Apple Announces New HomePod for $299 With Full-Size Design, S7 Chip, and More

[DeepIn2U]

Will expect a ton of used ones showing up on craigslist in 3...2...1...

LMAO sorry but you're about 10mths too late on that lol.

STill glad to see the improvement. Wondered what really changed through all hardware components. Now Apple NEEDS to really push this and make it a HomeKit Hub once again.

Older units just got a price sink YES!!

 

[zhenya]

I hope you realise that there is a weird, secret, but understood arbitrary limit of HomePods in one house of 6. Any more gives real issues with multi room options not working, going wrong and struggling.

I have 7 - I have issues.....

but i hope that 16.3 resolves them - are we even supposed to be buying more than 6 - Apple seemed to not think so!

I have 15. It takes a robust home wifi network, but performance is excellent.

 

[theinsaneworld]

Except it’s not. Less powerful cpu, less speakers, less microphones and even worse Wi-Fi!

The processor is literally several generations newer than the previous HomePod. That being said, since it’s based on S7, I think that is why Wi-Fi and BT have a bit of regression, since the SiP of the S7 has those in-package.

Also, having fewer mics/speakers doesn’t mean better or worse. I’ve worked in music production and quantity doesn’t equate quality.

I’m reserving judgement, as most should, until I’ve actually heard them.

 

[mjs916]

I guess they didn't learn the first time around...

I’m fully prepared to buy two of these to replace the one on my living room, and move that one to my office.

There are others like me that have been waiting for this. Those happy with the HomePod mini might be curious about a larger one and could impact sales too.

That doesn’t guarantee success of course, but it is already improvement on paper over the OG in features and price.

 

[mjs916]

I miss the Steve Jobs “one more thing…” thing.

Apple Watch and iPhone X were both “One More Thing…”

 

[chadamorrill]

I have Sonos equipment myself in most places, but I need another setup for a TV in a smaller room. If these were $249 I would consider two of them over a Beam and Sub Mini for example which would run $950. I would expect a pair of these new HomePods to sound superior to a Beam alone, but will wait for some reviews, hopefully comparing the two.

$249 would be a better price for sure over $300, but I am sure there will be sales and I can wait!

I never had a Sonos Sub, but I did have the Beam. 2 stereo paired Mini's sound better than the Beam, in my opinion. I've not heard full sized Homepods in a stereo pair (I only have one OG), but I can imagine it would rival the Sonos setup, and save you some money (assuming you have an aTV 4k already!)

 

[theinsaneworld]

Apple Watch and iPhone X were both “One More Thing…”

Yup. I also feel like it was Steve’s thing and it probably felt a little awkward doing it on stage without him.

 

[BuffaloTF]

I don't think it's over-priced - it's under-abled. A $100 premium over Sonos One is fair for the combo of sound quality + Apple eco-system. However, I think it still doesn't let you use voice control with YouTube Music or Spotify? Plus Siri's low IQ? No deal.

I don’t want to read thru 23 pages to see if this was answered… but it’s on Google and Spotify to make their apps work with it. Apple has long had the devices open to third party apps. It just doesn’t fit into Spotify’s “timetoplayfair” campaign for them to do it, in spite of it being the far-and-away number 1 most requested feature on their boards.

 

[Rychiar]

Correct but you cannot get it from a new HomePod and a HomePod Mini according to the Apple website.

Well yeah that would sound bad like putting any two mismatched speakers together

 

[Tagbert]

Did anyone ever complain the old one was too slow? Don't see why it needs an updated chip. The lack of easy integration with non-Apple music services was the killer for the old one.

Guess I'll hold out for the Homepod Pro Max

The old one was slow with Siri requests and could not do any requests with local processing. My understanding is that the HomePod mini is faster for responding to Siri requests and hopefully this one is, too. There is no need to call back to a server to respond to "Siri skip track".

 

[reviewspin]

You should bug Spotify about that. The APIs have been there for awhile now. Other providers are already doing it. For all their complaining, Spotify is the slowest to adopt stuff that they request.

How dare you blame a developer for not developing their product on a competitor's speaker! It's almost like ... they want to stick it to Apple or something.

lol

 

[froston02]

any idea if they are ever going to have native spotify on these things?

