It seems as though Apple is setting HomePod mini up for GoPod. As they say, there’s no replacement for displacement. This is great if you plan to put the mini in the middle of a room, but realistically, it will be on a shelf or closer to a wall, where it has less of an impact. HomePod mini does the basics very well, looks great, and sounds good enough. The HomePod Mini sounds fantastic as a TV speaker. HomePod Mini beats them both for clarity but right now, with Christmas specials, the Nest Mini is a … Where the larger HomePod “analyzes the acoustics and adjusts the sound based on its location … so the entire space is filled with rich, well-defined tones,” the smaller HomePod only promises to “sound amazing from every angle.”. In my testing, I’ve found this light-up panel to be harder to see from across the room than the Echo’s glowing ring. If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. It doesn’t play games other than simple things like flipping a coin. Sound quality in the original HomePod was impressive, but … Both Google and Amazon offer similar features on their smart speakers, but they have more two-way live communication options than the HomePod. The HomePod mini at least feels like it’s in the same ballpark as the rest. The HomePod Mini is powered by Apple's S5 processor, so you won't get the room-sensing tech of the HomePod in the Mini. That said, Apple’s new speaker is a solid entry at a good price, but you should wait until the inevitable sales start hitting Best Buy and Walmart. As a speaker, the sound coming from the HomePod Mini is good. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian Apple’s HomePod mini is finally here – the iPhone maker’s … You can also run Siri Shortcuts from the HomePod, provided you’ve gone through the legwork to program them on your iPhone. The HomePod mini is the small speaker of choice for music lovers, but only if you're deep in the Apple ecosystem, and don't need it to be TOO smart. Despite not being quite up to the Echo’s sound performance, the HomePod mini does sound pleasant for most any genre of music and for podcasts and other vocal performances. But collectively, they are demonstrative of why many people still have a negative perception of Siri. Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac. If you’re already fully bought into Apple’s ecosystem, including services, it’s hard to fault the HomePod mini’s price or capabilities. More on that in a minute. Apple was forced to lower its price, and other retailers had to discount it aggressively in order to get anyone to buy it. It also prevents a random person from sending messages or placing phone calls from my iPhone using the HomePod mini, a problem we ran into when reviewing the original HomePod. That’s a shame because the HomePod mini really wants to be portable, and not just because of its size. Setting up the mini requires an iPhone or iPad. And next to the larger Echo and Nest Audio, both of which cost the same, it simply can’t keep up. That is incorrect, you can set a third-party app as the default to handle requests for music, podcasts, and audiobooks, but you can’t set separate apps for those categories. The HomePod Mini (left) and Echo Dot might be the same size, but their sound isn't. In all, the HomePod mini excels at casual listening and background music. The HomePod mini is a great buy if the price turned you off to the original HomePod. Siri has gotten other improvements over the years as well. It’s clear that Apple designed this to complement the larger HomePod. Apple HomePod mini review: Verdict It isn’t as great-sounding as the HomePod, of course, but it’s not much more than a third of the price. It does the basics mostly fine, such as playing music, giving weather reports, and setting timers and reminders. Apple has shown that it’s willing to improve things and listen to feedback when it comes to smart speakers, so I’ll be interested to see how it continues to develop. When the HomePod originally launched, it felt like Apple was operating in a completely different world from the rest of the smart speakers, one that didn’t make sense for a lot of people. Here is our review of the HomePod Mini, and the best features and biggest failures you’ll get with Apple’s newest smart speaker. Hey Siri! It’s great for playing music during dinner when you don’t want to drown out conversation or just to have some audio playing in the background as you work from home. That said, it's quite loud for its size and shouldn't struggle to fill up any but the largest of rooms. The HomePod mini features a backlit touch-sensitive lid. For any smart home control, you need to be using Apple’s Home app and HomeKit-compatible devices. One big selling point: you don't have to worry about Apple's speakers spying on you, as Apple has a different … The bass that’s there can be heard but not felt. Unless you’re right next to the HomePod mini, it’s hard to tell when Siri has heard your voice command and is responding. Two passive radiators help to accentuate lower bass tones, but they shouldn’t be confused with the multiple active speakers that are in the Echo and Nest Audio. Macworld |. Like the larger HomePod, the mini has a permanently attached power cord, though this time, it ends in a USB-C port. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. Two and a half years ago, Apple finally entered the smart speaker market with the HomePod. None of this is a problem if you’re fully bought into Apple’s world, but the reality is that few individuals (and, by extension, families) are. The other reason to buy a HomePod mini is as a smart Siri-powered speaker. