell be cheaper to buy 4 or 5 HomePods than this setup was. Edit: Also the addition of the H1 chip was seriously the best thing to be added to the Mini and unsurprisingly it is coming here to make sending music from my phone to my HomePod easer when I get home. Not enough to replace the big ones I have but likely over time.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Not sure it's bigger. It seems neutered.
drcongo 4y ago
I have 3 full size gen 1 HomePods in my house (and 5 minis), and the full size HomePods are the absolute best audio quality I've ever come across. Especially when stereo paired. My paired two are in my music studio with baffler panels on the wall behind them and also paired to an Apple TV. For listening to music it's up there with an audiophile setup costing hundreds of thousands, for watching movies on the Apple TV it hands down beats the 7.1 full surround system I have in the living room. I was gutted (and baffled) when they discontinued them. Also worth saying that the HomePod Mini audio quality is appalling and barely useful for anything other than podcasts.
AriaMinaei 4y ago
Speaking of smart speakers, I'm moving to a new flat and I'm looking for some good old dumb speaker setup. The smartest that I'd let it get would be a Bleutooth dongle. As a recovering Audiophile, I'm gonna stay away from r/audiophile lest they temp me to sell my kidney to afford that extra 5% in "acoustic fidelity." Seriously, I'm happy with the 95%. Now, how do I go about putting together that sound system? Or in Audiophile terms, what is the DT 770 Pro of home stereo setups?
- Jhsto 4y ago
  Where I'm from everyone is using Genelec speakers.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Difficult to answer the question without knowing the OP's budget, but I agree on the Genelec line. $700 for a pair of their smallest powered speakers, and they sound great. What you are getting from these little speakers would have been considered quite exotic a few decades ago: individually-driven speakers with active crossovers and equalizers. For a couple thousand dollars you can put together a system that would have cost more than a house 25 years ago.
  - criddell 4y ago
    In my home office I have a little Onkyo (CR-N575) desktop receiver and it sounds okay at best. I keep wondering if replacing the default speakers would make much of a difference? I'm doubtful because the amp itself isn't great. I clearly don't know much about amplifiers, but the specs say "RMS output power: 20W+20W (1 kHz, 10% THD 6 ohm)" which is terrible, right? https://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/cs-n575d_manual_en.pdf https://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/cs-n575d_ma...
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      20W per channel at 10% distortion is pretty bad. The $350 powered speaker mentioned elsewhere in this subthread claims < 0.05% amplifier THD at 100W total power, and total distortion including the speaker of < 0.5% at 85dB SPL, which is an uncomfortably loud output.
emsy 4y ago
The HomePod is the worst Apple product I’ve ever owned, especially for what it’s supposed to do. I need to restart it every few days to even be able to connect to it and playing music with Siri stopped working a few months ago. It also mixes up HomeKit devices that don’t sound similar at all.
- trafnar 4y ago
  I use mine all the time and haven’t had these issues. Just the occasional Siri misunderstanding. My family loves it for playing music and a few other simple tasks like timers.
  - jonsagara 4y ago
    Same. We use it all the time. It's incredibly useful.
  - rp1229 4y ago
    No issues here either, but I've stuck to version 14 and refuse to update after reading so many reports of issues with lag.
  - CameronBanga 4y ago
    Echo this - I have 5 of these OG HomePods across two different places, and they've always "just worked" for me. Great multi-room audio, fantastic sound, and good for tasks like timers. The biggest critique I have is that after relatively major OS updates, it may take a day or two it seems for them to get "in sync" and have stuff like multi-room audio work without funky issues. Mostly happy about this announcement because if one of my HomePods break, I can get another one without risking a random eBay purchase.
    - dkonofalski 4y ago
      This is mostly my experience with one notable exception. I can't get phone calls to work on my HomePods but they always work fine with my HomePods mini (ugh, I hate saying that). I have no idea what the difference is and no amount of resetting or restarting fixes it. I can never say "Hey Siri... call my mom" and have it work on the HomePod and starting a call on my phone and trying to Handoff to a HomePod fails every time. I have 2 of them so I know it's not an individual hardware failure. There's just something wrong with it and I'm guessing it's something iCloud related that is syncing the bad setting to both of them. Why the minis are exempt is a mystery to me.
gnicholas 4y ago
Why don’t they stick an Airport or Time Capsule in these things? Even with the pretty lousy Siri performance, I’d buy a couple of these if they could simultaneously solve my WiFi and backup needs. I’m currently limping along with the latest gen Time Capsule and AirPort Express, hoping that Apple gets back in the game…
- MrFoof 4y ago
  >Why don’t they stick an Airport of Time Capsule in these things? Because after they started winding down that business unit, those employees basically went and founded Ubiquiti.
  - leonroy 4y ago
    AFAIK only the founder of Ubiquiti worked on Apple's Airport product and quit (2003 according to Ubiquiti's incorporation date) well before the Airport lineup was cancelled (2018).
gigatexal 4y ago
Super, duper bummed I can't pair this one with my 1st gen homepod. From footnote #3: Creating a HomePod stereo pair requires two of the same model HomePod speakers, such as two HomePod mini, two HomePod (2nd generation), or two HomePod (1st generation).
- pasc1878 4y ago
  Yes this is not good. I could justify buying one and moving one original to another room. But buying two and ending up with a spare old one. No
- Tsiklon 4y ago
  They’ve got a different speaker configuration. There will likely be a difference between how they both sound.
yowzadave 4y ago
HomePod is the most annoying piece of technology that I still frequently use. I was an early buyer of the first version, but this update doesn't address any of the complaints that I have about it: 1. No audio line-in! It's a $300 speaker, it sounds great...sometimes I'd like to be able to just plug something into it. If you have a record player, you have to have a separate set of speakers for it, because this thing won't work. 2. No EQ. Apple claims their room-sensing tech will pick the best EQ for your room/the music, but for my personal preference it's always too bassy-sounding (also, I live in an apartment, I don't want to disturb my downstairs neighbors with the bass). Apple added a limited "bass-reducer" mode, but I want more control. 3. Siri tries (and frequently fails) to identify me and my wife by our voice, and then won't do things (like turn off the music, find our iPhone, etc.) because she can't figure out who we are. Every time Siri refuses to obey my wife, and then does something when I make the same request, it ratchets up the marital tension a notch. I should probably get rid of the thing, but it's actually convenient when it works, the kids use it constantly to play music, and I assume (naively?) that it has a better privacy stance than the competing Google/Amazon products.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hnkfrh 4y ago
  The input situation is dreadful and I couldn't stand the delay with AirPlay2 either. However, combined with an AppleTV 4K (2nd gen upwards), HomePods can be used as HDMI eARC devices. This enables playing sound without delay from any HDMI output. In my setup I use an eARC capable HDMI splitter and a $10 Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter to create an audio device for my mac that has virtually no delay. The video output of the HDMI adapter is set to just mirror my first screen, which avoids additional video processing load.
- odysseus 4y ago
  I also had #3 happen many times, but my wife just laughs at Siri being dumb and is usually just thankful /somebody/ stopped that timer or turned down that music.
- colordrops 4y ago
akmarinov 4y ago
Didn't the original Homepod flop? Mostly due to the price? Why would it work this time?
- Terretta 4y ago
  I think maybe bad marketing? There was (is) no better sound for the size and money than those originals.
Hippocrates 4y ago
