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Apple Says HomePod Consumes Less Power Than Average LED Bulb During Music Playback

CarlJ said:
Congratulations, you're using light bulbs that put out around 400 lumens - about half of what is considered average. So yeah, your bulbs use about half as much power (and you need a bunch of them to light a room).
STOP SHOUTING AT APPLE TO STOP LYING WHEN THEY AREN'T LYING.

They were talking about the energy usage of the typical LED bulbs used in the US, which are rated in the 9-10 watt range, and often pull a bit more (for a bulb putting out 800+ lumens). Their comparison is reasonable.

Maybe look around for more reasonable explanations first before SHOUTING THAT SOMEBODY IS LYING?
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I would still argue that if you look around LED light stores, in the UK anyway very few of them on sale are in the 10 watt range.
I have 4w bulbs in lounge lamp and dining room lamp in the evening and they give nice light.
In my main wall lights, if I want it bright I have 3 of them on the wall each with a 4w bulb in them.

If I put 10w in them it would be eye searingly bright.
 
If there is one good thing i can always say about Apple is they do know how to save power better

This may force users not to blast their eardrum's out throwing a party.
 
raythepa said:
Why does it feel like they're reaching....
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They aren’t reaching. They are stating a fact and giving people questioning an “always on” speaker’s power draw. Apple sees this as a heavily used item and power is important to some people.

You can state many facts and benefits of a product without reaching.
 
Apple's comparison space is getting weirder. iPhone X costs less than a coffee per day. HomePod consumes less power than LED bulb. How about Apple TV supports more resolution than tube tv?
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Tech198 said:
If there is one good thing i can always say about Apple is they do know how to save power better

This may force users not to blast their eardrum's out throwing a party.
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I agree. That's why they came up with throttling idea. Save the battery power.
 
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ck2875 said:
Uhhhhh...Why? The Airport and Apple TV have removable power cables. Does Apple sell those cables individually?

Edit: I don't think people shouldn't be able to buy these cables (I don't care what the F people do with their money) [yay double negative]. I also hadn't considered that you could go through Apple Support to buy replacement parts. I was going off of the concept that Apple isn't putting power cables the Apple TV and Airport on their retail store walls, and they aren't available in the Apple Store app. I was simply asking why they thought there was a good chance they would be sold individually.
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Nah, the logic here is so they can produce a single unit to sell worldwide, and just bundle a different power cable. TV and PC manufacturers do it all the time, as long as the internal power supply is able to do a 110/240, the plug itself isn't a big deal.
 
from what hifi

There are seven horn-loaded tweeters running around the bottom of the speaker, firing out. These work in conjunction with a 4in upward-firing woofer in the top half of the unit.
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yay...

I bet it's tuned so that it sounds bassy.
 
You know what you call paper producers that irresponsibly manage their forests? Bankrupt. Trees are a renewable resource like wheat or corn. Duh.

I like that is low power, but power is needed to move air. Thats acoustic physics so I hope that does not mean the speakers suck. I want them to sound at least as good or better than a sonos. Not 10K nice but better than tinny trash speakers.
 
Since Apple decided to drop the support for the nest, I will stick with my Google assistant. The last thing I need is a $300 speaker to play apple music. No Thanks
 
Piggie said:
I would still argue that if you look around LED light stores, in the UK anyway very few of them on sale are in the 10 watt range.
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And, again, you saw something that didn't fit with your experience, and rather than saying, "this doesn't fit with my experience, here's why...", your first instinct was, "STOP LYING APPLE". Do you really believe that was the rational course of action?

Glancing at a local chain hardware store's website, I'm seeing largely "60W equivalent" (800-ish lumen) bulbs in the 9-10 watt range, along with 75 and 100 watt equivalent bulbs that go higher. Note also that many of them are dimmable. Apple quoted wattages during music playback for the HomePod (at 110/115V, typical in the US) of slightly under 9 watts, so that fits what they said. Given that Apple is a US-based company, I don't think it unreasonable for their comparison to assume common US factors. FWIW, it sounds like folks in the UK tend to run more bulbs with fewer lumens each, which throws the comparison out of whack.

Personally, my living room has 3 Hue light bulbs (800 lumens @ 9-ish watts, when fully driven) in 3 of the corners, along with a Hue LightStrip (1600 lumens @ 20-ish watts, when fully driven) looped on the back of the TV in the 4th corner, for bias lighting. So, in the vicinity of 45 watts when trying to make things really bright, though usually run at much lower levels (and usually at very warm color temperatures in the evening, or very dim, deep red for movie watching).
 
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As I'm reading more and more about the HomePod, still disliking the damn name, and still waiting official news whether or not Sonos will grant my Play:1 Special Edition speaker AirPlay 2 (always mixed reports nothing precisely clear from Sonos) I'm beginning to reconsider this Apple HomePod. If the audio quality is better than the Play:1 and Play:3 then I'm in as the price is competitive.

Still ridiculous the limited launch countries though. Siri speaks and understands French so why not France and Canada? oh well ... let's see those jacked up prices on eBay and Amazon shipping to Canada.
 
