Old vs. New HomePod Buyer's Guide

[MichaelAdam]

I own a stereo pair of home pod and HomePod mini and I am fully satisfied. Linked to an Apple TV is a good experience but not an amazing experience. I guess the rumored HomePod with an Apple TV integrated and with a screen is a smart sound bar that we can connect with HomePod / mini which will be great.
I don’t think I would upgrade to new HomePod for a few sensors (that are in my HomePod mini)

 

[Tagbert]

yeah, itʻs a weird move...but i suppose all their test homepods had various wifi chips installed and iʻm sure they saw little or no deficiency with the wifi4 chip in there. so, might as well save a buck on each unit.

yeah, itʻs a weird move...but i suppose all their test homepods had various wifi chips installed and iʻm sure they saw little or no deficiency with the wifi4 chip in there. so, might as well save a buck on each unit.

I don’t think that Apple chose to use the older Wi-Fi spec exactly. The OG HomePod had an A8 chip which was first used in the iPhone 6 and included 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The HomePod mini used the S5 from the Watch series 5 which uses a 802.11n chipset. While it is a Watch chip, it is much faster and more responsive than the A8. The new HomePod use the S7 from the Watch Series 7 but that SOC uses the same Wi-Fi chipset as the S5. The HP Mini has been noted to have better Siri responses with more local process of requests as well as overall better responsiveness. that would be welcome in a new HP as the olde one was a bit of a slug.

Apple seems to have chosen to unify the SOCs on the mini and the full-size model and use a better processor. The result of that was a slight rollback of the Wi-fi but they likely considered that to have little impact on the operation of the speakers.

FYI @SFjohn

 

[yegon]

Love my stereo pair, just glad there’s a viable replacement when they expire.

 

[dumastudetto]

It’s so adorable some people still believe 299$ from 2018 is equal 299$ nowadays

With your posting history I wouldn't be lobbing too many grenades around here.

 

[ralph_sws]

in Europe, a new homepod costs € 349, I don't know what sound quality it offers, but I don't expect anything better than the 1st generation model. for a little more money ... 380 € you can buy, for example, the Denon 350, which is light years ahead of Apple speakers in terms of sound quality and functionality. airplay 2, spotify connect, alexa and many, many more, also works in pairs. As for the mini model, in my opinion, for the price of 100 euros, it is better to choose the latest echo show model , much better sound quality, ranges, deeper bass, in promotion you can buy it even for 60-70 euros. and for the rest of people for whom sound quality is the most important and do not compromise, I recommend Sonus Faber Aida, the current price for a pair is around € 92,000

 

[cjbryce]

A "think different" consideration: if you split the "dumb" from the "smart" parts, the "dumb" parts can serve you audio for upwards of 10-20 years, sounding as good way out into the future, long after the "smarts" may have been obsoleted by OS updates.

In other words, consider buying great speakers with no smarts. Those will have very long useful life if you take reasonable care of them. Software will not be able to obsolete them. And you can choose your own quality, your own size of speaker, etc that best fit your own situation vs. "one size fits all."

To get mostly the same smarts, you have multiple options:

• You have Siri in your iDevices. Link the dumb speakers to an Airplay 2 receiver/amp and then throw anything you want to them using Siri on the iDevice.
• Siri is also available in AppleTV. Hook AppleTV to the receiver and use Siri to play whatever you want on those speakers.
• Siri is also available in Macs. Use Siri to throw ANYTHING you want to play on your Mac through your receiver to those speakers.
• For non-audio "smarts" like setting a calendar appointment and similar, use Siri on any other Apple product to do that. HomeKit automations work fine with existing Apple devices too.

The bonus to this option is that you can get ANY configuration of speakers you want vs. only mono or stereo. For example, if you wish 4-5 HPs could deliver DD 5.1, a receiver + dedicated speakers CAN do that now. Want a subwoofer for deeper bass? Add one. Want DD 7.1? Add those rear speakers. Want true ATMOS, add those upward firing and/or ceiling speakers too. Want a HP soundbar but tired of waiting? Buy a great Airplay-capable Soundbar at whatever size YOU choose and enjoy that soundbar now with the "smarts" above doing the smart things. Wish your speakers could also handle options like DTS and similar? Receivers can generally play all such options.