 

[reviewspin]

Did not see this coming. Perhaps sales of the Original version at $299 were "good enough" - but they needed to redesign so its good on profits at $299 (since the original was more expensive than that originally) and here we are.

Still rather stunned about this, lol.

I think we can be safe to say no one saw this coming. This wasn't even rumored and on Front Page Tech.

I think Tim Cook sneezed and this came out, honestly.

 

[AppliedMicro]

“I wish it had Bluetooth 5.3 instead of 5.0 at least for Bluetooth 5.3’s low-latency/no-latency enhancement. I would think this would be of prime importance to a new wireless speaker. Almost all of Apple’s recent hardware product releases have adopted Bluetooth 5.3 except for this one. (?) Makes no sense except in the cost-cutting context.

Why Bluetooth 5.3?

What will you be using the HomePod’s Bluetooth for anyway? 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[Tagbert]

I don't think the issue is that they have too many offerings - for example just having a HomePod mini and a regular HomePod isn't really that much clutter, it's a pretty clean offering.

I think the problem is that some of their products make sense individually but the combined product lineup makes no sense as a whole. For example the combination of MacBook Air / MacBook / MacBook Pro was very inconsistent for a long period - which product was targeted at which type of user? Same thing right now with Mac Studio / Mac Mini / Mac Pro.

They update different parts of the lineup at different times and need to be clearer in communicating which product is for which intended user. And they need somebody internally with the authority to tell product teams when they're doing something stupid, like the Magic Mouse charging upside-down or the Pencil charging.

The MacBook was clearly intended to replace the MacBook Air but they could never get the price down enough, performance turned out to be bad, and customers just kept buying Airs. That was a product line in transition. Apple rarely replaces/updates all the products in a line at the same time so you get some odd alignments. Usually that works out over the next 1-2 years as the other products get updated. Sometimes that process stalls, like in the iPad lineup.

The Mac mini > Mac Studio > Mac Pro is reasonably clean lineup. You have a low end, mid range, and a top range. There are several price+performance rungs on the ladder from the low end Mini to the higher end Studio. The Mac Pro upgrade being delayed has left things unclear at that end but hopefully we see where that is going by mid year.

The MacBook product line is relatively clean, you have the bargain model (M1 Air, older but cheaper), the mainstream model (MacBook Air), and the two Pro models. The 13" MBP is an odd duck and always has been. It really hasn't gotten the updates it needs and seems to be there mainly to satisfy corporate procurement contracts. I would guess that it will be replaced by mid year with a larger Air/Macbook product that is between the 13" Air and the smaller Pro in price.

 

[Thom88]

Apple today announced a second-generation full-size HomePod, available to order starting today for $299 in white and midnight color options. In-store availability and deliveries to customers will begin Friday, February 3 in select countries.

The second-generation HomePod features a virtually identical design as the full-size HomePod that was discontinued in March 2021, with a backlit touch surface and mesh fabric exterior. It features a four-inch high-excursion woofer, five tweeters, four microphones, an S7 chip for computational audio, a U1 chip for Ultra Wideband features like handing off music from an iPhone, and support for Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos. The speaker also has Siri integration and Matter support for HomeKit and other smart home accessories.

The new HomePod is 6.6-inches tall and weighs 5.1 pounds, compared to 6.8-inches and 5.5 pounds for the first-generation model, while both models are 5.6 inches wide. The new HomePod also has two fewer tweeters and microphones compared to the original model. The original HomePod was equipped with the A8 chip from the iPhone 6, while the new model has the S7 chip from the Apple Watch Series 7.

A new sensor in the HomePod can measure temperature and humidity in indoor environments, and this feature is also being enabled on the existing HomePod mini.

Apple will be expanding its Sound Recognition feature to the new HomePod with a software update this spring, allowing the speaker to listen for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and send a notification directly to a user's iPhone if a sound is identified.

Two second-generation HomePods can be paired for stereo sound, but one second-generation HomePod and one first-generation HomePod cannot.

At launch, the new HomePod will be available in the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, and 11 other countries, according to Apple. It is compatible with the iPhone 8 and later, any iPad Pro, the fifth-generation iPad and later, the third-generation iPad Air and later, and the fifth-generation iPad mini and later running iOS 16.3 or iPadOS 16.3 or later.

