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HomePod Mini Is Now 2,000 Days Old

dsaponaro said:
Posted about the ghost touch issue in another thread… I’ve owned 10 HomePods since the introduction of the first generation years ago. I absolutely loved all of them until a little over a year ago, when one of my mini died due to the ghost touch issue. It just started playing music at random times of day/night. Since then, 2 more minis and a full size 2nd gen have also died this way. Latest was just 2 weeks ago with the full size.

All in all 4 out of my 10 have now died over the past year.
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I have had similar experiences. I have 13 HomePods and 2 or 3 have died previously. Ghost touches, random music starts or stops are a real issue.
 
The only reason this product existed is because Google was giving away free real life data hoggers in living rooms and the excessive amount of A chips that were leftover because of lacklustre sales.
 
boswald said:
My girlfriend has one and it's "the worst product Apple has ever made" (her words). It never stays connected, cuts out randomly, or randomly starts playing music. She absolutely hates it and I'm surprised it's not in a wall somewhere.
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I have had two for nearly 6 years. They are paired with an ATV 4K 1st Gen and they never disconnect for me. Maybe your unit has Wi-Fi issues?

My main complaint is Siri being sh*t. It can easily launch HBO, Disney, Prime etc, but NEVER Netflix. Insists I don’t have that app!! 🤯🤬
And I don’t see a way to teach Siri the pronunciation of an artist’s name if their name is not English. No matter how American I try to make them sound, Siri never gets it 🤦‍♂️
 
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Mine was useful as a small desk speaker but now it just collects dust. It does give me ambient temperature (and I forget what else) details in the home app so that's at least a bit useful.
 
There is an obsession with modern tech to iterate, iterate, iterate...

... and if something hasnt got version 2.0 in 12 months theres something wrong.

However, this is a nonsense.

The HomePod mini is still as fine today as it was 6 years ago - however... and this is the BIG issue - the SIRI performance is woeful.

I have several and although the sound quality is very good for the size and more than adequate to this day.... the SIRI commands just suck.
I have resorted to using my Apple Watch or iPhone to issue HomeKit SIRI commands and they work first time and im not met with silence or a 'hmmmmmm this is taking too long' (which is unacceptable Apple!)

So, if after 6 years we are getting an upgrade that might well even be the same speakers (which again are perfectly good for their intended use) but the processor is upgraded to properly handle the smart home AND SIRI itself is revamped to work properly then sure... now is the time for a new one.

But, expect HomePod mini 2.0 to not need another refresh for another 5-6 years after that as theres just no need to.
 
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dsaponaro said:
Posted about the ghost touch issue in another thread… I’ve owned 10 HomePods since the introduction of the first generation years ago. I absolutely loved all of them until a little over a year ago, when one of my mini died due to the ghost touch issue. It just started playing music at random times of day/night. Since then, 2 more minis and a full size 2nd gen have also died this way. Latest was just 2 weeks ago with the full size.

All in all 4 out of my 10 have now died over the past year.
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Do you have a whole home surge protector? Could be micro spikes killing them. Dad had 2 iMacs die that way until he put a supressor on the outlet, it was just dirty power.
 
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Wanted797 said:
I have 3 of them.

They were very useful with my daughter as a baby to play rain white noise during naps. The sound for music is pretty average.

I got my wife another for the room (now in the daughter’s room) for the rain sounds as well.

Asking Siri to play a song or the weather or time when you’ve left your phone in another room is handy.

Biggest problem is Siri is a bit of an idiot.
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I use mine for white noise as well and they’re actually excellent for that. I do wish some of the newer ambient sounds in iOS were available on HomePod, but I find the Ocean sound just excellent for sleeping and masking external noise.

IMO they’re pretty decent AirPlay speakers generally, and the sound is OK for their small size -- but voice recognition is spotty and inconsistent. I have a few things they will usually do right (set HomeKit lighting scenes, add stuff to the grocery list in Reminders, tell me what temperature it is in the room) but if you get too ambitious they will end up infuriating you.
 
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boswald said:
My girlfriend has one and it's "the worst product Apple has ever made" (her words). It never stays connected, cuts out randomly, or randomly starts playing music. She absolutely hates it and I'm surprised it's not in a wall somewhere.
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It’s pretty useless so at this point it just acts as a speaker for the appleTV connected to my small office TV.

As an intercom it is far too quiet, has no announcement tone, and timers don’t always fire.

Just wish I could keep it from populating my iPhones speaker list during phone calls. It should be a no brainer to “hide” speakers in the list, especially considering you may not even be in the same room as the speaker.
 
I hope Apple leaves it in a working state when they decide not to support it anymore. I have 2 of them and they work great.
 
I’m still waiting for the release of the HomePod mini 2 in order to purchase, at the very least, a couple of them.

Some time ago I decided to wait until the Bluetooth/WiFi tech in them was more in line with current standards. And maybe a bit improved sound-wise, but that never was the reason for me to wait. On devices like the HomePod the wireless connection is crucial, so I’ll keep waiting for, at least, a WiFi 6 / BT 5.0 equipped HomePod mini.

By the way, it’s interesting how many highly rumored devices for 2026 still haven’t made their appearance: the A18 iPad, the A17 Apple TV, the new HomePods along with the speaker-with-touchscreen thing, the M5 Mac mini… and maybe I’m forgetting something.

Let’s see if Apple releases the long rumored devices before 2026 WWDC…
 
I truly hope Apple will actually deliver these in 2026 with the rumored IOS27 launch. Just like the new Siri and Apple TV. It feels like they really have to get their stuff together to not lose the trust of costumers instead of promising features w/o delivering them.

And yeah I honestly really hope they will launch them as I would love to buy the updated versions for my home.
 
maflynn said:
I have one, and its a good product, no complaints. I don't think there's a feature, or a service that I feel is missing from it.
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Agree. I get it doesn't fit all use cases but it's pretty reliable, even in a part of my house that doesn't have very strong WiFi
 
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