The big benefits to this approach are:

1. the smarts can go bad (by OS evolution or just Apple giving up on this product) and you can still enjoy the speakers for upwards of a few decades. Else, like all other Apple things tied to Apple software, there is high probability you'll find yourself in a "throw baby out with the bathwater" situation long before the "dumb" portion can go bad. Example: 5K screens in iMac 27" with an OS obsoleted Mac or outright dead Mac "smarts" in them. That monitor is still a great 5K monitor. But you can't do anything with it without a fairly complicated, hardware hack.
2. decoupling from direct dependency on Apple smarts means that anything can play on these speakers vs. only those services that Apple wants to support and/or not support. No walled garden constraints. Anyone wishing for an AUX input for that kind of flexibility can readily have it with this approach.
3. The addition of a receiver means anything else that benefits from playing audio on your best speakers can do so. For example, cable/satt box? Over-the-air Antenna television? Gaming consoles? Blu-Ray player? Radio? Satt Radio? Someone brings over a camcorder with video you must see? Someone brings over their ancient VCR so you can watch old, old home movies stored on VHS? Someone brings over a turntable and some vinyl albums? Karaoke machine? Someone has some great new songs on their Android phone they want you to hear? etc. ANYTHING that produces audio that you would like to hear on your best speakers are in play through a very flexible receiver-based system. Try much of that within the tightly-constrained, walled garden.

I'm an Apple everything guy and these do sound great. However, they are VERY "locked down" and entirely dependent on the "smarts" part. Apple can readily decide when to obsolete all of these by the usual vintage process. Look at some of the posts in this very thread of OG owners already worrying that Apple will no longer have software updates for the OGs to get a sense of this valid fear already in play.

Speakers are not like computers and iDevices. They can sound just as good 10-15-20 years after purchase. Software should not obsolete them before the dumb parts have actually had it. A corporate maker of speakers giving up on them should not obsolete them either.

I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say - I do indeed have a 7.1 receiver/speaker setup which my Virgin Media box, TV and Apple TV were hooked up to.

However, since the receiver went faulty I’ve been using a pair of OGs through an Apple TV with pass through from my TV. Obviously the sound isn’t as good, but it’s still pretty incredible considering the HomePods are tiny compared to my B&W floor standers AND - the main benefit to me - no wires!

 

[B4rbelith]

in Europe, a new homepod costs € 349, I don't know what sound quality it offers, but I don't expect anything better than the 1st generation model. for a little more money ... 380 € you can buy, for example, the Denon 350, which is light years ahead of Apple speakers in terms of sound quality and functionality. airplay 2, spotify connect, alexa and many, many more, also works in pairs. As for the mini model, in my opinion, for the price of 100 euros, it is better to choose the latest echo show model , much better sound quality, ranges, deeper bass, in promotion you can buy it even for 60-70 euros. and for the rest of people for whom sound quality is the most important and do not compromise, I recommend Sonus Faber Aida, the current price for a pair is around € 92,000

I wasn’t familiar with the Denon 350, but just looked it up, and it costs £599 in the UK. That’s double the price and not a fair comparison at all.
Also, no one knows how this new HomePod sounds, so, once again, it’s an unfair comparison.
As an early adopter of two original HomePods, I’ve always been more than happy with the sound quality. Yes there are other options on the market, but they do an amazing job and are very minimalist. They look better than the Denons in my opinion.

 

[biggarthomas]

How can you do a comparison when the focal point about the HomePod is sound and you don’t know if it sounds different yet or not with less speakers

Precisely what I thought.