"Leveraging our audio expertise and innovations, the new HomePod delivers rich, deep bass, natural mid-range, and clear, detailed highs," said Apple's marketing chief Greg Joswiak. "With the popularity of HomePod mini, we've seen growing interest in even more powerful acoustics achievable in a larger HomePod. We're thrilled to bring the next generation of HomePod to customers around the world."

Apple continues to sell the HomePod mini for $99.

Article Link: Apple Announces New HomePod for $299 With Full-Size Design, S7 Chip, and More

Hey Siri: “Play the Beatles Channel on Sirius XM.” Sorry….I can’t do that. Sorry Apple; until HomePod can do that WITHOUT linking to my iPhone, I’m not buying one; or the two or three more that I’d buy if it could do that simple thing.

 

[Tagbert]

"Matter" (which nothing uses), and a temperature sensor....oh and two tweeters less.....

However, spatial audio, stereo pairing and pretty much everything else is the same.

I'll wait for the hands on reviews to see if it still compares audio-wise to the original HomePod (of which I have two in a stereo pair).

I've been seeing new announcements of home automation products with Matter support every couple of weeks since Matter was finally announced this past fall. Once you look for it, you see it.

 

[subjonas]

I'm glad it's back. It still looks like a TP roll but that's fine. I don't have to worry about a mismatched looking pair up with my original ones should one of them need replacement.

Wonder if one of these can be paired with the original Homepod for stereo sound. Probably not.

Can’t mix and match for stereo pair. HomePods can only be stereo paired with same model and generation.

 

[Edsel]

That Apple HomePod video probably cost more to produce than the engineering that went into the revised HomePod.

 

[Tagbert]

No thread support???

There is thread support

Wireless​

• 802.11n Wi-Fi
• Peer-to-peer discovery for easy guest access9
• Bluetooth 5.0
• Thread
• Ultra Wideband chip for device proximity11

see the tech spec

HomePod (2nd generation) - Technical Specifications

High-fidelity audio. Intelligent assistant. Home hub that works across devices. HomePod is a powerhouse speaker with the privacy of Apple built in.

www.apple.com

 

[tonie walker]

seems a downgrade hardware wise but knowing apple there must be something in the audio space that this should sound much better than OG1, else pointless.. What i don’t like on my OG1 is sound check doesn’t seem to work, Dolby atmos is always louder than the lossess.

 

[subjonas]

Because they will stop supporting the OG HomePod once the chipset doesn’t make the latest OS cut

Wouldn’t that happen anyway regardless if a newer generation comes out? How could one prove when Apple would have dropped support?
Also, should Apple never make newer generation products? 🤔

 

[stillcrazyman]

Nice to see the return of the Homepod. I have my OG one in my office, a mini in my kitchen and a Sonos system in the living room. If the office Homepod dies, I can hope to get a replacement.

 

[Tagbert]

looks like it doesn't even support the latest wifi standard ... kinda disappointed

but that means I'll propably stick with the mini and save a lot

Why did they downgrade the Wi-Fi from 5 to 4?

Edit: Instead of upgrading to Wi-Fi 6 which supports both 2.4 and 5 GHz radio frequencies, they dropped to 802.11n so the HomePod is compatible with legacy routers and devices. Likely a minimum requirement of the Thread standard.

It is 802.11n Wi-Fi with supports 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. It doesn't really need WiFi 6e for the throughput with just audio.

 

[Tagbert]

No bluetooth, I am out.

I had a homepod. Sounded ok. Nothing amazing, but ok for a smart speaker. Sold it.

Currently using a Bose Cinemate GS II and bluetooth from one side of the room to the other using:

Sennheiser BT T100 Bluetooth Transmitter and a BT receiver (using Aptx-LL).

I can play games, videos, etc, I have a cinematic sound, separation, and no lag!

As good as EARC is, there is always some lag, and I haven't found a single projector that supports it.

There is BT. see the tech specs page https://www.apple.com/homepod-2nd-generation/specs/#footnote-10

Not sure what it is used for in this case. If there is a direct audio playback over BT.