I F'in LOVE the OG HomePods. The sound quality absolutely slaps for the money/size/convenience. I've got one for music in the kitchen and it fills the room like a setup 3x as large. The bass response even at low volumes is remarkable, and clarity through the whole volume range is near perfection. Many of my guests have sourced their own OGs after hearing it. I've got another hooked up to my Apple TV (mono) that replaced a 3.1 setup that cost 3x as much and somehow didn't sound as good. I can't relate at all to the bike-shedding of Siri complaints. It's like we're experiencing totally different products. Does anyone actually want to use smart speaker features beyond simple cooking timers and controlling music? These features work great. I thought we'd already determined (4 years ago) that voice/audio was a poor user interface even with google/Alexa? I always felt this was a remarkable speaker that got unfairly panned in reviews for performance on silly and contrived smart-assistant use cases. Despite the fact that I love these speakers and could care less about Siri, this release has me a little disappointed. I don't see much stated improvement. Kind of seems like a processor bump type release, which is not what I expected in V2 after so many years.
- layer8 4y ago
  One issue I have with the HomePod (mini) Siri is that it activates even when I’m in another room and want my iPhone or iPad in that room to react, but Siri answers from the HomePod in the other room where I can barely (or not at all) hear it.
  - voisin 4y ago
    This is crazy behaviour. Is it hearing from another room or is it activating via the iPhone or iPad in the room you are in? If so it would seem that most users would have this issue. Can anyone else chime in? I am looking to buy one now but this seems to be an annoying flaw.
    - layer8 4y ago
      It is hearing from the other room (doors aren’t fully closed, and the HomePod mini has really sensitive hearing) and I guess for some reason decides that it’s probably the same room. This doesn’t happen when you have the other device active/unlocked. There is a mechanism to negotiate between devices which device should answer (you see the Siri symbol lighting up on all devices), but the logic seems to be half-broken (unfortunately a common occurrence with present-day Apple software).
deleted 4y ago
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joshstrange 4y ago
This is a pretty lackluster "update" for a product that had a number of issues. Not to mention a press release doesn't fill me with confidence that Apple even believes in this product line (if that wasn't obvious when they pulled the HomePod 1). I'm a hardcore apple fanboy and I just can't justify the HomePods. I want to like them but Siri is useful for setting timers, asking the time/weather, and... that's about all I trust it for. I have near-zero interest in HomeKit (too limited, too locked in, I don't want wifi smart devices) and so while I have hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of smart devices in my house (Z-wave with a few zigbee, all run by HomeAssistant) I can't even use HomePod device to control my lights/etc. Yes, I know about HomeBridge and HA's HomeKit integration, every time I've tried this it's fallen over after a month or less and you have to set it all up from scratch again, the Home app drives me batty, it's so bad. Maybe Matter will improve things (not holding my breath) but for now I'll stick with my Echo's. They do a decent job of controlling my smart house, are way cheaper, and integrate perfectly with HA. If Siri would actually talk directly to HA then I'd probably switch. It's really not a money thing, it's a reliability thing. EDIT: After reading some more comments (and from things I've read online or heard on podcasts) I have no doubt the audio quality is amazing. My issue is that I just don't really care about feature as much. I have my AirPods Pro in 90%+ of the time I listen to anything and the other <10% is when I'm in the shower and use a Sonos Roam or in my car. My #1 use case for a "smart speaker" is smart home control followed closely by setting reminders/timers. Siri does great with timers/reminders, smart home (or rather MY smart home), not so much.
- tass 4y ago
  I saw you mentioned the HA bridge. I can only give my anecdote that it works well for me - probably been set up without touching anything for about a year now. I remember the initial setup wasn’t exactly intuitive, but what I like is that HomeKit communicates using your own devices rather than via an exposed web service
  - joshstrange 4y ago
    I'm open to giving it another try, it's been well over a year since I last tried it and I have far more experience with HomeBridge vs HA's integration.
gnicholas 4y ago
Is this supposed to sound better than the original version? I bought two of them on sale one time (for like $250 each?) and planned to use them as a stereo pair. But when I tested them against the (very old) Bose Wave Radio that we were previously using, it wasn't clear that they were any better. They certainly weren't $500 better, so I returned them.
- Terretta 4y ago
  I know that device, I'd argue something was flawed in your test. The Bose sound isn't real, it's psychoacoustic. The difference is (ahem) audible. (Perhaps palpable, even, as HomePod OG physically moved more air.)
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    I actually did blind testing with my wife. Neither one of us had a strong preference, so we returned them. At the time, we couldn't use the paired HomePods as the sound output for our computer (which is plugged to our TV), which meant that we would have also had to use an iPad or iPhone instead of our computer. That inconvenience (no remote control for an iOS device!) was a strike against the HomePods.
xd1936 4y ago
If I'm following Apple's audio strategy correctly, I'm supposed to buy AirPods because I don't care about sound quality but the convenience is worth it, and I'm supposed to buy a HomePod because I really care about sound quality even though the ecosystem is inconvenient.
ragazzina 4y ago
Does anyone know if the HomePod can be used with an iPhone without Siri? I have never enabled Siri.
- atombender 4y ago
  You don't need to use Siri. I have Siri turned off.
aug_aug 4y ago
Siri - 15% Alexa - 20% Google - 88% These are my success rates talking to home devices across brands in last 5 yrs. Yes - I am complaining, Siri is horrible. Can't believe I'm complimenting Google (Chromecast Audio, Stadia, that RSS thing) at the same time, but I am in the realm of voice recognition.
- alexktz 4y ago
  By the way... did you know...?
stanmancan 4y ago
Lots of complaints here but I personally love my OG HomePod. It sounds fantastic which is what I'm looking for out of a speaker. I personally have zero issues with Siri. It's basic but that's all I really need; all I use Siri for is turning on music, measurement conversions when cooking, and adding things to my various reminder lists ("Hey Siri add cucumber to my shopping list"). I am a little surprised that it's more or less the same device re-launched but the more I think about it I'm not really sure what I expected. It's a speaker, its' main requirement is to sound good and the OG HomePod sounds great. I can't think of many other features you can add to the speaker itself.
timbofoo 4y ago
Clicks to check for Spotify support……..negative. Moves on.
m3kw9 4y ago
HomePods is one of the best products apple offers. Now I don’t use Siri that much, but if you listen to a lot of music this is the best bang for the buck. Get 2 and it becomes more amazing in stereo.
lvl102 4y ago
I really wish they add direct connect either optical or USB. I also don’t think Apple realizes they could absolutely sell a crap ton of Mac Minis to audiophiles/HiFi crowd. They just need to add custom DAC and some outputs.
crimsontech 4y ago
I was not expecting that, but I'm in, I'll buy a pair for my office stereo then move my office HomePod to the lounge. I bought the first HomePod when they first came out and I heard it in the apple store and couldn't believe a single speaker was producing that sound. I use it constantly to play music in my office, set reminders and timers, asking about the weather and controlling the lights. I seem to be lucky in that Siri mostly understands what I'm saying. This is once piece of tech I just take for granted, it does what it does very well with no fussing. I'm really happy to see Apple bring out a new version. For me a smart speaker has to be a very good speaker first as my primary use for it is listening to music. Everything else is just icing on the cake and only really saves me from picking up my phone and authenticating to it to use Siri.
yborg 4y ago
Current delivery date now Feb 3 from Apple Store.
jshaqaw 4y ago
I'd love a physical switch which hard disables Siri/audio monitoring
mulcahey 4y ago
I’m getting rid of mine bc the experience of switching WiFi networks is awful. Going back to KISS Bluetooth
halfnormalform 4y ago
Based on the video, the new ones can be placed on wooden furniture without permanently discoloring the finish!