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. It does most of the things you expect a smart speaker to do and sounds good when doing them. Staff Writer, When I use the HomePod mini to place a call, neither myself nor the other party could hear anything until I transferred the call to my iPhone and then back to the HomePod. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. At just 8.4cm tall and 9.8cm wide, it’s roughly half the size of the similarly priced and similarly spherical new Amazon Echo. You have to either ask Siri to “stop listening” or dive into the HomePod settings in the Home app in iOS to toggle the feature, a slow and clumsy process. Just like the original, you can get it in light or dark gray, and it has a similar soft fabric. A handful of smart lights have been announced with support for Thread in HomeKit (Apple’s smart home platform), but for now, the Thread ecosystem is quite small. If you’re looking for an everyday music player, weather forecaster, simple question answerer, and light switch, it’ll work a bit better than one of the super-low-priced alternatives, especially if you’re already invested in the Apple universe. Siri can also do a bunch of things with Apple’s apps, such as notes, calendar, reminders, and Maps, and some limited actions with third-party apps that have added support for SiriKit commands. It’s extremely easy to set up, provided you have an iPhone or iPad nearby, and you’ll want a subscription to Apple Music as well, at least for now. It measures just 3.5 inches around and has a smaller footprint than the newly redesigned Echo Dot (which, oddly enough, is also a sphere) and Google Nest Mini. The HomePod Mini is Apple's 'cheap' speaker - it sounds amazing, but Siri still needs work. The HomePod mini’s light-up panel is harder to see than the Echo’s light ring In my testing, I’ve found this light-up panel to be harder to see from across the room than the Echo’s glowing … You need an iPhone or a Mac to do that. My main beef with HomePod is that Siri is mentally challenged. It’s too bad it’s not a portable Bluetooth speaker because, at roughly the size of a large grapefruit, it fits nicely in my hand and feels great to hold. Apple fans will enjoy it, but it's not going to tempt anyone to jump ship. The HomePod Mini is just 84mm tall but it … At 3.3 inches tall, the HomePod mini is about the same size as the fourth-gen Echo Dot and considerably smaller than the full-size Echo or Google’s Nest Audio. The mini does support a new smart home protocol called Thread, which allows devices to connect to it over longer distances and using less power than Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Apple HomePod mini review: playing small ball, Apple MacBook Pro with M1 review: flexing Arm, Apple MacBook Air with M1 review: new chip, no problem, frequent lawsuits and criticism of Apple’s locked-down platforms, Accessibly priced compared to big HomePod, Still hugely dependent on Apple devices and services, Doesn’t sound as good as similarly priced competitors, Siri is still behind Google Assistant and Alexa in features and capabilities, The Apple terms of service agreement, which you can have sent to you by email, Apple’s warranty agreement, which you can have sent to you by email. The HomePod Mini might be small but the sound is mighty. It’s smaller, simpler, and way less expensive than its bigger sibling, and thanks to Apple’s work on Siri over the past few years, it can actually do more than the original when it launched. Correction: An earlier version of this review said it wasn’t possible to use third-party apps as default sources for podcasts or audiobooks. You can have it sent to a specific HomePod or blast it to all of the HomePods in the home as an announcement. When you ask it to play something, the screen at the top lights up and is very nice but you won't be able to see it unless you're looking directly at it. The biggest issue is the lack of smart devices to interact with it—basically, any plug, switch, light, and camera is sure to work with Alexa and Google Assistant but probably won’t support Siri. The HomePod Mini was able to capture the dank ambiance of Dream On by Noel Gallagher and the High Flying Birds, and did an especially good job accentuating the vocals. It’ll tell you a story if you ask, but it doesn’t have anywhere near the library that Alexa has. I can walk around the speaker, and the sound of the music just doesn’t change. After months of rumors and speculation, Apple on Tuesday announced a new, smaller smart speaker called the HomePod Mini at its iPhone … Apple has proven its ability to excel in audio, whether it's the Air Pods Pro, or the original HomePod. It was a unique device — instead of prioritizing an accessible price and smart assistant features, it was laser-focused on audio quality and considerably more expensive than its closest competitors from Amazon and Google, while being less capable as a smart speaker. There’s also no physical switch to disable Siri’s always-listening feature. It has good balance in the mid-tones and a very vocal forward sound profile. But while you can obviously adjust the volume, you're stuck with the sound. