Do you seriously listen to music longer than 20 minutes on an echo dot?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Top Five Reasons to Buy a HomePod Mini
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Why not normal surround speakers? Surely you can get much more value for the money if all you want is surround speakers. A pair of Sonos Play:1s would blow these out of the water in sound quality for the same price.
Yeah, a Thread hub is also why I was thinking about this for the future. When this was announced I thought it was something that we wouldn't hear about for years - then Nanoleaf announced their new bulb and LED strip and they connect to thread (with fallback to BT). Now I have a feeling a lot of companies are going to start moving to it. I can see LIFX being next as they've also been plagued with complaints about reliability and drop-outs. Eve as well, since they seem to be on the cutting edge of HomeKit support and there were always huge drawbacks with their BT only devices (namely range).
I don’t have cable anymore - I use YouTube TV instead. I just use my Apple TV for everything and I figure it’s much easier if the Apple TV and HomePod is all connected that way. Plus, I can have those speakers in my living room for when I want to listen to podcasts and music as well
I still don’t get Thread Networking.
Sorry to ask, but can someone dumb it down for me, please?
I think the little HomePod is cute, and I might end up with 1 or 4 someday... But its "$99 price" is not a reason to buy. That's still $99 more than not buying one, which is $0.
Might be monetarily cheaper but then you have Amazon listening in on your whole house so you have the cost of trusting them with your privacy.
Promoting the Homepod Mini already? Apple must be concerned it might do as well as the original Homepod . . .
🤣
🤣
I'm not following. Speakers are speakers. If you already have one smart speaker (HomePod) why would you buy two more tiny ones just to use them as rear surrounds?
I don’t have any HomePods currently, I am planning on getting two of them once pre-orders begin next month
Yup, daily. Thanks. In my greatroom I have a Dot connected to a Bose Wave Radio I picked up from a garage sale for 50 bucks, and it puts the HomePod to absolute shame.
Gotcha. For some reason I assumed you already had a regular Homepod.
It's a super low power standard to be used by smart home devices. It's meant to be the successor to zigbee (which is currently what stuff like Phillips Hue and Ikea Tradfrii use).
Essentially, when devices (bulbs, switches) start moving to Thread - the homepod will be able to function as a hub, removing the need to buy a Hue hub or Ikea Hub or whatever. Also, you're removing one device in the chain so instead of HomeKit Hub > Hue Bridge > Lightbulb you are just going straight Homekit Hub > Lightbulb
I'm waiting for an independent organization (i.e. non-Apple affiliated) to do a comparison with the 3rd or 4th generation Echo audio quality which is unlikely to favor the mini at the same price point, and the between room communication can be done the same way with the $50 Echo Dot or Echos. The Echo Studio provides stupendous audio at less than half the HomePod price.
Black Friday discounts on Alexa devices are terrific, more so than Apple devices.
There is also the contention as to the quality of Siri versus Alexa intelligence, with Alexa very good and growing fast.
So far IMHO, Amazon is a generation ahead of Apple in this technology with their 4th generation Echos and Dots new this month,
This from a 40 year Apple user. Apple used to be THE personal computer top dog - never yet in audio.
Black Friday discounts on Alexa devices are terrific, more so than Apple devices.
There is also the contention as to the quality of Siri versus Alexa intelligence, with Alexa very good and growing fast.
So far IMHO, Amazon is a generation ahead of Apple in this technology with their 4th generation Echos and Dots new this month,
This from a 40 year Apple user. Apple used to be THE personal computer top dog - never yet in audio.
... you don't think Apple is listening, despite being busted last year for doing just that?
First they said Siri doesn't record ANYTHING, then they said Siri only records ACTIVE requests for quality assurance, then they said their iOS API's prevented other apps from listening in without notifying you. Well they lied, they lied again after getting caught lying the first time, and last week I was presented with ads for rotary sushi restaurants on four separate apps that were not running at that time an hour after mentioning it in a phone conversation. I HATE sushi, I haven't discussed, searched for or even thought about sushi let alone restaurants that serve it rotary style in years, which is how that topic came up in conversation as I was discussing how a place that used to be popular in high school was shutting down because of dropping sales blamed on the Rona. But please, Apple, tell me again how Siri and iOS protect my "privacy."
Alexa devices have a hard button on the top to mute their mics completely. I don't see that functionality anywhere on the HomePod line, hardware or software based. If you're placing a a smart speaker in your home, you need to accept that your conversations are going to be recorded and used for marketing purposes etc. If you cannot abide this, don't get a smart speaker, but at least don't kid yourself into thinking Apple is any different than Amazon in regards to this issue because they've already lied a couple times about it.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/28/apple-apologizes-for-listening-to-siri-conversations.html
As far as number 2 goes. I couldn’t get intercom to work with my regular HomePods with my iPhone. It would reply “you can only send intercom messages from another HomePod. Will having a mini HomePod fix this, or is it really only sending from homepods?
Not necessarily half the price unless you’re comparing it to the Echo Show, which isn’t a fair comparison; that’s like giving the Apple TV box an edge at $199 to actual TV (with the Apple TV app installed) at $399.
There a number of Echo smart speakers that range from $39-$229 that are better comparisons when it comes to price & utility.
A direct comparison would be the Echo 4th gen.
This is nonsense.
If .gov is listening in in Alexa, they're certainly doing it with Siri too, inckuding your phone.
If only Amazon is listening, great: it's making Alexa better and better with time. If Amazon wants to try to sell me stuff with the data, so what. Everyone is trying to sell me stuff with my data all the time. It's our world now.
I always wait for the "privacy" argument, it is ALWAYS in these threads. And it's always the same, feeling almost scripted. If it is scripted, who is writing the script?
LOL. So you already know the how a HomePod mini sounds like? I just checked Apple website, and it says HomePod mini ships on 11/16. Never underestimate these fanboys...
Really interested in the intercom feature. But I don't quite understand it. Does it require the homepod itself? Apple's keynote mentioned how the message can go to Apple watch and Airpods, so will it work if it's iPhone to iPhone? I mean obviously I can just make a phone call, but I'm assuming it works with the family group in iCloud for Apple's system to recognize to whom it should blast the message, right? So the device shouldn't matter?
Or is it some artificial software feature just for the HomePod mini?
Or is it some artificial software feature just for the HomePod mini?
I guess walking over to where the person is and talking to them while making eye contact is passé
I already have so many wireless standards floating around my environment I probably don't even know that some of them are here, why they're in here, or what they are doing. Sure Apple, add another. Who cares at this point.
Apple needs to work out being able to stream BBC radio stations to their devices. It’s really a big issue here in the UK for many people. Currently I have a Sonos system and I can play all bbc radio on it.
To go from that to having to airplay to a HomePod would be a huge retrograde step.
To go from that to having to airplay to a HomePod would be a huge retrograde step.