Why does Apple: * Allow you to set white noise / background sounds for sleeping * But -doesn't- allow you to turn off the glowing light on the top of the HomePod while playing those background sounds (in a pitch dark room while you're trying to sleep)

koinedad 4y ago

Interesting to see a v2, and looking forward to Matter support for more smartphone devices to work natively…right now the device support is kind of ridiculous

fassssst 4y ago

Temperature and humidity sensor is a nice perk for those of us with acoustic guitars and orchids. Presumably it can be used with Apple Shortcuts to trigger notifications. Might upgrade my first gen HomePod eventually, but it still sounds great.

rwc 4y ago
"With its built-in sensor, HomePod can detect and tell you the temperature and humidity of the room.8 And you can set it in automations so the blinds close if the temperature hits 80 degrees."
gpmcadam 4y ago
fyi HomePod Mini also has those sensors
- layer8 4y ago
  Siri claims it can't tell me the room temperature.
  - gpmcadam 4y ago
    I wonder if it needs an update because I've just asked one for both temperature and humidity and it was able to tell me. Also see the comparison table at the bottom of this page: https://www.apple.com/uk/homepod-2nd-generation/ https://www.apple.com/uk/homepod-2nd-generation/
    - layer8 4y ago
      Seems like it: https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/18/homepods-now-feature-temperature-humidity-sensor/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/18/homepods-now-feature-te... Maybe the update also requires iOS 16 on a connected device, I’m still on 15.
      - yborg 4y ago
        I think it depends on HW version. I got a Mini right when it came out, and with the latest beta 16.3 firmware it still says "I'm sorry, I can't do that" for requests about room temperature or humidity.
        layer8 4y ago
        I don’t think so, the sensor was reported fairly shortly after the initial release, and there hasn’t been a second gen of the mini. It’s probably just a staged rollout.

andrewbarba 4y ago

Worth noting: - We lost two tweeters (7 down to 5) - We lost two mics (6 down to 4) Really curious how the sound compares to the original.

thechao 4y ago
I still don't know why it doesn't come with an equalizer built into Home. Sometimes I want grumbly bass; sometimes I want to understand Bane without subtitles.
- nntwozz 4y ago
  Not an equalizer but Reduce Bass setting does exactly this. I actually have it on at all times because it makes the HomePod sound more flat, the default has too much bass for my taste.
distantsounds 4y ago
[flagged]
AlanYx 4y ago
The description of the tweeters has changed on the spec page as well. I wonder if they're still using balanced mode radiators (BMRs) like the first gen HomePods? Perhaps these use a newer generation BMR?
- johnvanommen 4y ago
  I don't think they're BMRs, they're just conventional full range drivers, similar to what Apple has been using for almost two decades, going all the way back to the iMac.
  - AlanYx 4y ago
    The first gen HomePod definitely uses BMRs: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/nondestructive-look-inside-homepod.2245584/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/nondestructive-look-ins...

t3rabytes 4y ago

I love my OG HomePods that I got on close-out at Best Buy, but both of them have given me near constant connection issues over the last few months -- excited to have something to replace them with. I much prefer the appearance of the Big HomePod over the (not-really) equivalent Sonos One.

_phred 4y ago
I’ve got two first gen HomePods here which died slightly out of warranty, and AppleCare wanted $300 a piece just to take a look at them. Makes me quite gunshy about spending yet another $300 on a product which may not last more than 2-3 years.
- kaypro 4y ago
  Exact same experience here. Mine died after a botched firmware update. Woke up one morning after it had auto-updated the night before. 100% Apple's fault because they pulled the update shortly after but the damage was done. Took it in thinking they would just reset it and shocked they wanted $300 to repair. Unless this one has a UCB-C port like the mini that allows user resetting I'll skip this one.
- AlanYx 4y ago
  In case you still want them repaired, there's a guy online (Nic's Fix) who runs a mail-in $60 repair business for dead first gen HomePods.
  - jrowley 4y ago
    He even live streams fixing them. Here is a video, more on his channel https://youtu.be/FfGiuh_QH3M https://youtu.be/FfGiuh_QH3M And I think it works out to about $80 once you include shipping. Ive got a dead one right now - trying to decide if I want to source air gun to fix it myself or just send it to him. Less than $100 to have it fixed is kind of a steal.
    - _phred 4y ago

BasedInfra 4y ago

Siri is the main issue holding me back from buying a homepod. Alexa & Google just bypass it in cleverness while also understanding my accent way better. The only major plus of Siri is tight integration into ios.

yalogin 4y ago
Am curious. How often do you use a voice assistant and what tasks?
- dewey 4y ago
  I'm not the parent commenter but I'm using Siri on my HomePod minis all the time. Turning on / off lights. Regulating the temperature, setting timers, asking for temperature outside, stopping the music. Unfortunately Siri isn't that great so you'll often run into "Waiting for it", "One moment" and "Working on it" replies.
  - pasc1878 4y ago
    Also often siri cannot tell the difference between on and off.
- BasedInfra 4y ago
  Lights, Time, Timers, News, Podcasts/Audiobooks. Asked Alexa today: - ‘Can dogs eat apples’ - ’How far is it to <location>‘ ‘How long to <location>.’ - ‘How many calories does 100g grams of cornflakes have’ Just stuff not worth picking my phone up and typing for the most part. Though just tried all 3 of them on siri and only how far/long is <location> gave me a voice answer (the other 2 were just search results).
criddell 4y ago
There's one thing keeping my Echo plugged in: AnyList integration. I can say "Alexa, add eggs" and it adds eggs to my AnyList shopping list. With a HomePod, I have to say something like "Hey Siri, using AnyList add eggs to my grocery list" or something like that. It's way too clumsy.

shapefrog 4y ago

tbh find the full size a bit expensive for my personal needs - more interested in the mini (still overpriced). Certainly makes the mini a more compelling option however if they add more functionality. "Apple's HomePod mini includes a dormant hidden sensor that can measure temperature and humidity, potentially providing the means to power upcoming features that could arrive in a future software update, according to Bloomberg." https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/22/homepod-mini-temperature-humidity-sensor/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/22/homepod-mini-temperatur...