 

[ralph_sws]

I wasn’t familiar with the Denon 350, but just looked it up, and it costs £599 in the UK. That’s double the price and not a fair comparison at all.
Also, no one knows how this new HomePod sounds, so, once again, it’s an unfair comparison.
As an early adopter of two original HomePods, I’ve always been more than happy with the sound quality. Yes there are other options on the market, but they do an amazing job and are very minimalist. They look better than the Denons in my opinion.

this is the manufacturer's suggested price, the speaker has been sold for a long time and now you can buy it at a much lower price, just do a search, on black friday they were in media markt for 289 €. Everyone likes something different, homepods are minimalist for you 😀, denon for me but anyone who listens to both ... will probably choose Denon, just a better class of sound and now you can get it at a similar price. btw, sometimes when I hear people rave about apple speakers, I get the impression that they only listened to music on some portable speakers or cheap computer speakers in their lives. doesn't want to offend anyone 😀

 

[RamGuy]

Arguments about inflation seem folly to me. I suppose this is more common for Americans to think in such a way because you are generally more into capitalism. Hence, do people somehow need to defend corporations and their decisions?

From a consumer's standpoint, you are most likely not sitting on a 19.4% higher income in 2023 compared to 2018. And inflation is hitting hard on every front, so most consumers are sitting on less money to spend in 2023 compared to 2018.

From Apple's point of view, they most likely see increased costs on the components, manufacturing etc. But this doesn't change the fact that the sole argument people made for the OG HomePod not doing well and getting discontinued as fast as it did was a result of its high price. 19,4% inflation or not is not going to do the new HomePod any favours to become any more successful in 2023, considering most consumers have less money to spend freely, and the new HomePod costs more.

This logic only makes sense from a capitalistic point of view where you feel Apple needs to make sure they make just as much money from each HomePod sold in 2023 as they did back in 2018. My point is that Apple should have been more aggressive with the pricing, perhaps cutting their percentage of income for each unit solid to make the product more attractive and gain more traction in the market. As it stands, I don't understand why the OG HomePod got discontinued in the first place if it was just going to be replaced with a similar model a few years later at the same price point.

 

[Sarafay]

Apple sells a A15 for 129$ to you.

 

[B4rbelith]

this is the manufacturer's suggested price, the speaker has been sold for a long time and now you can buy it at a much lower price, just do a search, on black friday they were in media markt for 289 €. Everyone likes something different, homepods are minimalist for you 😀, denon for me but anyone who listens to both ... will probably choose Denon, just a better class of sound and now you can get it at a similar price. btw, sometimes when I hear people rave about apple speakers, I get the impression that they only listened to music on some portable speakers or cheap computer speakers in their lives. doesn't want to offend anyone 😀

I've been to trance parties and listened to Funktion one speakers. I know what good sound is. 😀
Not trying to pick a fight. Maybe the Denon do sound good, but I can only compare the RRP, which is £599. That's on Amazon also. Maybe the new HomePod will have good discounts in the future.
But don't discount Apple when it comes to audio. They do some amazing stuff with spatial and computational audio, and I'm expecting the new HomePods to sound amazing when they drop. Regardless, I've used the original HomePods for years and am still impressed with them. I'm not saying you can't do better, but for that price point, they're great.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say - I do indeed have a 7.1 receiver/speaker setup which my Virgin Media box, TV and Apple TV were hooked up to.

However, since the receiver went faulty I’ve been using a pair of OGs through an Apple TV with pass through from my TV. Obviously the sound isn’t as good, but it’s still pretty incredible considering the HomePods are tiny compared to my B&W floor standers AND - the main benefit to me - no wires!

Yes, my post is not about putting HPs down or suggesting that NO ONE AT ALL should own them. It's simply pointing out that there are options for speakers beyond only HPs (like there are 27" monitors beyond only 1 from Apple) and many of the wants of people in HPs that they can't deliver (such as using them as a surround sound system) can easily be had in countless other options (for years now)... and the HP "smarts" portion is already available in pretty much everything else we buy from Apple. So the receiver + whatever kind of speakers one would like can deliver a HP-like experience without the lock down... AND deliver the 5.1, 7.1, (true) ATMOS targets that some wish they could get from HPs too.

