7 years later... Well the HomePod mini can now measure sounds in your house and also feature Dolby Arena. Dolby Arena is made up so...
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HomePod Mini Features Dormant Temperature and Humidity Sensor That Could Be Activated in a Future Software Update
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Yeah, if you’re interested in the “weather“ inside people’s homes I guess.Seems like the ideal device to get crowd sourced weather data from for the Apple Weather apps
Or it could maybe be used by Apple to decide if a pod that’s brought in for service under warranty has been exposed to too much water/moisture?
I’ve got a HomePod mini in my kitchen. The other day as I was sitting in the living room, I asked Siri a question and instead of my Watch, iPhone or iPad Pro answering me, all of which were either on my person or within a meter of me, it was the HomePod mini that answered me, a full two rooms away.
It was both impressive that it caught the question from so far away, and annoying as heck given one of the other closer devices should have answered the question. That being said, my wife and I love the HomePod mini. I can see us getting additional units for other parts of the house and using more of their HomeKit features.
I had to leave the room earlier today when I tried setting the timer on my watch for the washing machine , first the iPad then the mini Responded . it was very funny but a bit annoying too 😂
wish there was a filter for Siri , maybe in the future eh ?...
wish there was a filter for Siri , maybe in the future eh ?...
There's one feature on (almost-edited) all iPhones which have never been enabled...Radio, as in over the air Radio.
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet... why can't the Ecobee SmartSensor be used for this exact same idea? For example, I have a SmartSensor in my main bedroom as well as a Hunter Apache ceiling fan (HomeKit enabled). Why won't HomeKit allow me to set an automation that when the temp hits 76 degrees in that specific room that the Hunter fan turns on to 25%? Seems so simple. The SmartSensor can be used for occupancy automation, but not for temperature.
The iPhone water sensor is a simple and incredibly cheap material. If detecting the environment for warranty exclusions was the goal, that would be the way to do it.
Given that if the unit failed they would not be able to get data from it easily, seems pretty clear you are wrong. :-D
Not a rumor, they have been integrated on the cellular chip since the very first iPhone, just not used in software/app.
I hoped someone would make this joke so I would not have to do so!
Bloomberg, at Long Last, Follows up on ‘The Big Hack’, and It’s Nothing but a Pile of Sophistic Horseshit
Link to: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-supermicro/
daringfireball.net
Always hard to tell when someone is 'trying' to be sarcastic through text...
This is potentially great news. Shows the innovative possibilities of such a device. Which makes me even more disappointed, and frankly pissed, that Apple is bailing on the full-sized HomePod. I’ve bought 9 of them, and they are fantastic devices. They are also the ONLY option for someone that wants smart home voice functioning without the invasive privacy concerns associated with Amazon and Google. Apple is really hanging its loyal customers out to dry on this one. Feels like a move that is both financially cynical and totally lacking in imagination, courage, and loyalty to customers.
Or it could never be used. Remember iPhones chipset have the ability to pick up the frequency to tune into local radio stations but this has never been activated. Apple instead forces us to use internet radio via the Music app.
If that's the case, why waste the expense? Why not just use the same sticker sensors they use in iPhones, Macs, iPads, and other devices?
Somewhat cynical, yes, but the alternative Gurman gives
"the company has internally discussed using the sensor to determine a room's temperature and humidity so internet-connected thermostats can adjust different parts of a home based on current conditions,"
is truly idiotic.
In the first place you don't need an "internet connected thermostat" to do this, and Apple, of all people, would perform this task locally!
But much more important is that this functionality is readily available today (at least via Ecobee, maybe via other thermostats) and it's clear to anyone who uses it, and who thinks about the issue, how limited it is.
OK so thermostat learn that the bedroom is at 72 and the TV room is at 66, and the I set the temperature I want to be 70. Now what?
There are very limited tweaks you can make at the margin (as ecobee does). If I am in the bedroom and no-one is in the TV room, OK, treat the bedroom temperature as the sole temperature guiding the system; likewise when I move to the TV room. This has some value, but mainly works for people who live alone, and who spend long stretches in one room. And it requires, in addition to a temperature sensor, human presence sensor...
The thing is: the problem is being misunderstood. The problem is not one of imperfect sensors, or dumb thermostats, it is a problem of very limited CONTROL. The thermostat has one control available -- it can blow hot air or cold air out of ALL the vents. That will not and can not fix the problem that I want hot air HERE but not THERE!
What is required is not smarter sensors and thermostats, what's required is SMART VENTS! A way to prevent the flow of air into some rooms. (Or variants on this theme like smart radiators.)
This is still an unsolved problem. Smart vents exist (in theory) but in limited sizes. The vent environment is not ideal (hot air flowing over the electronics, but even more problematic is the power problem -- moving vents takes a lot of energy to a big -- by battery standards -- motor. It's a more difficult problem than, say, Smart Blinds. A solution that requires you to go round the house every three months unscrewing every vent and swapping a large battery is really not ideal).
So here we are. Gurman is clearly wrong about HomePod mini. And the vision of smart vents is great but has no feasible implementation today; hard to see how it changes until building expectations (and eventually codes) are that there's a power point next to every vent.
It listens for the wake words. So while it is listening, it's not doing anything more with any other words. It doesn't record or process them. It doesn't send them off anywhere.
Similar to how you may be in the office working and you don't pay any attention to a couple coworkers conversation until you hear your name mentioned, then suddenly you're turned into it, where you didn't listen or process what they were saying before that point.
The same way the FaceTime camera can recognize you, but does not store an image of you.
A hash of you saying Hey Siri is recorded (essentially a summary of significant features of the sound condensed down to a few numbers). An always-on circuit is constantly matching the incoming sound wave with that hash, ready to spring into action.
So in some trivial sense, yes, there is a microphone that is always alive, but there is no BRAIN behind that microphone doing anything with the microphone signal until the Hey Siri phrase is matched. The machine HEARS everything but is not LISTENING to anything until triggered.
This article describes how they were doing it in 2017, though since then they've likely refined the process and reduced the hashing scheme details (the "DNN" in the article) to something that's lower power and/or more robust.
Hey Siri: An On-device DNN-powered Voice Trigger for Apple’s Personal Assistant
The "Hey Siri" feature allows users to invoke Siri hands-free. A very small speech recognizer runs all the time and listens for just those…
I presume they kept it around until they were getting low on stock and decided they did not want to do another manufacturing run.
That is not as likely. They would have had to pick up a lot to make it worth doing a new production run of a product that is problematic for them moving forward as it does not have a U1 chip and does not have Thread, two things that I expect will be important for their ecosystem.
I agree. I think that now they have a some what successful product in the space, they will want more of them.
Given the NRE that went into it, they could release a new version with better specs for less money if they keep the form factor and mic/speaker configuration the same. Also, given that it now runs tvOS, I would expect it to use the same SoC as some version of the AppleTV.
I think they will keep the form factor, but as part of a set of higher end ones that might have additional features. I would also not be surprised to see one with a screen for the kitchen and a more sound bar-y version as well.
I know. Which is why I imagined the vents to be remotely closed or opened depending on what’s needed! Now with Thread that doesn’t sound as impossible.