galad87 4y ago
Apple website now lists the temperature and humidity sensors even on the mini, I guess the next software update will enable them.
chid 4y ago
according to this page the mini (current model) will have it activated I suspect when the Homepod 2 comes out.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  Ahh thanks, I checked the actual mini product page which doesnt seem to be updated yet.

dustedcodes 4y ago

In our house we have Google's home speakers and the original Nest cameras and also some new cameras which only work with the Google home app and over the years I could see a gradual decline in reliability, functionality and just in general a decline in the usefulness of those things. The camera feed is so slow since Google took over Nest, it barely works with the Google home app and keeps cutting out, doesn't load at all or keeps hanging sometimes. When someone rings the door bell then it takes forever to bring up the feed and let me talk to the person by the door. The Nest doorbell has become completely useless in its latest iteration combined with the Google home app. The person is long gone before I get to see who it was, which makes it really annoying and super unreliable to receive parcels when not at home. I have never tried Alexa + Ring, but speaking to friends they are also getting more frustrated with the Amazon brand. Is Apple a viable option today? If this stuff works well then it's worth having, but currently I wouldn't go for any smart gadgets and actively refuse anything from Google. I don't think they care about their hardware products. I've seen the same decline with their Pixel series.

shapefrog 4y ago
I played with a cheap wifi camera vs an actual wired (network) cctv camera. The difference is night and day, even just viewing the stream in VLC. Speed, stability etc. "Consumer" stuff just feels underpowered and little more than a toy. I hope matter brings a better landscape for all this stuff - but then I have been sitting on my hands waiting for years as the next version of everything is just 12 months away.
- kawsper 4y ago
  Matter might be the thing you've been waiting for. I only have 3 light switches in my apartment, but I made sure they had Matter support.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    Matter is certainly taking its time coming into existence!

chid 4y ago

been very happy with my homepod mini - doesn't seem like there's many additional features in the larger size one (except for higher sound levels?)

satysin 4y ago
I enjoy the HomePod mini we were gifted in the kitchen. It sounds fine for what it is but Siri is basically a glorified kitchen timer as it fails at least 70% of the time at answering a question or even turning lights on and off. Is it too much to ask to say “Siri turn off all lights except kitchen island” and expect it to do it? No matter how many times I have reconfigured things in the Home app it just can’t do it I have to ask it to turn off all lights then turn on the kitchen island :facepalm:
- garblegarble 4y ago
  Yeah, that sort of low hanging fruit is a bit annoying... although if you find yourself doing that a lot, adding a named shortcut / scene for it is a decent workaround.
Tagbert 4y ago
The main thing the full-size HomePod brings is more speakers for better sound.

binkHN 4y ago

It's nice to see Apple continuing to iterate here whereas Google, in comparison and as they often do, killed off their related Google Home Max product.

s3p 4y ago
Par for the course! We still have the one and only iMessage and Google is still making new chat apps.

yunwal 4y ago

The last HomePods sounded great, but it’s hard for me to imagine them taking off without fixing Siri. Siri is still remarkably dumb compared to Alexa and certainly when compared to GPT3.5 tools. If you ask Siri “What is 220°C in F” it will correctly hear the words you’re saying, then convert 220F to C. Because of this, I never use Siri outside of contexts I’m sure Apple has tested thoroughly (e.g. read my last text).

greedo 4y ago
Worked perfectly for me on my iPhone.
- mechanicum 4y ago
  Same. I wondered if it was making a locale-based assumption about what you wanted, but it works converting the other way too.
- yunwal 4y ago
  Strangely it’s working for me today, but not yesterday when I was cooking and couldn’t touch my phone with wet hands. I wonder if background noise has something to do with it. The fact that Siri accurately displayed what I was trying to say made me think it understood me perfectly, but it’s possible it will do something else in the background if it’s not confident it hears you correctly. Either way, I have issues with Siri all the time.
Hamuko 4y ago
I thought that the main reason between the last generation of HomePod flopping was because they're so locked down. And apparently they still don't support Bluetooth streaming even though it has built-in Bluetooth?
- pohl 4y ago
  Only a handful of techies cared that it was locked down. The problem with the original was the $350 price point.
deleted 4y ago

sneak 4y ago

This is extremely exciting, given the audio quality of the HomePod 1. I had been buying new old stock of HomePod 1s off eBay to make sure I have 6 working ones (I use 3 different stereo pairs) for the foreseeable future. The only real downside of HomePods is that they don't function as bluetooth audio receivers (Apple proprietary AirPlay2 only) and that you need an Apple ID (as well as iCloud enabled on that Apple ID) to set them up - the creation of which these days requires a working phone number, so it's a little expensive (burner SIM) if you want to buy and use them anonymously. People commenting about how Siri sucks I think are missing the point of these. These (presuming the sound quality is similar to the HP1) are the best consumer self-powered speakers for under $2000, full stop. The fact that they do anything else (mics, voice assistant, wifi streaming, whatever) is mostly unimportant if you understand what these things are. I'd use them even if they didn't have Wi-Fi. As far as I can tell, they (and airpods) were the latest "insanely great" product Apple made until the M1 macs dropped.

distantsounds 4y ago
you're aware Apple _reduced_ the number of internal speakers, right? what makes you think it will be better, aside from flashy marketing materials?
- s3p 4y ago
  They also reduced the price by $50. In the era of inflation, I respect it.
- sneak 4y ago
  I haven't made the assumption that more speakers = better sound. It's possible it's experiencing the same gradual and nearly imperceptible quality decline (from insanely great to merely extremely good) that most Apple products have been undergoing the last 5-7 years, but I will reserve judgement until I have one (two, actually) in hand. Apple's brain drain and productmanagerization is sadly very real. Fingers crossed that someone in Apple is holding it to the same standards as AudioAccessory1,1 (HomePod1), but not holding my breath as I think the guy who I believe was the main force behind it (Christopher Stringer) left Apple to create a company called Syng and a product called the Cell Alpha. A stereo pair of Cell Alphas is $4500. A stereo pair of HomePod2s is $600. Also, I think one of the main reasons the HP1 flopped is because it was too expensive. If this thing is 95% as good as the HP1 but stays in production because people are buying it because Apple figured out how to sell it for 15% cheaper, then it's a win. We'll see!