I praise the sound of them myself in that post and I can certainly appreciate wireless. In my own situation where that was more important, I went Sonos Move for complete wireless. It easily disconnects from its charging base and can go hours anywhere with no wire at all (including electric). It is a HP competitor that is much more open but also works just fine with AM and Airplay2. For choice of "smarts", it offers the other 2 main ones (generally considered smarter than Siri) as well as their own voice command assistant thoroughly focused on using speakers. However, I can command Siri to play music on it because it works just fine with HomeKit. I just issue that command to other Siri-capable devices from Apple.

In your case- especially since you already have 7 speakers and a sub- my ASAP move would be buying myself a new receiver to get them in use again... then maybe move those OG HPs to other rooms where they can do a nice job in rooms where substantial speaker setups are not really needed and/or receiver/amp would be overkill. This somewhat underlines one of my points. Since the "smarts" equivalent of your 7.1 speakers is that receiver, it failing you does not mean you have to throw all of those speakers away now. Instead, you can easily plug in a new "brain" and they will sound as good as ever... and revive using your best speaker setup with those devices other than only that AppleTV too.

Again, for me for convenience-driven speaker buying, I'd probably favor Sonos Five, or Sonos Ones stereo paired and/or Sonos Move, but that's also "dumb speakers" married to (in this case Sonos) "smarts" with some dependency on Sonos not giving up on them and/or obsoleting speakers with updates to OS or whatever. The main "what if" draw to them vs. Apple for me is that this is their FOCUS, so deciding to give up on the speaker business would seem to be them giving up their entire company. Apple, on the other hand, could drop the speakers (like they dropped the router business) and carry on just fine as if they never even bothered trying with speakers.

The main benefit draw is that those other options are much more OPEN than HP, working with pretty much everything... while also being quite HP-like in terms of supporting Apple Music and Airplay 2. I don't think what are usually very long life speakers need to be "upgraded" every few years. The speaker parts themselves will neither go bad nor wear out in even 10 years (with reasonable care) but I fully expect the "smarts" OS to obsolete them anyway to drive replacement purchases. One can see that effect already in play in this very thread with OG owners exploring whether they need to "upgrade" to version 2. Speakers are not like phones or computers. They can sound just as good over DECADES as they did on launch day. Their most fundamental function shouldn't "long in tooth" on "smarts" upgrades over time. IMO- OS software shouldn't obsolete such long-useful-life products.

 

[Scarpad]

bottom line there is better out there for this price point

 

[FFabian]

Happy with the addition of temperature and humidity sensor on the new HomePod.

You can buy HomeKit capable temperature and humidity sensors for about 10-12€/$.

 

[Pmperry]

So silly them releasing it’s they stopped it because no one was buying it for that price and now they just re release it for the same price

I don’t believe that’s true at all. I just think the device had too much competition for that market segment and didn’t have enough features to match the Sonos or Bose setups. If it launched with features it later received, I honestly believe it would have sold better.

 

[Nismo73]

Shipping slipping to Feb 10-14th

 

[Pmperry]

Why would they do this? It can’t be that much of a cost savings.

I was disappointed in this at first myself, but it is only Audio and N will have no issue streaming lossless audio. Plus it uses a peer system, so it could theoretically use the Apple TV as the streaming device and just connect to that for movies. I am curious if there‘s a cache in the system to buffer the higher quality streams.

The more bizarre thing to me is the accelerometer.

 

[Ethosik]

Well they put less speakers and microphones into the new homepod, as well as a super small and cheap SoC. Price is pretty much where I would expect it to be. It’s a shame that they haven’t listened to the criticism regarding connectivity.

So you prefer it if they just never release a different HomePod? I like my mini, but it's not powerful enough and I was kicking myself all this time not getting the original ones and I was NOT going to get a discontinued product from eBay. You never know how much support a discontinued product would get.

