HomePod Mini Is Now 2,000 Days Old

[throAU]

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.

Maybe your WIFI is crap, I've never had any of those issues and have 4 HomePod minis and an OG HomePod in the house. I have yet to have any single one of them randomly disconnect since like... 2018.

What's crazy about the HomePod lineup is how much better the OG HomePod spec is....

Better WIFI, more speakers, more microphones.

 

[Blue Nova]

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.

Yes, I agree is an idiot, it doesn’t understand, you have to say a command in a certain way. My iPhone 14 has better speakers than the HomePod mini.

 

[Wanted797]

Yes, I agree is an idiot, it doesn’t understand, you have to say a command in a certain way. My iPhone 14 has better speakers than the HomePod mini.

I also hate you have to specify the device you want to use.

“Hey siri play xyz on the HomePods” or it will play on my phone sometimes.

Why can’t I say “hey HomePods play xyz” I’ve asked for the weather today and the HomePods picked me up only for my phone in the other room to give the answer I couldn’t hear 😑

I’ve pseudo fixed this by making my phone require “Hey Siri” while the HomePods will respond to “Siri” but it’s not perfect.

 

[svish]

Some devices like the HomePod do not often get updated. Expecting the new one to have a much newer chip and some audio quality improvements. There could be new colors too. Hope they are bright.

 

[theheadguy]

We have an Alexa from the same time period and if it’s any consolation it stinks too. You’ll ask it to play a song and it just cuts out half way through. Same with the Sirius XM “skill”. It just randomly stops and then starts back up again.

It consistently thinks you’re talking to it when you’re not. I’ve reset it several times and the connectivity is solid so it’s the device.

I would never get another one (Alexa or HomePod) ever again.

Was it even close in price? Why even try to compare when you know it wasn’t?

 

[boswald]

With a WiFi router, there are two connections — the inside network (LAN) and the outside connection (WAN). The outside connection is likely not a factor unless other devices on the internal network are experiencing connection issues.

The Nest Pro is a mesh device, so coverage can be improved by adding additional "Point" devices into the mesh, so that's another possible solution to consider.

Thank you for that. I'll look into that.

 

[boswald]

I have 3 HomePod minis and 2 of the standard HomePods and they work well, especially for music and alarms. The only issue I'd say is definitely Siri. Maybe it's best they delay until they fix that because they're great sounding speakers (compared to Amazon's Echo devices), but Siri is terrible to the point where I sometimes just AirPlay music from my iPhone or iPad.

That's what I do with my OG HomePods. I just AirPlay music. Everything else is disabled or ignored.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Mine also started playing randomly in the last weeks. Maybe Siri got sensitive. Or it’s reacting to a nearby iPhone. But it didn’t do that before.

It’s decided to react to something a guest said 2.35 years ago.

 

[racerhomie]

interested in trying this. Are the lows still weak?

It’s much more balanced and room filling. Haven’t actually seen much changes in the lows. But I find it very satisfying to listen to

 

[DJLC]

I unplugged my HomePod mini almost two years ago now. Like others have said, it has major connectivity problems and Siri is all but useless. It's a nice piece of hardware with zero useful software.

1. Consistent connectivity issues: Across 3 different iterations of my home network, the thing would consistently lose its connection. An AeroHive / Extreme network, a TP-Link Omada network, and now a Unifi network. All 3 networks worked great with all my devices except HomePod.
2. Siri is an abject failure: With the HomePod plugged in, it was always a toss-up where Siri would respond to you. Ask your phone something in the bedroom? The HomePod mini in the kitchen on the other side of the house might start responding. It made Siri more useless everywhere. On top of that, Siri continues to get worse and worse every year. It used to be able to control HomeKit devices consistently; now it can't find them. I literally got the HomePod for more convenient HomeKit control.
3. HomePod mini breaks HomeKit: I've been building up my HomeKit ecosystem since 2014. I've had this crap for a -LONG- time. At some point along the way, with the HomePod mini plugged in, my Thread devices stopped responding. It wasn't always like this. At this point, the only way my living room shades keep working is if the HomePod is unplugged. (And yes, I did try resetting everything while keeping the HomePod... broke everything again within a few days.)