ZeroCool2u 4y ago

Seems like Apple executed the way Google should have with their Google Home Max. They've added stereo pairing, so you can have two of them sync up together and then connect them to an Apple TV 4k and you basically get a pretty nice wireless sound bar with Dolby Atmos enabled. Still, at $300 per pod, I really need Siri to do better than the "dumber than a bag of rocks" vibe she currently gives off for this to be at all tempting. As someone that does applied DL for work, especially NLP, I just don't understand what Apple is doing with Siri. It's like they see low user engagement metrics with Siri and assume it's because people don't want it. Instead, everyone I know that's an Apple fan uses Google Assistant, because it just works most of the time.

selykg 4y ago
The stereo pairing was available on the 1st generation. I have three of the 1st gen models, they're fantastic. I think I paid $200 for each. At that price they're a steal.
- highwaylights 4y ago
  Yeah, I'm a little confused as to what's actually new here from the video? I assume a newer chipset but it's not really clear what else has changed?
  - kgermino 4y ago
    They're for sale again for starters. The first generation was discontinued a couple years ago. I think they had some manufacturing issue which meant they kept dying prematurely. It's possible this is basically a small spec bump + they should actually work this time
  - robbiet480 4y ago
    The display on top is much larger. The new HomePod has 4 microphones and 5 tweeters. The original HomePod had 6 microphones and 7 tweeters. New one weighs 5.1 pounds vs. 5.5 pounds previously. Via https://twitter.com/rsgnl/status/1615719411813593097 https://twitter.com/rsgnl/status/1615719411813593097

joemaller1 4y ago

Just me, or was that a very low-energy video?

MrJagil 4y ago

I live with my partner and I’m debating whether a homepod or two minis is the correct choice for our 3 room apartment. Seems cool you can have a mini in each room and just walk around and there’s music all over. But also seems a bit like a hastle having to link/unlink them depending whos where. My airpods already give me enough trouble connecting to my comp/ipad/iphone. 1 regular homepod might just be the simpler, better choice.

apetresc 4y ago
What do you mean by having to link/unlink them?
Tagbert 4y ago
You can train the HomePod to recognize individuals to handle their tasks.
nanidin 4y ago
The homepod had too much bass for me to comfortably use it in my apartment. At a decent listening volume, the bass was overwhelming. EQ only worked for music streamed via Apple Music at the time. They have added a "Reduce Bass" to the settings for the homepod now, but I returned mine within the 14 day return policy around the time the original homepod came out. I switched my Alexa devices over to homepod mini's after one too many "by the way" suggestions by Alexa. Homepod mini has decent audio but I wouldn't use it for my primary music listening. If you care for music quality, buy a decent portable bluetooth speaker and carry it with you from room to room - there is a lot to be said for the flexibility, and you can also toss it in your luggage when traveling.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Libratone Zipp, the large one

plusminusplus 4y ago

Does it work with non-Apple hardware? Amazon and Google have the "works with Amazon/Google" so you can buy any brand of hardware (smart plugs for ex) and control them all with one device.

akmarinov 4y ago
anything that works with Homekit works with it, similar to the "works with Amazon/Google"
dddddaviddddd 4y ago
I use third-party apps to stream audio to my HomePods from Android and Windows.
Terretta 4y ago
If your eARC TV has a ATV 4K hooked up, then a pair of HomePods can be wireless Atmos speakers for anything hooked to TV, such as an Xbox console. Still works for music, without TV on, just push to the ATV's AirPlay name. You don't need a receiver / AVR, this lets the eARC tv drive HomePods.

tcskeptic 4y ago

Happy to see this, I will be buying a couple of pairs if the sound quality is anything close to the prior generation. I love my current pair and have considered paying over retail for another eBay pair. I wish Siri were better -- it is good enough that I use it for stuff often but glitchy enough that I don't like trying new use cases.

newmac 4y ago

I would love to hear the inside story about why the old one was discontinued and it took so long for the v2. The HomePod mini is the "first device" we have given to our children. No screen, I am comfortable with apple privacy, access to music and podcasts, etc. The mini has shockingly good sound for $100 and what it is.

strangescript 4y ago
Just a guess, but matter compatibility probably caused some slow down. That spec was still in a minor flux until last year.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  But wasn't that flux 100% in high-level software?
s3p 4y ago
kudos to you! I know they will cherish a device like that. Growing up I had a similar tech item that was my "thing", it was a tiny MP3 player that I used for years. Having a HomePod Mini is a great way to get them access to super helpful tech without the drawbacks (ads, social media, privacy) of screen-based devices.
ubermonkey 4y ago
"The mini has shockingly good sound for $100 and what it is. " It's really something, isn't it? I mean, I'm an audio nut with genuine crazy-person speakers in my living room, but goddamn if that single mini Homepod in our bedroom isn't stupid good.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
gnicholas 4y ago
I was going to get one for my kid but don't want her to be able to ask arbitrary questions and basically access web search just yet. When I looked into it, the only way to accomplish this was to turn off Siri entirely, and just make it into a speaker for source iOS devices. Any chance they have more fine-grained controls for this yet?

s3p 4y ago

This seems the exact same as gen 1 aside from Matter compatibility and a price drop from 349 to 299.

holistio 4y ago

I have a pair of original HomePods. Love them dearly. Just read through the page and couldn't figure out what's new. I was expecting much more from a new version.

veqq 4y ago
Your Chinese thread's too old to reply to, sadly. But as another learner of many languages: check out "Colloquial Chinese: by Ping-cheng T’ung and David E. Pollard. (Not newer versions by other authors!) It covers the language only in Pinyin, covering the core grammar etc. very quickly, and giving you big dialogs with a lot of vocabulary. If you work hard with it, (ignoring introductory time figuring out the sound system) a month with 2-3 hours a day will give you about 3000 words of vocabulary and a good handle on the language. While the structure of Chinese is very simple, besides getting used to the phonetics, the writing system constitutes the majority difficulty of the language (but very helpful to understand a lot of complex vocabulary, due to its composition) so ignoring it first will help a lot. The normal Chinese textbooks will cover as much material as this small book in 4-5 volumes, intended for multiple years of university classes. To then learn how to read: The books "The Most Common Radicals" and then "Rapid Literacy in Chinese" are amazing. ("Intensive Spoken Chinese" is meant to be done first, but the Colloquial book is better in my opinion.) I covered these two books in about 40 hours. Then use various readers like "A new China. Intermediate reader of modern Chinese" by Chou Chih-ping, Chiang J., Eagar J or read forums, checking what each character/group of them is in the dictionary to build vocabulary.
- holistio 4y ago
  wow, I didn't realise people check out profiles here thanks for the comment, I'll make sure to check these out asap
nerdjon 4y ago
For me the biggest addition is the h1 chip finally being added. Know how you can be playing music on your iPhone and hold it up to your HomePod and it will transfer? But it is kinda hit or miss on the original HomePod. On the HomePod mini thanks to that chip it is nearly perfect. This seems to just add that. Couple other things, but at least it brings parity.

perardi 4y ago

Is it time to complain about Siri again? Sure is! I am an old-school Apple fanboy. I learned HyperCard on a Macintosh SE/30—I am that old. I still appreciate the Apple ecosystem, and I do like certain aspects of my HomePod mini…but Siri. C’mon. Get it together. It just fails at the absolute basics. https://imgur.com/q0H788Y https://imgur.com/q0H788Y The basics being: please add stuff to my shopping list when I yell it into the aether while in the kitchen. It either completely mangles the speech-to-text (starches, Siri, not starships), or just…fails. It times out, or sits there, blankly pulsing a light at me. I would really appreciate a higher-quality speaker with easy integration with my iOS/Mac devices. But $299 or something that has artificial stupidity like Siri? Nah.