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Audio quality is very good for a $100 speaker, and Siri is a lot more capable than it was back in 2018. Rather, it ships with Apple’s bulky 20W USB-C power adapter, but any 20W USB-C charger will suffice. Final tally: four mandatory agreements, one optional agreement. Even if the HomePod mini didn’t have a pedigree that includes such beloved Apple products as the iPod mini and Mac mini, it still would be in a difficult spot. It sounds good but it's blown away by the larger HomePod. The HomePod Mini really is small. Read our, Learn more about Macworld's Digital Edition, Sound isn't as full or deep as the original HomePod, Cord is permanently attached and needs a 20W adapter. Both of Apple’s major smart speaker competitors have services and ecosystems of their own, but they also allow for much more freedom of choice for preferred services and work with both iOS and Android devices. But you’ll really only be getting 180-degree sound since your HomePod mini will almost certainly be positioned against a wall. Add a MagSafe dock for quick and easy charging and you’ve got one of the best Bluetooth speakers on the market. But we’re going to start counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate. Apple has made some small strides toward allowing the HomePod to directly play music, podcasts, and audiobooks from sources other than Apple Music, and there’s now an API that apps can tap into to become the default option on the HomePod. If you have an original in your living room, you can put the mini in various other places in your home without having to invest as much money or take up as much shelf space. It’s also very light, and while a battery would easily double or triple its weight, it would still likely be less than two pounds with a five- or six-hour battery. Anything less than that (including the power banks I tried as well as a Thunderbolt 3 port on a MacBook) will render the HomePod useless with an ominous pulsing orange light at the top. But right now, the only app that’s taken advantage of it is Pandora, and there’s no word when others, such as Spotify or YouTube Music, will hop on board. The audio design basically mimics that of the HomePod but on a slightly … Here's why. Unlike the Echo or Nest speakers, you can’t pair the HomePod mini to a subwoofer or larger speaker system. But overall, I feel Apple fell short with HomePod Mini. As a result, the HomePod didn’t really take off. It’s effectively sending recorded audio messages to the devices instead of opening a live audio. Right now the default service setting limits all three categories to one app. Instead of a squishy-looking cylinder, the mini is a squat ball with a flat top. The first thing that will hit you about the HomePod mini is, well, how mini it is. While the HomePod mini is a much-needed, overdue entry to Apple’s product matrix, it’s unlikely to tempt anyone who isn’t already invested in Apple’s ecosystem. So, you won’t be able to ask Siri to change the temperature on your Nest Thermostat, or talk to the person who just rang your Ring Doorbell, or control the lamp plugged into a Kasa Smart Plug. HomePod mini is also missing many of the things that make the Echo and Google Nest devices so compelling. It’s cheap but not as cheap as the Echo Dot and Nest Mini. As it stands, the HomePod mini feels like a catch-up device that doesn't bring anything new to the conversation. The new HomePod Mini … The best way to yell at him is on Twitter. It can also act as a Home hub, which allows you to control your smart home devices with your iPhone from anywhere you have a data connection. When asking Siri to play an album from Apple Music, it would play songs out of order instead of how they appear on the album. Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. The HomePod mini is an overdue entry to Apple's product line, but it still falls short of being an essential product. The HomePod mini’s cord doesn’t have a plug like the original HomePod. Another thing I’d like to see is the ability to set separate default services for music, podcasts, and audiobooks, for example, using Spotify for music, Pocket Casts for podcasts, and Audible for audiobooks. HomePod Mini is better compared with Amazon's Echo Dot and Google's Nest Mini. That’s why both Amazon and Google switched to more directional speaker designs this year, after years of using 360-degree speakers. Hopefully, now that the HomePod mini is here, it starts to move a little faster. You can ask for a different news source, such as Fox or CNN, but that’s about as far as you can customize this feature. You can tap an iPhone to the top of the HomePod mini to transfer whatever you’re playing on your phone to the speaker and then tap it again to transfer the audio back to your phone. A new feature as of software version 14.2 is the ability to give you an itinerary at the start of your day, including a weather report, upcoming appointments, commute traffic, and a news blurb from NPR. But despite its name, Intercom isn’t really a two-way intercom. Like the original HomePod, the 5-foot cord is attached and somewhat inflexible, so your placement options are limited. Compounding things is the other end of the cord. The HomePod mini is the compact, good-sounding smart speaker for Apple aficionados. It doesn’t have the presence, volume, or sound stage of either, and it certainly can’t match the Echo’s bass output. Like the releases of Amageddon and Deep Impact, it’s pure coincidence that both Apple and Amazon launched spherical … We regret the error. Had the HomePod mini arrived before the original HomePod—as it probably should have—this would have been a very different review. The answer is yes and no. 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