I had the opposite experience. My echo dots never heard me well. Only when I was in the same room or maybe the room over with no music playing.
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Apple Details How HomePod Can Detect 'Hey Siri' From Across a Room, Even With Loud Music Playing
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I had the opposite experience. My echo dots never heard me well. Only when I was in the same room or maybe the room over with no music playing.
This, and things like 23 & Me selling info to pharmaceuticals, is why the pros of considering adding Alexa/Homepod to my home are far out-weighed by the cons of putting so much personal info out there.
Good luck to you and me in the paths we each choose.
Sounds like you’ve never actually used a HomePod
I had one and it heard me most places. I then bought another one, so one upstairs and one down. But then bought another 2 as got Hue and tied it all in with my Sonos. I get that HomePod probably does it a bit better, but for £325 more, it should really!
That can't be emphasized enough. They also have the high-performance silicon to implement their algorithms and technology secret sauce.
No I haven't, but doesn't mean I can't say what I said. I have Sonos in every room so no real need for an overpriced speaker with a retarded AI.
I'd like it for a voice recorder.
Every single recording of a meeting or lecture sounds like it was recorded in a gymnasium. For some reason, omnidirectional microphones SEEM to "enhance" the room reverberation, and the result is way more "muddy" than what it sounds like "live".
As a stereo pair HomePod is competitively priced to other speakers in the same class - without the AI.
True, that's a good point. They better do it better haha. We had one in the kitchen and one in the living room, but they would never hear me too well. Maybe the locations were partly to blame.
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That's fair, everyone needs to make those decisions for themselves. Part of the reason I switched from Echo's to HomePod's was because I don't trust Amazon and their business practices to protect my data. I trust Apple far more when it comes to privacy and security. Nobody is perfect, but their track record is better.
Tell Siri to disable "Hey, Siri". See Tip #15 in this list:
https://www.cultofmac.com/530593/20-homepod-tips-you-need-to-know/
It's the same technique the NSA uses to listen to you in a crowded room. 
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I always say hey Siri hey seri and the second one works because it starts listening more intently the second time.
As Jeff Beoz answered the question “What difficulties making Alexa” “everything, nothing easy developing Alexa”. Apple no different.
A client of mine has hearing aids that have an iOS App that allows him to, among other things, change the "directionality" of the hearing aids.
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Your understanding of this topic appears to be a few years out of date. They are able to do a whole bunch of stuff with multiple microphones as far as phase-cancellation and echo-suppression that simple wasn't possible before we had the processing power of a supercomputer in a $350 home speaker device.
It works fine for me except for when audio is playing over the speaker. With audio playing it never ever works, which annoys me a lot.
I just wish it worked better, the recognition that is. I have to repeat myself all too often. When I first got the HomePod it was excellent and I could practically whisper and it would respond. Now I have to talk louder and directly at it and sometimes it doesn’t pick it up properly. Only thing different is the firmware updates. Maybe they need to do some more fixing?
The physical technology behind the assistant is best in class. After training my iPhone, Hey Siri works every time. But voice transcription and capabilities are far behind I'm afraid. Siri gets what I say wrong all the time, and when she understands what I said she often gets the interpretation wrong. I am actually surprised when she gives me the answer I need beyond the simple questions they demo during keynotes.
All well and good - but Siri as it stands isn't the assistant we want. It's just the assistant we deserve.
Just got a HomePod during that Best Buy sale. My kids are now constantly fighting over who gets to ask Siri a question. I usually just end up turning off the "Listen for Hey Siri" command until they calm down That being said, I'm really hoping for some improvements on Siri's intelligence. One of my kids asked, "What's the closest elementary school" and she responded with a school that is several miles away when their school is only a block and half away (much closer). Then when we asked Siri "How far way is [Blank] Elementary" she correctly responded with the exact distance.
That being said, I'm really hoping for some improvements on Siri's intelligence. One of my kids asked, "What's the closest elementary school" and she responded with a school that is several miles away when their school is only a block and half away (much closer). Then when we asked Siri "How far way is [Blank] Elementary" she correctly responded with the exact distance.Mine works excellently as well. It is pretty cool sometimes annoying to use Hey Siri in the same room as a HomePod. Music - almost always goes to HomePod, even when you are trying to name a song n the TV, which HomePod is nothing yet, but the phone can. Sometimes I try Hey Siri on the phone, or hey Siri in the Living Room, that seems to work