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Amazon has provided intercom for well over a year with much less expensive devices, better audio in their top Echo Studio at less than half the cost of the HomePod, and the Alexa AI which is excellent.
Apple is several generations behind Amazon with this technology-Alexa 4th gen speakers out this month.
Amazon Echo devices accept Bluetooth from Apple IOS devices as well.

I think you missed something that Amazon devices also have that Apple’s homepods dont!

Ads after some things (like my morning news play). ”Halloween is coming up, would you like to hear about trending costumes?”

It has done this a few times to me. It’s so smart that when I say Alexa I dont want to ever hear ads for this again it simply replays the offer.

I‘ll take a dumber home assistant over one that just wants to inject more ads into my home.
 
HomePods and iPhone are all on 14.1. And yes, intercom works using Siri from the HomePods (I have to run from 1 room to the other to hear the message get delivered).

But there's no 'Intercom' option in the iPhone Home app. And when I tell Siri on the iPhone to intercom, it tells me I can only do that from 1 HomePod to another.

I don't think this feature is fully baked yet.

iOS 14.2 (currently in beta) is required on your iPhone to use intercom (as mentioned in the article).
 
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I don’t see the waveform icon in the Home app and everything is up to date — any ideas why not?
 
I don't understand how Intercom solves a problem that is not already solved by a group text? Young kids don't have a phone? If they're that young what are you going to Intercom them for? Start the stove? Lock the doors on the way out to the car?

To me this is a bit like our current level of communications confusion. In the good old days you sent someone an email. Now you Tweet them, Facebook with them, Instagram, Snapchat. Really I just want one or two good reliable ways to communicate with people. It is now more confusing than ever and less likely that someone is going to see your message.

Now in our homes, we can call on our phone, text them on our phone, Walkie Talkie with them, Intercom them. The more of these methods you add into the mix the more likely no one is going to ever get the message you're trying to send. At the end of the day, if there's a fire in the house, I hope people will have the common sense to use 911 first. Oh, there's the one way that does not change to get help. Safety providers get it. Thank God.
 
Quick question for someone that is currently using HomePods and intercom, do the home pods have to be all on the same apple ID?

If say each person has a home pod setup with their own apple id, can you still intercom each other?

It would be very helpful to stop having to yell up and down the stairs, but their are multiple users, and each have their own apple id's.
 
Planning on selling HomePod and will pick up at least two mini i reckon. Think this feature will be useful
 
With all due respect, Apple. This is not intercom. This is voicemail. Intercom is something you can have a conversation over.

Alexa offers real intercom. What a joke, Apple, that you guys can’t even keep up with the booksellers in technology.
 
It works but the value is dubious. A lot of extra talking required to send a message. And let's face it, the iphone is already an "intercom." I text my kids when dinner is ready if I don't want to yell or walk to the basement or upstairs. I text the wife. Once in awhile I call.
 
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Same here Im on 14.1 on my iphone 11 pro max amd homepod has been updated as well but no way of activating intercom... on home settings nothing there and with siri it tells me to update my iPhone to 14.1 lol but I am on it.
I have the same problem. On both my iPad Pro, running 14.2 beta 4 and my iPhone 11 Pro Max running iOS 14.1 and my HomePods updated to 14.1, there is no intercom option to turn on for both my iPad and iPhone.
 
With all due respect, Apple. This is not intercom. This is voicemail. Intercom is something you can have a conversation over.

Alexa offers real intercom. What a joke, Apple, that you guys can’t even keep up with the booksellers in technology.
Wait, what? Not real time?

Someone could get a couple of Echo Show 5” on sale for under $100 for both and have a real time video conversation.
 
Sorry if that question has been asked! The article states: "You can use the ‌HomePod‌ to send a message to other HomePods in the home or to the devices that belong to members of the family."
Does that mean i can put a HomePod mini in my office within our office WLAN and can send an intercom to my wife at home in the living room where my HomePod sits? So 2 different networks but same AppleIDs?
 
Remember when Apple used to give us features you could use without a walkthrough?
To be fair, it's pretty clear from the discussion here that the biggest impediment for most people right now is that it requires iOS 14.2, which isn't out yet.
 
So what’s wrong when I have three homepods all running 14.2 yet only one of them let’s me run intercom? The other two homepods are there but they will not let me activate the feature. I tried resetting each but still nothing
 
I don't understand how Intercom solves a problem that is not already solved by a group text?

And I don't understand why people are so keen on piping all of their communications through text messages.

You're assuming everyone is game to 1) notice a little text alert and 2) drop what they're doing to futz with a tiny glass keyboard to type. Phone calls are more promient and immediate (and frankly less time consuming much of the time) than some god-awful endless chain of texts, and this is just a quicker way to do that within a household.
 
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