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HomePod Mini Reviews: 'Remarkably Big Sound' Despite Compact Design
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You can’t conceive that some of apple’s product are not the absolute beat as the company promises?
Good points. Being on Apple One, and a longtime apple music subscriber, I've never even tried the other options. Apple music does everything I need and it works well with the watch and airpod pros. I will say though that with my sonos beam, I had to literally YELL at Alexa from 2 feet away to get it to hear me over the music. On the homepod with music playing, I can nearly whisper and Siri hears me from 20 feet away. That has been a nice improvement.
Because the mini has a USB-C cable, I wonder how well it can be powered by any MacBook with a Thunderbolt/USB-C port to allow for portable use cases.
EDIT: Expanding on that:
EDIT: Expanding on that:
- Is the USB-C cable purely for power?
- If you're out and about with no wi-fi, can the mini be used as a playback speaker or a microphone?
- If the mini has power but no wifi can it still be used as a playback device via AirPlay via near field? e.g. Bluetooth? Hot spot?
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If I wanted a speaker that sounds like trash I’d keep my Echo Dots. But I’m prepared to replace them all with HomePod Mini because they will control my smart home just as well but not sound like a blown up phone speaker.
Why? Is there a Sonos that is this small and connects to my iOS/MacOS devices seamlessly?
I just want a speaker that sounds great personally. Couldn’t care less about the “smart” features.
Sonos One. Way better sound.
Ok, so now you gave me an actual model. Thank you, that’s far more helpful than just “Sonos”.
Isn’t the One huge compared to a $99 mini though? I don’t have a ton of space to work with unfortunately. A simple mini on my desk or dresser would fit the Bill in a small package. Is the Sonos comparable in that regard?
Hmm it has Airplay so that’s nice. I must have been thinking of a different model (there’s a rectangular one I had in my head).
$199? Hard pass.
My guess is it will not work well for travel (portability). Unfortunately, because I DO travel a lot and always on the lookout for a good travel speaker (currently have one from Bose). But here is why I think the HomePod mini is NOT the answer to travel. When the original HomePod came out, I wanted to show it to a friend in another state, so I actually did travel with it. The HomePod needed to be hooked up to WiFi to work at all. I couldn't figure out how it could negotiate the hotel wifi (with separate password screen, common problem with devices). What I ended up doing was sharing the wifi from my laptop that was hardwired in with ethernet. A rather clumsy solution.
The only drawback for the Homepods in my opinion is that they don't come with a line-in port. The speakers are so "smart" that they can't be used as a "dumb" speaker.
Thanks for your insights. I've not tried to get my HomePod onto any other network but my own.
When you say you shared your wifi, are you referring to using your laptop essentially as a wifi hub and getting the HomePod onto that local wireless network? How hard was that to achieve via HomePod configuration? In a way, what you did is like using a phone's hot spot ability when no other network is present. In a hotel room that could work given that many hotel wifi networks require additional security steps to join, steps that you can't perform from a HomePod.
That's partly where I was going with my question about using the mini as a speaker over USB-C. The target environment for HomePod as a "smart" speaker is a working network so I can understand why such a feature was left out.
So I'm looking for advice. I don't have a homepod or mini, but I want to use 2 to use as a stereo pair for my apple tv 4k to replace an OK polk soundbar. The homepod has dolby atmos and the mini does not. Should I spend the $400 on the pair of Homepods (assuming they go on sale) or $200 for the minis?
In other words, is the Atmos worth it?
In other words, is the Atmos worth it?
In a stereo pair, the HomePod and any other sound bar system creates surround effects using psychoacoustics. Without actual physical speakers creating an enveloping sound field you can only do so much. To me, fake Atmos is just a gimmick along those lines so I don't value it at all but YMMV.
I have not used any 3.3" speakers in my house for stationary sound, but have several that size for 'carry around' bluetooth. That is the general reason that these reviews read as if they are written by people who want to stay on Big Daddy Apple's Favored Reviewers List, what with the continual use of just as much special pleading they need to in order to say these 'minis' sound Totally Awsome.
My HomePod two-some are just good and convenient enough for everything up to the point I want to swap over to the Infinity RS IIIs or the Magnapans 48". Going lower is a false economy, in my experience, unless you really just want a smart speaker that goes with an Apple TV.
My HomePod two-some are just good and convenient enough for everything up to the point I want to swap over to the Infinity RS IIIs or the Magnapans 48". Going lower is a false economy, in my experience, unless you really just want a smart speaker that goes with an Apple TV.
Have you even heard a HomePod Mini? Sure, I get it, larger size larger sound so you may very well be right, but I will wait to hear to pass judgement. On related note, I prefer the sound of the HomePod (original) versus the Sonos 1 or even 3. If we disagree there, well then I guess you can pass judgement now.
Btw, you may recall when the HomePod original first went on sale, Sonos had a sale where they would give you two Sonos 1 (1st gen) for the price of the HomePod and they were making the case that stereo Sonos was better than 1 HomePod. I am sure you can see where I am going with this. 2 HomePod Mini's are the price of one Sonos One (gen 2).
I am looking forward to testing that out when my mini's arrive. And before you think I am down on Sonos, I have conservatively 12 Sonos products in my house, including every generation of Sonos 1 made, including the in-between just for a few months before they realized they needed more ram version.
Comparing HomePods to a Klipsch sound bar and sub-woofer leaves me still far more impressed by the HomePods than the soundbar, even though the two setups came in at about the same $$$$. The Apple sensing and adjusting is just that much better and really room filling, as opposed to good only in front of the TV.
I made this point regarding Atmos being a gimmick when you only have two HomePods in a separate thread and got jumped.. good luck! LOL. Let's see I was called 'harsh' and 'ignorant' etc LOL. Sometimes, physics is physics.
I wouldn't base your decision on Atmos.
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EDIT: because Anson42 said it MUCH better than I did...
Just to be clear, Atmos itself isn't a gimmick but the producing of Atmos effects through psychoacoustics is a "gimmick" in my view. The science behind psychoacoustics is very real, but Atmos from 2 speakers is NOT Atmos from a multi-speaker speaker system, it is just an approximation.
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I am sure Apple does the best job of implementing it on two speakers, but the reality is, Atmos was designed to be used with at least 5 speakers (better 7) including two surrounds and with the surrounds having upward firing speaker components. Apple is doing amazing things with acoustics, but at some point two speakers are just two speakers. And Atmos even as Apple implements it, is not universal across applications. I say this even as I love my HomePods and have a stereo pair on my desk.
The other thing I would say, is that many people report that the use of HomePods (original) with Apple TV is not optimal for a variety of reasons including the Apple TV sometimes resorts back to the default of piping the sound to the TV and not the HomePods, especially it seems if your WiFi is marginal.
So I would research that to see if you can live with the limitations. I know Apple improves it with software updates.
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