kybernetyk 4y ago
Siri complain time? Well, my newest problem with Siri is: Let's say I want to play some classic song (like Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd). So I say "hey siri, play sweet home alabama" - and what I get is not the original one but some newish remake/remix/reinterpretation. Why on earth would you play some unknown version over the popular original? Oh also ... what's the "next song pls" command in German? With Alexa I can say "Alexa, weiter" and the next track plays. With Siri? "Weiter" won't do anything. I have to say "Hey Siri, nächstes Lied" ... or I can just switch to English and say "Hey Siri, next" which then works. Oh another one: The German Siri pronouncing English song titles with the German voice-set makes my ears hurt. Like you would read an English word but pronounce it like you would a German word. But then again some Band/Song Titles she gets perfectly right. Cannibal Corpse sounds like perfect English. Those AI assistants are a hot mess and get worse with time. Seems like feeding more and more data into your model won't make it better.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  I've also been baffled by this. Some syntax helps (".. by $band"), especially when an album and a track have the same name (which is a related issue for me).
- marbletiles 4y ago
  It's somehow managing to get worse in this area. You were once able to say "not this version" and it would try a different version of the same song. Now it just replies "I found some results on the web, but I can't show them here". (This is especially infuriating when it does it on CarPlay)

etempleton 4y ago

Interesting to see a follow up. I didn’t think we would get another HomePod. I suspect they realized it was priced too high and the first version was just too expensive to produce. On a side note, I still have my old Apple Hifi and it continues to sounds great. I use it as computer speaker via optical audio. I also have a pair of Sonos Ones and a Sonos Move. I am fairly underwhelmed by the Sonos One sound quality, but the Move sounds great and is very convenient as a portable speaker.

johnvanommen 4y ago
I think that's the case. The original (discontinued) Homepod had a heck of a lot of technology crammed in there.

Dachande663 4y ago

Does it work with Spotify yet? I remember the first one could only be AirPlayed to (if I'm recalling correctly).

sneak 4y ago
To answer your question the way you meant it, no. You can use Spotify on a mac or iPhone/iPad and then set the AirPlay output device to the homepod, playing Spotify music out of them just fine. I literally do this every day.
deanc 4y ago
No, you're stuck with handoff or airplay.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- plusminusplus 4y ago
  You can't link Spotify to it? What does the voice assistant on a speaker do if not "Siri play Shooting Star by Bag Raiders"? Surely you can link Apple Music?
  - deanc 4y ago
    You cannot. It will try to play it with Apple Music, which you have to have a subscription for.
  - joshstrange 4y ago
    I'm like 90% sure that's on Spotify. Apple opened up APIs to do this and Spotify refused to do it because... reasons.
    - criddell 4y ago
      The reason is that Apple wants a cut of the Spotify subscription money when users sign up for Spotify on an iOS or iPadOS device. IMHO, it's a bad look for Apple. They should either get out of the music business or stop taking a cut of the money from apps that compete with Apple services.

ianai 4y ago

My first Mac was a 12” 867 mhz (I think?) PowerBook. It had the footprint of a sheet of paper in 2003. I genuinely don’t understand this product. And I similarly don’t understand the appeal of Siri. I thought the first one was a failure and they’d either walk away or change things dramatically. Like go the actual audio playback path and make it a respectable tower speaker. Add in a sound bar and satellites too. That could get a purchase from me. Or just make the Minis the interface and make Siri something people want to use. Talking to computers at this point still feels like the 3D/VR products that get introduced periodically and ultimately fail. I also similarly don’t want to be around people talking to their smartphones in the places they’re already glued to them.

TIPSIO 4y ago

If you scroll down to “Cinematic Experience” you’ll see a TV with two HomePod’s next to each other. I do an identical setup with two Alexa Studio devices. The only difference being I have to use Fire TV and there’s actually a third Alexa Studio Base only device. The setup is really good. It’s definitely not a replacement for surround sound. I argue it’s better sound than a Sound Bar though. It is even better for music. The big thing though? As much as I love Apple stuff, everything and anything is always Alexa integrated. These synced speakers beep when my garage opens, vacuum, doors, connected to lights, my security system, fans, cameras, etc… With Apple, your product selection is more limited or you need HomeBridge for ideal home automation. For me, I’d definitely rather have the Apple products but (hate or love it) Amazon is way more open and the only reason I settled for them. Finally, I am not sure why and I would never personally do this setup, but if you look at the details of both Alexa Studio and HomePod “Home Theatre” setups, they both do not support connecting additionally to Echo’s or HomePod Mini’s for additional speakers. A fun option —- but equally not supported. Bandwidth limitation of being wireless? Too few of people willing to do this?

egman_ekki 4y ago
Slightly different product, but there's a wireless quad speaker system from Sony (HT-A9) that even supports adding a wireless subwoofer that probably provides a much better cinematic experience with full immersion (review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHcjvdGbaa0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHcjvdGbaa0).
jrowley 4y ago
If you really want to you can connect additional HomePods to stereo paired HomePods via airplay, buts they aren’t permanently paired.

ra7 4y ago

I really wish Apple released a soundbar + Apple TV + FaceTime camera combo product. All I want is to be able to do FaceTime calls on my TV with my parents who live halfway across the world and have the camera track me around the room (like Facebook Portal TV).

nerdjon 4y ago

I am very happy to see the bigger HomePod come back. I have a several big ones and a few of the small ones and they just don't compare for sound so I put off putting them everywhere I really wanted. Will for sure be getting a few of these. As far as Siri being "Stupid", idk it does exactly what I need it to do for playing music, controlling my home, measurement conversations, timers, and the occasional ask about if someplace is open or not. I have long been wondering if Apple would expand the stereo audio for TV to more than 2. If they were to introduce a generic receiver (or actually make the Apple TV able to have inputs and not just use eARC) and allow me to have 4 or more HomePods for my stereo setup. I seriously wonder how that would compare to my current Atmos 5.1.2 setup. It would sure as hell be cheaper to buy 4 or 5 HomePods than this setup was. Edit: Also the addition of the H1 chip was seriously the best thing to be added to the Mini and unsurprisingly it is coming here to make sending music from my phone to my HomePod easer when I get home. Not enough to replace the big ones I have but likely over time.

Terretta 4y ago
Not sure it's bigger. It seems neutered.

drcongo 4y ago

I have 3 full size gen 1 HomePods in my house (and 5 minis), and the full size HomePods are the absolute best audio quality I've ever come across. Especially when stereo paired. My paired two are in my music studio with baffler panels on the wall behind them and also paired to an Apple TV. For listening to music it's up there with an audiophile setup costing hundreds of thousands, for watching movies on the Apple TV it hands down beats the 7.1 full surround system I have in the living room. I was gutted (and baffled) when they discontinued them. Also worth saying that the HomePod Mini audio quality is appalling and barely useful for anything other than podcasts.