So... I wouldn't buy another one. I don't even think I'd buy a gen2 unit. Granted, my interest in a voice assistant these days is far lower than it used to be. Siri sucks and everyone else resembles a wiretap. Bluetooth speakers sound great, don't spy, and won't break your network or smart home. Sonos is pretty nice in my experience too.

 

[Unami]

I'll still be very angry if new siri runs entirely in the cloud but still won't work on old homepods.

 

[HappyMBAowner]

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.

I thought I was the only one. I even bought a pair and it's a horrible product. I have the exact same issues. The last time it started at full volume on its own, I disconnected the thing and threw it into the recycle bin. The sound quality is horrible and it never does what you want it to do. A refresh? Don't count on me.

 

[TinyMito]

Mainly use it for home automation and weather. Occasional weight conversion and calculation.

 

[DMG35]

At one time we had 4 of them. All 4 have been given away for a few bucks at yard sales. They are terrible.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

We have one. It's been relegated to a temp/humidity sensor in our office.

There needs to be more options than just voice and Airplay before I buy again. Wife is an Android/PC user and kids have Chromebooks, but even if they weren't, leaving out standard BT is just petty. One and done, as they say.

Edit: Oh yea.. the 26.3 update failed on it; it disconnected from the wifi and wasn't responsive. Had to do a full software reset on it. Same just happened with 26.4 yesterday.

 

[brandon8419]

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.

Same here. Truly a massive piece of junk.

 

[bn-7bc]

Needs detachable power cable, 3.5mm line out, and the top screen should have physical buttons

This might be a silly question but whu would a speakdr need lineout, did you perhaps mean line in ( input analogue sound)? Or did you mean a headphone output which is fifferent from a line out ( at ,east on an electrival kevel

 

[Hedkandi]

Apple have never been good with speakers larger than an earphone, don’t know why they keep bothering.

 

[maflynn]

Apple have never been good with speakers larger than an earphone, don’t know why they keep bothering.

I think the OG Homepod was phenomenal as a speaker. Granted, I'm not audiophile, but I thought the quality was top notch

 

[kcwookie]

Good God!! They are overdue for an upgrade by 1900 days.

 

[Premium1]

And still a disappointment. The long rumored spec bump won’t change what is a half baked product with half baked software that can’t even handle when a router has to be rebooted.

Apple should give up on HomePods and license Siri to other better smart speakers. They won’t but they should.

Who is going to put siri on their speakers? It is worthless and the worst one out there. There is 0 market for apple to license Siri when they can't even get it working right on their own devices.

 

[CarAnalogy]

If it helps anyone feel better, the Google speakers I tried were not much better (Nest Audio stuff).

Yeah I gave up on those years ago. They used to be OK during the Assistant days but then everyone got bored of that and it stopped working so well.

At this point Siri does work noticeably better (low bar) on the iPhone so I'm pretty sure this HPM is a dead end and won't be getting the Siri upgrade if it ever comes.

 

[UltimaKilo]

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.

That sounds like a serious defect. I have an OG HomePod and three mini since launch and have never had an issue. Not only do I use them all the time, I travel with at least one when I spend a month or more away from home.

 

[CarAnalogy]

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.

I've had issues with mine in the past and people said the same things to me they're saying to you, blaming the wifi.

It ain't the wifi. I know how to make small networks work very well, the HPM is the only device that consistently has issues.

That one sounds worse than most. Might want to try resetting it. And make sure it's on the latest release. The only difference I've noticed between releases is that finally on later builds of 26 it is a bit more reliable.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Can’t even do that.

I have two sets of lamps, in the lounge room and the living room. Only the living room lights will be on and I’m standing in that room and I’ll say “Siri turn off the lights”, Siri will ask “which room?”

Ever since iOS 26, my phone decided I don't have lights anymore. I had to actually create a scene called lights on and lights off for each room to get it working again. It would literally tell me I have no homekit devices set up. But after making the scene that apparently forces Siri to call the scene instead of the lights directly, and then it works fine.

Ironically the HomePods never had this problem. A few releases back they suddenly started having problems responding and being very delayed when they did, but that cleared up in 26 and the other problem started.

No wonder the latest Home VP quit. Pretty sure if you go back and watch WWDC it's been a different VP of Home every single time.