In mid-October, Apple unveiled the HomePod mini, the newest addition to the HomePod family that delivers impressive sound, a smart device controlled by Siri, and a smart home experience that offers Apple’s renowned ease of use.
At just 3.3 inches tall, HomePod mini is packed with innovative technologies and advanced software that together enable computational audio to deliver breakthrough audio quality wherever it is placed. HomePod mini will be available in white and space gray at a great price of just $99.
On the whole, the HomePod did a good job in being what it set out to be — but it was never destined to be the world’s best-selling smart speaker. Not at that price. What it did do, however, was help convince the rest of the industry that a smart speaker should be, above all, a speaker, rather than simply a smart assistant delivery device.
Essentially, Amazon and Google have become more focused on sound and Apple more conscious of price. That’s not to say, however, that the companies have met somewhere in the middle. This is not, simply put, the Apple Echo Dot. The HomePod Mini is still, in many ways, a uniquely Apple product. There’s a focus on little touches that offer a comparably premium experience for its price point…
The HomePod Mini is a surprisingly good speaker. Not just for its price, but also its size. The Mini is nearly exactly the same size as the new, round Echo Dot — which is to say, roughly the size of a softball… I’ve used a lot of different smart speakers in my day, and honestly, I’m really impressed with the sound the company was able to get out of the 3.3-inch device.
It’s full and clear and impressively powerful for its size. Obviously that goes double if you opt for a stereo pair. Pairing is painless, out of the box. Just set up two devices for the same room of your home and it will ask you whether you want to pair them. From there, you can specify which one handles the right and left channels. If you’d like to spread out, the system will do multiroom audio by simply assigning speakers to different rooms.
MacDailyNews Take: At just $99, you can litter HomePod mini units everywhere and joy “big, full, clear, and impressively powerful” sound!
Talk to me once you support Spotify. …A glaring and petty omission.
LOL, “petty”? You mean the company that is filing complaints to the EU about big bad Apple?
Ordered three, only to find there’s a limit of two.
Ordered 2. Goes with the 4 HomePods I have now in the house.
Since I can’t hook up my Echo Dot to it, I’m not interested.
I’m sure that like me, Apple couldn’t care less about your lack of interest.
Okay…
Good for you.
I was speaking about me and no one else. Maybe someone wants to hook up something else to it.
Point is, both Homepods are intentionally crippled.
Bye Karen.