AriaMinaei 4y ago

Speaking of smart speakers, I'm moving to a new flat and I'm looking for some good old dumb speaker setup. The smartest that I'd let it get would be a Bleutooth dongle. As a recovering Audiophile, I'm gonna stay away from r/audiophile lest they temp me to sell my kidney to afford that extra 5% in "acoustic fidelity." Seriously, I'm happy with the 95%. Now, how do I go about putting together that sound system? Or in Audiophile terms, what is the DT 770 Pro of home stereo setups?

Jhsto 4y ago
Where I'm from everyone is using Genelec speakers.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Difficult to answer the question without knowing the OP's budget, but I agree on the Genelec line. $700 for a pair of their smallest powered speakers, and they sound great. What you are getting from these little speakers would have been considered quite exotic a few decades ago: individually-driven speakers with active crossovers and equalizers. For a couple thousand dollars you can put together a system that would have cost more than a house 25 years ago.
- criddell 4y ago
  In my home office I have a little Onkyo (CR-N575) desktop receiver and it sounds okay at best. I keep wondering if replacing the default speakers would make much of a difference? I'm doubtful because the amp itself isn't great. I clearly don't know much about amplifiers, but the specs say "RMS output power: 20W+20W (1 kHz, 10% THD 6 ohm)" which is terrible, right? https://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/cs-n575d_manual_en.pdf https://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/cs-n575d_ma...
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    20W per channel at 10% distortion is pretty bad. The $350 powered speaker mentioned elsewhere in this subthread claims < 0.05% amplifier THD at 100W total power, and total distortion including the speaker of < 0.5% at 85dB SPL, which is an uncomfortably loud output.

emsy 4y ago

The HomePod is the worst Apple product I’ve ever owned, especially for what it’s supposed to do. I need to restart it every few days to even be able to connect to it and playing music with Siri stopped working a few months ago. It also mixes up HomeKit devices that don’t sound similar at all.

trafnar 4y ago
I use mine all the time and haven’t had these issues. Just the occasional Siri misunderstanding. My family loves it for playing music and a few other simple tasks like timers.
- jonsagara 4y ago
  Same. We use it all the time. It's incredibly useful.
- rp1229 4y ago
  No issues here either, but I've stuck to version 14 and refuse to update after reading so many reports of issues with lag.
- CameronBanga 4y ago
  Echo this - I have 5 of these OG HomePods across two different places, and they've always "just worked" for me. Great multi-room audio, fantastic sound, and good for tasks like timers. The biggest critique I have is that after relatively major OS updates, it may take a day or two it seems for them to get "in sync" and have stuff like multi-room audio work without funky issues. Mostly happy about this announcement because if one of my HomePods break, I can get another one without risking a random eBay purchase.
  - dkonofalski 4y ago
    This is mostly my experience with one notable exception. I can't get phone calls to work on my HomePods but they always work fine with my HomePods mini (ugh, I hate saying that). I have no idea what the difference is and no amount of resetting or restarting fixes it. I can never say "Hey Siri... call my mom" and have it work on the HomePod and starting a call on my phone and trying to Handoff to a HomePod fails every time. I have 2 of them so I know it's not an individual hardware failure. There's just something wrong with it and I'm guessing it's something iCloud related that is syncing the bad setting to both of them. Why the minis are exempt is a mystery to me.

gnicholas 4y ago

Why don’t they stick an Airport or Time Capsule in these things? Even with the pretty lousy Siri performance, I’d buy a couple of these if they could simultaneously solve my WiFi and backup needs. I’m currently limping along with the latest gen Time Capsule and AirPort Express, hoping that Apple gets back in the game…

MrFoof 4y ago
>Why don’t they stick an Airport of Time Capsule in these things? Because after they started winding down that business unit, those employees basically went and founded Ubiquiti.
- leonroy 4y ago
  AFAIK only the founder of Ubiquiti worked on Apple's Airport product and quit (2003 according to Ubiquiti's incorporation date) well before the Airport lineup was cancelled (2018).

gigatexal 4y ago

Super, duper bummed I can't pair this one with my 1st gen homepod. From footnote #3: Creating a HomePod stereo pair requires two of the same model HomePod speakers, such as two HomePod mini, two HomePod (2nd generation), or two HomePod (1st generation).

pasc1878 4y ago
Yes this is not good. I could justify buying one and moving one original to another room. But buying two and ending up with a spare old one. No
Tsiklon 4y ago
They’ve got a different speaker configuration. There will likely be a difference between how they both sound.

yowzadave 4y ago

HomePod is the most annoying piece of technology that I still frequently use. I was an early buyer of the first version, but this update doesn't address any of the complaints that I have about it: 1. No audio line-in! It's a $300 speaker, it sounds great...sometimes I'd like to be able to just plug something into it. If you have a record player, you have to have a separate set of speakers for it, because this thing won't work. 2. No EQ. Apple claims their room-sensing tech will pick the best EQ for your room/the music, but for my personal preference it's always too bassy-sounding (also, I live in an apartment, I don't want to disturb my downstairs neighbors with the bass). Apple added a limited "bass-reducer" mode, but I want more control. 3. Siri tries (and frequently fails) to identify me and my wife by our voice, and then won't do things (like turn off the music, find our iPhone, etc.) because she can't figure out who we are. Every time Siri refuses to obey my wife, and then does something when I make the same request, it ratchets up the marital tension a notch. I should probably get rid of the thing, but it's actually convenient when it works, the kids use it constantly to play music, and I assume (naively?) that it has a better privacy stance than the competing Google/Amazon products.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hnkfrh 4y ago
The input situation is dreadful and I couldn't stand the delay with AirPlay2 either. However, combined with an AppleTV 4K (2nd gen upwards), HomePods can be used as HDMI eARC devices. This enables playing sound without delay from any HDMI output. In my setup I use an eARC capable HDMI splitter and a $10 Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter to create an audio device for my mac that has virtually no delay. The video output of the HDMI adapter is set to just mirror my first screen, which avoids additional video processing load.
odysseus 4y ago
I also had #3 happen many times, but my wife just laughs at Siri being dumb and is usually just thankful /somebody/ stopped that timer or turned down that music.
colordrops 4y ago

akmarinov 4y ago

Didn't the original Homepod flop? Mostly due to the price? Why would it work this time?

Terretta 4y ago
I think maybe bad marketing? There was (is) no better sound for the size and money than those originals.

