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HomePod 2 Now Over 3 Years Old, With No Sign of New Model

Jarman74 said:
There’s very little need for a HomePod (old or new) until Siri gets its act together.
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This is something I genuinely don't understand. My 2020 vehicle supports CarPlay. I do not need to upgrade my vehicle to get the latest CarPlay features. Why can't they simply do the same with the HomePods? Siri works in my vehicle ("New" OR old Siri), why can't the HomePods be transparent to the digital assistant?
 
I have a pair of OGs and a pair of second gen. They sound great but the firmware is so so buggy as I’ve commented before I’ll never buy another HomePod.
 
We have an OG and a Gen2, both working flawlessly at home for music, kitchen timers, and occasional NFL questions. And our Mini is a hub for the lake cabin Ecobee and smart bulbs -- plus it's a surprisingly good little speaker. I have been satisfied completely and will add new Pods as soon as available if new capabilities are compelling. Otherwise, continued happiness!
 
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I used to own a pair of original HomePods and absolutely loved them. I still remember the demo video showing the acoustic engineering. The way they used the walls to bounce 360 degree sound was impressive, and that seamless mesh was such a unique design choice at the time.

I eventually sold them to go all-in on Sonos and haven’t looked back, but I still think the HomePod design is phenomenal. It is frustrating to see Apple seemingly lose steam in these categories. It feels like the iPod Hi-Fi all over again, which was a great product killed off way too soon. It really makes you wonder how committed they actually are to the home audio space, even if their hardware and software integration remains the gold standard.
 
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tomtad said:
WHY DOES IT NEED A NEW MODEL.

This thing is a home speaker. It should be able to be sold for 5 years, hell even a decade, without requiring any updates.
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One reason might be to optimise (reduce) the production cost maybe with a view to competing directly with the Sonos Era 100 (US RRP $249 I think and often on sale in the $179 - $199 price range vs US RRP of $299 for HomePod 2).

Older components are not always cheaper, in fact once you factor in dwindling production runs there is often a crossover point where they become more expensive than something more up to date due to economies of scale and other logistical efficiencies so it's at least conceivable that Apple might be able to get the RRP of a HomePod 3 down to $249 without any reduction in quality, or ideally still with an improvement in audio performance due to more powerful audio processing hardware.

There were rumours swirling around quite a while ago that Apple was looking to buy Sonos. I think that ship has now sailed but I sometimes wonder whether that was a missed opportunity because Apple could, and in my opinion should, do more to bulk out its audio offerings both in terms of range of products and pushing at lease a bit higher up in terms of audio quality with some extra products.

Stuff like soundbar(s?) potentially able to be augmented by existing or next-gen HomePod devices, next generation AirPods Max, ability to use HomePod Mini and maybe even full-sized HomePods as rear speakers, a subwoofer (and maybe also a mini subwoofer designed to go with HomePod Mini) would all in my opinion be potentially interesting products.

A Sonos acquisition would have given Apple a real engineering head start for all of those potential products listed above, and quite a few of them could have been stand-alone propositions without needing a buyer to already be in the Apple ecosystem, but I doubt that Apple is ever going to get that ambitious in the audio arena now.
 
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I literally only use mine for lossless music streaming. Other than that, it’s a terrible smart assistant. Maybe when they roll out the upgraded Siri.
 
We have Apple TVs and home pod pairs in two rooms, plus another random home pod here or there, some are gen 1 and some are gen 2, and there's a pair of minis. They're not the best, especially lacking real surround sound support but they're so easy and not nearly bad. The thing I like the most is syncing audio from my Mac or phone out, like for holidays / parties, etc.
 
I love my first gen homepods - the sound is unmatched (size/price/ecosystem) and I use a stereo pair with my apple TV. The issue is that anyone who would buy a homepod buys it as soon as it is released... i highly doubt they're selling many nowadays. maybe next gen will have latest h chip and better sound quality.
 
I can understand those people who have Hopmepode to control things in their home, absolutely.

I had 2 Hompods 2nd v. - I bought them because I have other Apple stuff, but very disappointed. So I traded them in for crap, the worth wasn't big here, no wonder.
Not everything Apple are for everyone.

I now have 4 Pioneer bluetooh speakers, many many times better sound.
 
I have a pair of the large OG HomePods and the newer large HomePods. My hope is that if Apple comes out with a 3rd gen HomePod, they don't skimp on the microphones. I remember how impressed I was with the original HomePods ability to pickup my commands when I whispered. This was a welcome relief from yelling at my Amazon Echo devices. But then something changed and Siri became either stupid or partially deaf. My suspicion is Apple injected always on listening to feed advertisers and Siri became less responsive as a result. Could be totally wrong on this but something changed. At any rate, if any of you have HomePods that stop working, have the pop of death, etc. check out Nic's Fix. I sent him my OG HomePod and he fixed it for about $75 and even live-streamed the fix. It was a great experience. https://nicsfix.com/
 
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I understand that a new model would (probably) be needed to support certain Apple Intelligence features that I am sure they have in the pipeline for HomePod, but the thing that I don't understand at this point is why we are hearing so much about a new version of the mini, and not the big one. Like why wouldn't these just be on the same product cycle at this point?
 
With all the people (including myself with two Gen 2s) saying they don’t need a new one, Apple is going nerf these with software updates in order to convince us to buy new ones 😅
 
RickDEGH said:
With all the people (including myself with two Gen 2s) saying they don’t need a new one, Apple is going nerf these with software updates in order to convince us to buy new ones 😅
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Lol if Apple ever updates Siri and these either don’t support it or get really slow/flakey, there will 100% be people here complaining about “planned obsolescence”
 
I have a pair of first generation HomePods and they work great. Newest os upgrade solved long problem with one of them disconnecting from network every 2 weeks. Now both work without issues.
 
tomtad said:
WHY DOES IT NEED A NEW MODEL.

This thing is a home speaker. It should be able to be sold for 5 years, hell even a decade, without requiring any updates.
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I agree.

Some things do not need new models every year as much as rumour sites like to tell us theres another one imminent.

However, that said, SIRI on HomePods lately is appalling - worse than ever and I often have to resort to Siri on the iPhone in order to have a hope its going to do what I want it to do.

Why theres this disparity ive no idea but I cant imagine Siri 2.0 working at all on the current hardware. Im sure necessary hardware upgrades will be coming but only driven by Siri's new processing demands.
 
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1st gen still going strong, no complaints on music sound quality. If they make a new version, Ethernet would be nice. Also Make Siri Better. The number of time I’ve asked for a song only to be given something completely random is infuriating. My favorite so far has been asking for Nathaniel Rateliff and getting Donna Summer.
 
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