It has the same multicolored LEDs under it that light up and swirl around whenever Siri is listening or responding. HomePod Mini review The HomePod Mini certainly packs a punch, but is it smart enough to compete with the likes of the fourth-gen Amazon Echo? 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. The HomePod mini is available in two colours – white and space grey – and while my white review unit does look good, the grey does look nicer, in my opinion, and will also be less … The HomePod mini is a great buy if the price turned you off to the original HomePod. 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. Macworld |. Unlike the Echo or Nest speakers, you can’t pair the HomePod mini to a subwoofer or larger speaker system. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. 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 … And compared to the equally priced Echo and Nest Audio, the HomePod mini struggles to keep up in both sound quality and features. More on that in a minute. My home is equipped with dozens of smart devices and the only ones that Siri can talk to are one of my two August locks and my Hue lights. 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. 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. 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. The HomePod Mini sounds fantastic as a TV speaker. Since Apple still doesn’t offer a proper equalizer for the HomePod, there isn’t anything you can do about the levels unless you’re using it as an AirPlay speaker, and even then, you’re extremely limited. If you’re already fully bought into Apple’s ecosystem, including services, it’s hard to fault the HomePod mini’s price or capabilities. Apple fans will enjoy it, but it's not going to tempt anyone to jump ship. 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. It’s also much more fiddly to use to adjust volume (especially when nothing is playing), and there’s no visual confirmation for how loud the speaker is set when you do adjust the volume, like you can see with an Echo or Nest Audio. The HomePod mini is priced closer to those larger speakers, although it really belongs in the small speaker class when it comes to the sound it can produce. HomePod mini does the basics very well, looks great, and sounds good enough. The HomePod mini has four microphones for picking up voice commands, but it does not have the room-tuning capabilities the original HomePod has. It seems as though Apple is setting HomePod mini up for GoPod. 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. One of its main features is 360‑degree audio “that sounds amazing from every angle,” which would be far more useful if you could put the HomePod mini in the middle of a room. Compounding things is the other end of the cord. It won’t soundtrack a party, and it certainly doesn’t replace a proper sound system — but for its size, it is good. 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. Instead of a squishy-looking cylinder, the mini is a squat ball with a flat top. Update, Nov. 12: Read our HomePod Mini review. You’ll hear the lyrics to your favorite song easily, without them getting overwhelmed by bass. But while Siri’s smarts have gotten better in iOS 14 with features like audio handoff, intercom, and personalized daily updates, it’s still nowhere near as smart and effortless as Alexa or Google Assistant. You are stuck with what it does out of the box. Siri has gotten other improvements over the years as well. 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. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian Apple’s HomePod mini is finally here – the iPhone maker’s … Had the HomePod mini arrived before the original HomePod—as it probably should have—this would have been a very different review. The best way to yell at him is on Twitter. Keeping with Apple’s style, the HomePod mini has a similar aesthetic to the original HomePod, with a color screen at the top and a fabric-wrapped outer shell. Bugs aside, Siri is still behind where Amazon and Google are with their virtual assistants. The HomePod Mini really is small. The other reason to buy a HomePod mini is as a smart Siri-powered speaker. 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. It has good balance in the mid-tones and a very vocal forward sound profile. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Fast-forward to now and Apple’s new smart speaker, the $99 HomePod mini, takes a different approach. And next to the larger Echo and Nest Audio, both of which cost the same, it simply can’t keep up. As a result, the HomePod didn’t really take off. Here is our review of the HomePod Mini, and the best features and biggest failures you’ll get with Apple’s newest smart speaker. Two and a half years ago, Apple finally entered the smart speaker market with the 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. 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. In my experience, Siri is typically faster to respond and do something than either Alexa or the Google Assistant, whether that’s to play music, answer a question, or control a smart home device. It doesn’t play games other than simple things like flipping a coin. While Apple has opened up the HomePod software to work with other music services by default, only Pandora is supported for now, but Amazon Music, Spotify, and others should be on the way. If you plug the HomePod mini into a power adapter that's less than 20W, you'll get an ominous orange glow. And it outdoes other speakers for the price … Where the original HomePod shakes the room with deep low-end tones that border on excessive, the HomePod mini puts a much greater emphasis on upper mid and presence ranges so songs sound more trebly than they should. Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac. It's also missing an easy way to turn off the microphone outside the app. Instead, Apple says the processor in the mini (an S5 chip, the same as you might find in an Apple Watch) analyzes the music being played and adjusts the speaker’s output for the best quality. See our ethics statement. It does the basics mostly fine, such as playing music, giving weather reports, and setting timers and reminders. You're dumb as a rock . That’s a shame because the HomePod mini really wants to be portable, and not just because of its size. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. After Apple released the HomePod Mini for only $99, it has become a more viable option. Staff Writer, HomePod Mini beats them both for clarity but right now, with Christmas specials, the Nest Mini is a … 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. As they say, there’s no replacement for displacement. A custom full-range driver and dual force-cancelling passive radiators ensure that the audio is rich and warm and has a punchy bass. 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. (Given Spotify’s frequent lawsuits and criticism of Apple’s locked-down platforms, I wouldn’t hold my breath for it anytime soon.). 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. Apple has proven its ability to excel in audio, whether it's the Air Pods Pro, or the original HomePod. It’s effectively sending recorded audio messages to the devices instead of opening a live audio. Like the original HomePod, the 5-foot cord is attached and somewhat inflexible, so your placement options are limited. At $99, the HomePod mini is probably cheap enough to succeed. You can even intercom using Siri from your phone or Apple Watch to broadcast messages to anyone that is at home. 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. You can usually find him with his nose buried in a screen. 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. Copyright © 2020 IDG Communications, Inc. The HomePod mini at least feels like it’s in the same ballpark as the rest. Right now the default service setting limits all three categories to one app. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. 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. That’s a hard claim to dispute, but I can tell you two things: the original HomePod sounds much better than the mini, and the HomePod mini sounds better than an Echo Dot. When performing a song Handoff from HomePod mini to iPhone, the banner expands into a near full-screen "platter," or UI panel, that includes album artwork, playback controls and more. That’s why both Amazon and Google switched to more directional speaker designs this year, after years of using 360-degree speakers. In all, it’s just less accessible than the buttons on Amazon’s speakers or even the touch-sensitive areas on Google’s — a rare miss in this department from Apple. Apple was forced to lower its price, and other retailers had to discount it aggressively in order to get anyone to buy it. You need an iPhone or a Mac to do that. 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. Its animation of Siri listening and responding adds a slick look to it, but it still can’t pry my eyes from the Echo’s LED light ring. 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.”. 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. My main beef with HomePod is that Siri is mentally challenged. But the rest of the smart speaker world has obviously not stood still, and Amazon and Google have released the most compelling options in their respective lineups this year. Setting up the mini requires an iPhone or iPad. It can now differentiate between voices, so I get a different answer for “what’s on my calendar” than my spouse does when they ask the same question. 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