Hippocrates 4y ago

I F'in LOVE the OG HomePods. The sound quality absolutely slaps for the money/size/convenience. I've got one for music in the kitchen and it fills the room like a setup 3x as large. The bass response even at low volumes is remarkable, and clarity through the whole volume range is near perfection. Many of my guests have sourced their own OGs after hearing it. I've got another hooked up to my Apple TV (mono) that replaced a 3.1 setup that cost 3x as much and somehow didn't sound as good. I can't relate at all to the bike-shedding of Siri complaints. It's like we're experiencing totally different products. Does anyone actually want to use smart speaker features beyond simple cooking timers and controlling music? These features work great. I thought we'd already determined (4 years ago) that voice/audio was a poor user interface even with google/Alexa? I always felt this was a remarkable speaker that got unfairly panned in reviews for performance on silly and contrived smart-assistant use cases. Despite the fact that I love these speakers and could care less about Siri, this release has me a little disappointed. I don't see much stated improvement. Kind of seems like a processor bump type release, which is not what I expected in V2 after so many years.

layer8 4y ago
One issue I have with the HomePod (mini) Siri is that it activates even when I’m in another room and want my iPhone or iPad in that room to react, but Siri answers from the HomePod in the other room where I can barely (or not at all) hear it.
- voisin 4y ago
  This is crazy behaviour. Is it hearing from another room or is it activating via the iPhone or iPad in the room you are in? If so it would seem that most users would have this issue. Can anyone else chime in? I am looking to buy one now but this seems to be an annoying flaw.
  - layer8 4y ago
    It is hearing from the other room (doors aren’t fully closed, and the HomePod mini has really sensitive hearing) and I guess for some reason decides that it’s probably the same room. This doesn’t happen when you have the other device active/unlocked. There is a mechanism to negotiate between devices which device should answer (you see the Siri symbol lighting up on all devices), but the logic seems to be half-broken (unfortunately a common occurrence with present-day Apple software).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

joshstrange 4y ago

This is a pretty lackluster "update" for a product that had a number of issues. Not to mention a press release doesn't fill me with confidence that Apple even believes in this product line (if that wasn't obvious when they pulled the HomePod 1). I'm a hardcore apple fanboy and I just can't justify the HomePods. I want to like them but Siri is useful for setting timers, asking the time/weather, and... that's about all I trust it for. I have near-zero interest in HomeKit (too limited, too locked in, I don't want wifi smart devices) and so while I have hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of smart devices in my house (Z-wave with a few zigbee, all run by HomeAssistant) I can't even use HomePod device to control my lights/etc. Yes, I know about HomeBridge and HA's HomeKit integration, every time I've tried this it's fallen over after a month or less and you have to set it all up from scratch again, the Home app drives me batty, it's so bad. Maybe Matter will improve things (not holding my breath) but for now I'll stick with my Echo's. They do a decent job of controlling my smart house, are way cheaper, and integrate perfectly with HA. If Siri would actually talk directly to HA then I'd probably switch. It's really not a money thing, it's a reliability thing. EDIT: After reading some more comments (and from things I've read online or heard on podcasts) I have no doubt the audio quality is amazing. My issue is that I just don't really care about feature as much. I have my AirPods Pro in 90%+ of the time I listen to anything and the other <10% is when I'm in the shower and use a Sonos Roam or in my car. My #1 use case for a "smart speaker" is smart home control followed closely by setting reminders/timers. Siri does great with timers/reminders, smart home (or rather MY smart home), not so much.

tass 4y ago
I saw you mentioned the HA bridge. I can only give my anecdote that it works well for me - probably been set up without touching anything for about a year now. I remember the initial setup wasn’t exactly intuitive, but what I like is that HomeKit communicates using your own devices rather than via an exposed web service
- joshstrange 4y ago
  I'm open to giving it another try, it's been well over a year since I last tried it and I have far more experience with HomeBridge vs HA's integration.

gnicholas 4y ago

Is this supposed to sound better than the original version? I bought two of them on sale one time (for like $250 each?) and planned to use them as a stereo pair. But when I tested them against the (very old) Bose Wave Radio that we were previously using, it wasn't clear that they were any better. They certainly weren't $500 better, so I returned them.

Terretta 4y ago
I know that device, I'd argue something was flawed in your test. The Bose sound isn't real, it's psychoacoustic. The difference is (ahem) audible. (Perhaps palpable, even, as HomePod OG physically moved more air.)
- gnicholas 4y ago
  I actually did blind testing with my wife. Neither one of us had a strong preference, so we returned them. At the time, we couldn't use the paired HomePods as the sound output for our computer (which is plugged to our TV), which meant that we would have also had to use an iPad or iPhone instead of our computer. That inconvenience (no remote control for an iOS device!) was a strike against the HomePods.

xd1936 4y ago

If I'm following Apple's audio strategy correctly, I'm supposed to buy AirPods because I don't care about sound quality but the convenience is worth it, and I'm supposed to buy a HomePod because I really care about sound quality even though the ecosystem is inconvenient.

ragazzina 4y ago

Does anyone know if the HomePod can be used with an iPhone without Siri? I have never enabled Siri.

atombender 4y ago
You don't need to use Siri. I have Siri turned off.

aug_aug 4y ago

Siri - 15% Alexa - 20% Google - 88% These are my success rates talking to home devices across brands in last 5 yrs. Yes - I am complaining, Siri is horrible. Can't believe I'm complimenting Google (Chromecast Audio, Stadia, that RSS thing) at the same time, but I am in the realm of voice recognition.

alexktz 4y ago
By the way... did you know...?

stanmancan 4y ago

Lots of complaints here but I personally love my OG HomePod. It sounds fantastic which is what I'm looking for out of a speaker. I personally have zero issues with Siri. It's basic but that's all I really need; all I use Siri for is turning on music, measurement conversions when cooking, and adding things to my various reminder lists ("Hey Siri add cucumber to my shopping list"). I am a little surprised that it's more or less the same device re-launched but the more I think about it I'm not really sure what I expected. It's a speaker, its' main requirement is to sound good and the OG HomePod sounds great. I can't think of many other features you can add to the speaker itself.

timbofoo 4y ago

Clicks to check for Spotify support……..negative. Moves on.

m3kw9 4y ago

HomePods is one of the best products apple offers. Now I don’t use Siri that much, but if you listen to a lot of music this is the best bang for the buck. Get 2 and it becomes more amazing in stereo.

lvl102 4y ago

I really wish they add direct connect either optical or USB. I also don’t think Apple realizes they could absolutely sell a crap ton of Mac Minis to audiophiles/HiFi crowd. They just need to add custom DAC and some outputs.

crimsontech 4y ago

I was not expecting that, but I'm in, I'll buy a pair for my office stereo then move my office HomePod to the lounge. I bought the first HomePod when they first came out and I heard it in the apple store and couldn't believe a single speaker was producing that sound. I use it constantly to play music in my office, set reminders and timers, asking about the weather and controlling the lights. I seem to be lucky in that Siri mostly understands what I'm saying. This is once piece of tech I just take for granted, it does what it does very well with no fussing. I'm really happy to see Apple bring out a new version. For me a smart speaker has to be a very good speaker first as my primary use for it is listening to music. Everything else is just icing on the cake and only really saves me from picking up my phone and authenticating to it to use Siri.

yborg 4y ago

Current delivery date now Feb 3 from Apple Store.

jshaqaw 4y ago

I'd love a physical switch which hard disables Siri/audio monitoring

mulcahey 4y ago

I’m getting rid of mine bc the experience of switching WiFi networks is awful. Going back to KISS Bluetooth

halfnormalform 4y ago

Based on the video, the new ones can be placed on wooden furniture without permanently discoloring the finish!