Not as many as retailers were hoping for I guess. It’s also due for a replacement next year (spring?) so expect $199 to be a common price next month, which competes nicely with some Sonos offerings.
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Deals Spotlight: Costco Discounts Apple's HomePod to $199.97 ($100 Off)
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Sonos has two advantages over the HomePod: support for practically every streaming service, and purpose-built home theater speakers. I think Apple could pick up quite a bit of business in the home audio market if they'd make a HomePod soundbar of some sort. Either a center channel, or a wide unit with left/center/right drivers. Pair that with a couple of HomePods (or, ideally HomePod minis/satellites) as surround speakers could make for a pretty cool living room sound setup.
I really don't think there's any reason to replace it. The processor in it is more than capable of continuing to power it. I could see a smaller and/or bigger version. But I think a direct replacement is out of the question.
It's capable of powering it now, but the capabilities are also pretty limited. It's entirely possible there are new capabilities queued up for the future that the current hardware is struggling with. Hard to say when the software and hardware are tightly coupled and we don't have a lot of visibility into the software.
I could of got one online yesterday when article first came out but thought I might get one in store. Guy said they haven’t had them in for months and when I tried to submit my order online with it still in my basket, said out of stock. I just tried now for kicks and order went through. Maybe they got another batch?
Here's a tip. If you have a Costco nearby and a friend with a membership, give them $5 to buy you a $5 Costco gift card. You can then go to Costco whenever on your own time and shop as a member, using that $5 gift card to pay and then charging whatever over to a Visa. They don't charge any extra fees for this, nor require that a member be present when using a Costco gift card.
In college I did this all the time. A parent of me roommate bought us 20x $5 gift cards, that we used one a time to go shopping throughout the year without a membership.
Anyone able to get a screenshot they can post for price matching at Best Buy or target for $199?
I'm super curious about this. I have a lot of difficulty hearing my tv as it's wall mounted. Would having a sound bar be better than 2 HomePods? Ignore the price obviously - it's a question about quality.
I just checked, it’s $389 at Costco in Canada.
Best Buy has open box units for $299
Apple HomePod - Space Grey - Open Box | Best Buy Canada
<p><strong>**Geek Squad Certified Open Box**</strong> (See more details below.)</p>HomePod is a powerful speaker that sounds amazing and adapts to wherever it’s playing. It’s the ultimate music authority, bringing together Apple Music and Siri to learn your taste in music. It’s also an...www.bestbuy.ca
much obliged
Holy crap, I got a shipping confirmation!
This'll make the spouse happy. We have a Google Home Mini in the kitchen, and she despises it. Yes, it does home control. Yes, it plays music. But the speech recognition is often terrible, and I swear every time we try to use a home control feature ("Hey, Google, turn on the living room lights.") it complains that the device isn't set up and I need to fix it in the Google Home app on my phone. Which I promptly do, then it works again. For a day or two. In the entire time I've had HomeKit devices (four years now,) I've never had to make Siri "remember how to connect." Every time I ask Siri to turn on a light, or adjust the thermostat, it just works.
I don't want to de-rail this thread, but I'll say that using the IKEA Enebys in Bluetooth mode is still restricted to combining the stereo channels, but stereo mode is currently possible in "wired" mode using $10 worth of a few adapters/cables. The results are quite excellent, IMO.
In Chicago we have a service called Instacart.com and you can place an order with Costco and have it delivered in an hour or two. There is a small delivery fee, and you have to tip, but you don't need a membership because the deliverer has one.
I checked and the HomePod isn't listed on the site however you can place a custom order that doesn't cost anything extra.
[automerge]1570291071[/automerge]
I checked and the HomePod isn't listed on the site however you can place a custom order that doesn't cost anything extra.
[automerge]1570291071[/automerge]
Loving your mid century modern gear--that clock! I have that same coat rack too.
Siri does everything I need productivity wise. Add a note, schedule something, wake me up, call this person, text this person, etc., etc. But as I began to plan for smart home integration and when considering interoperability among smart stuff, it worries me. There are seemingly any products that don't support homekit, and from what I understand, the fact that the HomePod can be used as a smart home hub is a facade. I don't think I'm frowning upon Siri in the way that you think I am because I've used that exact concept (about the fart noises) to people who have said "Siri sucks" in the past. But Alexa has skills. And I have come to really use them, even for small, simple things like "inspire me" and whatnot. If you can convince me I'm wrong I might reconsider. But I was fully prepared to buy a bunch of Alexa soon when my house is built in fear of buying products it wasn't compatible with.
[/QUOTE]can anyone with a Canadian Cosco account signin on this link to check the price please? I’d get an account JUST for this to get my second HomePod
[automerge]1570124102[/automerge]
one thing I’m VERY annoyed with the HomePod is the less than stellar limited and lower volume I’m getting from my ATV4 when projecting movies, WWDC, Apple Events, itunes tV shows onto it vs the great volume and range I see from music playback from AppleMusic or direct from my iPhone
I checked on the Canadian Costco.ca link and the listed price is $390.24 CDN as of Oct 7.
It's more complicated than it looks on the surface. For example, HomeKit mandates that devices be operated over a local network - so many of the cheap chinese/Amazon smart plugs which only work over the internet refuse to work that way. And the idea that you have to send a command out to a server on the internet somewhere to turn off a light bulb in your own house is pretty ridiculous, imo, and just begging for security issues. Plus if the company that makes your plug folds and shuts down their servers it won't work any more (it has happened several times). There are a lot of advantages to HomeKit even though the hardware support isn't as broad.
I personally go out of my way to buy smarthome products that support all three voice assistant platforms where I can because I've switched between them 3 times now, and there still is no clear winner - they are constantly leapfrogging each other. One may come out with an indispensible feature that I just have to have and I don't want my light switches and whatnot to limit my flexibility. You're also able to use homebridge or Home Assistant to get products that don't normally work with Siri to, if you have any technical ability. I use it for a couple devices (robot vacuum and air purifier), but native support is better.
Apple has Shortcuts which function roughly the same as Alexa skills. Most of the Alexa Skills store is full of garbage that you can replicate with a simple shortcut. I don't really know what inspire me does but I'm sure there are apps out there that can read a random quote to you if that's what you're after. No offense intended but I consider reading inspirational quotes to be a novelty akin to fart noises, that's what I was getting at with the comparison.
That said, if you rely heavily on Alexa skills you may not be happy with Siri.
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