I was really starting to get excited for this.... until I saw it only streams music via Apple Music. :mad: I’m not paying a monthly subscription fee to play music on a device that cost $350. I don’t care how good it sounds, or how little power it uses. Open this thing up to other apps, Apple!
 
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dago5252 said:
Since Apple decided to drop the support for the nest, I will stick with my Google assistant. The last thing I need is a $300 speaker to play apple music. No Thanks
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I believe Nest was bought by Google who (quite obviously) didn’t want to support Apples Homekit.

Apple didn’t decide to drop support, Nest/Google didn’t want to work with homekit.

However they do have official apps on the AppStore still.
 
macduke said:
Just because I said the HomePod doesn't seem very useful doesn't mean that I think the UE MegaBoom is useful. As I've said before on these forums several times, any time I say "Hey Siri" several devices within range of me light up. My wife couldn't even use the HomePod to access her things as it would only recognize me. The point of a communal smart speaker is that more than one person could use it. This is zero different than any other Apple product that I own except that it has a nicer speaker inside. That might be useful to some who don't already have a speaker, but it's only kind of useful. Most people already own several speakers.

Then, when you factor in how much worse Siri is in many situations answering basic questions compared to competing platforms, you have to wonder why a regular person would buy this. I like that it has better security and privacy behind it, which is why I refuse to buy another brand of smart speaker. But in it's current state, the HomePod is not worth purchasing IMO. And I'm the guy who owns every Apple thing. Hopefully software updates will make it more useful in the future. Most people would be better served buying an Apple TV for less than half the cost and plugging it into their sound bar. Most people aren't audiophiles. Then they get a nice TV experience and can stream Apple Music and whatever else to their sound bar easily. I just don't see this thing gaining much traction for a long time. I'm usually pretty optimistic about new Apple products but I just don't see it here.
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You'll see it in about 2 weeks.
 
jav6454 said:
I hope you know how to power speakers and how signal amplification works.
There are limitations. However, as another poster replied, Apple might have well posted Power consumption at the low volumes. We won’t know until we dissect a HomePod
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Each speaker provides different efficiency when translation electrical energy into sound, but the input power generally is always the speaker power plus its electronics power.
A 10 Watt sound will require 10 Watts (electronics can be neglected)
Emphasis on power without specifying translation efficiency is ridiculous and only distracts attention from relevant things
(or the lack thereof...)
 
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I really can't believe the level of desperation here.
This supposed to a product of the future? with high level AI to become a personal assistant in your home, which also can deliver sound quality at a level most general people would feel is acceptable.

Pretty much any company can with minor effort come out with some nice speaker.
Nice speakers, even better than this have been out for many many decades.

So the whole key/focus here IS the AI aspects of it and how it can thru voice aid and enhance you and your families life at home, making tasks easy for you.

Instead of that being the No.1 focus, they are throwing a curve ball to distract from this by stating to talk about it's power consumption instead, which no one ever cared about when buying these devices before.

Given that it's nothing special anyway in comparison with the competition. Really says a lot when they have to use this to desperately try and help their product. If they were confident they would focus on the aspect that actually matter like the amazing AI

Echo and Google Home power consumption from a real user:

https://www.esource.com/es-blog-2-17-17-voice-control/ok-google-how-much-energy-does-alexa-consume

es-blog-2-17-17-voice-control-4f_3.png


es-blog-2-17-17-voice-control-5f_2.png
 
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A fool and their money is soon parted.

So anybody who has the disposable income to buy one of these definitely won't be putting saving a couple of quid on annual lightbulb power as one of their lifestyle priorities.

Like the iPhone X. Apple are catching up or at least trying to catch up with the competition but are repackaging old tech as new again and having the gall to charge more for it. Theyve been doing it long enough after all.

And it works. Just look at the positive comments on here as proof. Why spoil a winning formula now?.
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
Introducing RoadPod, the HomePod for the traveler.

Now exclusively with Airplay 3 plus an additional tweeter supporting new 4D multi-beaming emoji mode.

Available in Martian Sunset Red and Twilight Cataract Mauve.
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Per a MacWorld article, apparently is does respond to ANY voices in the household, but a lot of the "assistant" things it can do are limited to a single iCloud account.
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Yeah but if it had a battery then people would complain in a few years about battery saving OS upgrades...

Looked online this morning: available for delivery and pickup on launch day.
Looked 21 hours later: still available on launch day.

Guessing there wont be queues around the block when you can buy this product...
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Recognition said:
Dare I say, your group might not be the target customer Apple is aiming for?

Anyway, good luck with the AUG, it’s actually great to hear the older generation still so interested in today’s technology!
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well ONE was interested, not the person posting... does Woz go to User Group meetings? ;)
 
tmoerel said:
Please get your facts right: A 60W LED light bulb will use ...mmmm... 60W!!

What you wanted to say is a LED light bulb with the light emission approximately equal to a 60W old style incandescent tungsten wire lamp!
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Tru dat! Good catch! LOL.
 
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