So this is a perfect purchase for me and I purchased one immediately. I might in fact buy a second one and pair it. Better than having nothing higher end than the crap mini.

 

[kyjaotkb]

I highly doubt the A8 is better than the S7. 2013 vs 2021.

Edit: I just looked into it. The S7 definitely beats the A8.

What makes you say that? Curious to see evidence.

 

[Ethosik]

What makes you say that? Curious to see evidence.

At the end of the day, what does it even matter? iPhone 6 tech (A8) vs iPhone 11 tech downsized to watches (S7). This is an always plugged in device just dedicated to music/podcasts etc and Siri. It's shocking how much people are complaining about this. Do you want 20 cores on a speaker or something?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

At the end of the day, what does it even matter? iPhone 6 tech (A8) vs iPhone 11 tech downsized to watches (S7). This is an always plugged in device just dedicated to music/podcasts etc and Siri. It's shocking how much people are complaining about this. Do you want 20 cores on a speaker or something?

It’s as if folks think that the A8 is the pinnacle of Apple performance and nothing could ever EVER be faster.

Hey, the Apple Watch is also smaller than the Apple II, so, you know, the S7 chip in it MUST be less powerful than the 6502 in the Apple II! Forget that one was released YEARS ago.

 

[Ethosik]

It’s as if folks think that the A8 is the pinnacle of Apple performance and nothing could ever EVER be faster.

Hey, the Apple Watch is also smaller than the Apple II, so, you know, the S7 chip in it MUST be less powerful than the 6502 in the Apple II! Forget that one was released YEARS ago.

A smaller less generic SoC can be better than a larger more generalized SoC for specialized tasks too! This is the main driving force for M* SoC as well. Its not just cores and clock frequency, but also has neural and media engines etc.

 

[rubaxter]

Only problem I've ever had with HomePods is the Apple Home app, the fact there's no Aux jack, and the jury rig path to Audible content (which is why my money has gone to Echo Studios and the HomePods are basically AppleTV speakers, only).

If they ever come out with 'better' I'll buy a pair, but for now I'll just move back to the soundbar I have for the nVidia Shield if things 'break'.

 

[aloyouis]

Arguments about inflation seem folly to me. I suppose this is more common for Americans to think in such a way because you are generally more into capitalism. Hence, do people somehow need to defend corporations and their decisions?

From a consumer's standpoint, you are most likely not sitting on a 19.4% higher income in 2023 compared to 2018. And inflation is hitting hard on every front, so most consumers are sitting on less money to spend in 2023 compared to 2018.

From Apple's point of view, they most likely see increased costs on the components, manufacturing etc. But this doesn't change the fact that the sole argument people made for the OG HomePod not doing well and getting discontinued as fast as it did was a result of its high price. 19,4% inflation or not is not going to do the new HomePod any favours to become any more successful in 2023, considering most consumers have less money to spend freely, and the new HomePod costs more.

This logic only makes sense from a capitalistic point of view where you feel Apple needs to make sure they make just as much money from each HomePod sold in 2023 as they did back in 2018. My point is that Apple should have been more aggressive with the pricing, perhaps cutting their percentage of income for each unit solid to make the product more attractive and gain more traction in the market. As it stands, I don't understand why the OG HomePod got discontinued in the first place if it was just going to be replaced with a similar model a few years later at the same price point.

Comical. Free markets will set the price or kill the product, as they should. This is not "defending corporations".

The American consumer in still very strong from an economic perspective. This is not an opinion, it is fact. One would have to be ignoring the facts not to know this.

The new HomePod does not "cost more", at least not in Apple's largest market. Why would you state this falsehood and then contradict yourself in your own very last sentence?

You can't both fault Apple for misunderstanding the OG market and then claim to not understand why it was discontinued.

The original HP was essentially discontinued by the free market. The second generation will be a success or failure as determined by the same free market.

There may be better ways for you to work your ideology into discussions elsewhere.