HomePod mini is for serious Apple users only

HomePod mini is a smart speaker that brings Siri into your home in all her lights. With a simple and attractive design, the HomePod mini acts as a hub for your smart devices to connect, while the rich, full-bodied moonlight will amaze you with its quality. its quantity. But is it a good choice for your smart home journey?

After testing Apple-made speakers for the last month, I will say that while HomePod mini is a great choice for a speaker, it is only ideal for home control if you are someone who likes to live in the Apple ecosystem.

Designed by Apple

The HomePod mini is a small, spherical smart speaker that features Apple’s Siri voice assistant. It’s about three inches tall with a circular display at the top that lights up when Siri is listening or when the device is playing music or making a phone call.

Also: How to use Siri to take photos with your iPhone

In terms of design, the HomePod mini is a sleek, discreet device that goes well with most home decor styles, partly because it comes in five color options: space gray, blue, white, yellow and orange.

When you buy the HomePod mini, you’ll find the speaker and cable in the box; it comes with a fixed-mount power cable and a USB-C power brick. A detachable cable would be great, but the overall design is discrete enough that the speaker can be set aside and undisturbed.

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Explosive sound

The best feature of the HomePod mini, in my opinion, is the sound quality. The fact that it acts as a smart home hub is just a bonus.

Original HomePod is a premium smart speaker that – despite its amazing sound quality – has attracted ridicule from potential consumers for its sky-high $300 price tag.

On the other hand, HomePod mini can be considered as Apple’s Goldilocks speaker because of its combination of quality and $99 price tag. It’s much more affordable than the original and sounds great. The combination of full-range drivers and dual passive radiators produces fairly deep bass that, thanks to its force suppression, doesn’t vibrate any of the surfaces the HomePod mini is on.

This means that the sound on the HomePod mini is crisp and clear, with rich bass. It became my first speaker for home listening, and pairing the two of them creates a stereo experience. With more being played across different rooms, you can enable synchronous play of multiple rooms.

Although the HomePod mini has an interface reminiscent of Amazon Echo and Echo Dot, the sound quality far exceeds the competition – at least from what I’ve heard. The spherical shape of the Siri-enabled speaker makes 360-degree sound possible, filling any room with sound.

Also: Ditch the AirPods and buy a portable speaker instead: Our top picks

If you have an iPhone 11 or later model, you can also use the Beam feature with your HomePod mini. When there’s music playing on your iPhone that you want to hear on your speakers, a simple tap on the edge of the HomePod mini with your iPhone magically transfers the sound to it, switching from your stereo setup to the next. 360 degree music program.

Create a ‘Home’ for HomePod

No need to carry it far, HomePod mini also acts as a hub to connect smart devices in the home and control them through Apple’s smart home system: HomeKit.

Unfortunately, HomeKit isn’t the most popular smart home system on the market, so many users may have adapted to Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, or even Samsung’s SmartThings. Apple also has high standards about who and what products can access user data. This is part of why the HomePod mini is such a great thing for those deep in the Apple ecosystem; it requires commitment.

People tend to buy smart home hubs, like the HomePod mini, as one of their first steps in their smart home journey. However, since only a handful of smart devices are compatible with HomeKit, you’ll be limited in the brands and products that can be added to your home – unless you’re willing to go. clogged drain service at home to close that gap.

Also: 4 best smart hubs: Get smart about home control

Because I don’t want to be bound by a limited number of brands for smart home devices, my household uses Homebridge on a Raspberry Pi to integrate products such as Video doorbell Eufy, myQ Chamberlain garage openerand some of my smart lights, though I look forward to one day having a more unified system of smart home products and services. It is only a matter of time.

Also: The problem has arrived: How the Google Nest Hub just controlled the Apple Homekit smart plug

The Home app is available on all Apple devices, including Apple Watch. It’s a simple, user-friendly app where you can easily add devices, then control and organize them by rooms, set up scenes, run automations and schedules. Users can add their favorite devices to the control center on their iPhone or iPad to make them available by swiping down on the right side of the home screen.

Is Siri really a smart voice assistant?

The HomePod mini gives you voice control across your entire Apple ecosystem, so dialing into Siri won’t be limited by your phone or watch.

Honestly, Siri is not my favorite voice assistant. I found her unreliable and fickle from the day we met. Sure, Siri has improved since her debut more than a decade ago, but the AI ​​still has a lot to be desired in the way she obeys commands and answers questions. Meanwhile, competitors like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant remain a notch above them thanks to their extensive search and feature sets.

Also: Amazon says: Hey, Alexa, it’s time to collaborate more with other voice assistants

However, I still hope. I keep buying Apple devices and keep asking Siri questions – hoping that one day she’ll get smarter and actually give me the weather instead of the definition of the word “feather.” . I’ve adjusted my voice so that wrong answers are delivered in a smooth Australian male accent, so that’s a plus.

With all that said, Siri can be pretty reliable in controlling smart devices in the home via HomeKit. By saying, “Hey, Siri” in HomePod mini, you can ask her to play music from Apple Music or Pandora, play podcasts, search AirTags or Apple devices, turn lights on or off, change the temperature on the thermostat, or trigger scenes that control multiple devices at once. You can even ask her to start or update a list that will automatically update on your personal device, send a text message, call someone, or ask for directions.

The best part is that you don’t have to be right next to the HomePod mini to ask Siri questions. With four microphones for far-field listening, there was a time when I whispered to the smart speaker from upstairs to turn off the lights and it actually heard me.

Also: How I make my home smart on a budget. And how can you too

Feature Sold to Me on HomePod

Intercom is arguably the ‘best of the Apple ecosystem’ feature on the HomePod mini, and I thoroughly enjoyed using it. Just say “Hey Siri, Intercom” into your HomePod mini, and the speaker will let you share messages to all the other Apple devices in your home, or to a specific room if you have multiple HomePod minis.

The HomePod mini can recognize up to six different family members and set up a personalized profile for each member. That means Siri can be taught to do voice recognition so it knows who’s making the Intercom request and who’s going to forward messages and reminders.

Key point

The HomePod mini is a great choice for any smart home enthusiast who is also an Apple user. While it’s not the absolute best compact speaker on the market, its capabilities and sound quality make it stand out from other smart speakers, and features like Intercome and Beam are quite unique to the industry. with the HomePod experience.

Beyond its outstanding sound, determining if the HomePod mini is the best smart home companion for you will depend on how committed you are to HomeKit and whether you’re willing to make the sacrifices. number of brands to get compatible products or do some research with a family bridge or not .

Alternatives to consider

Besides the HomePod mini, here are some worthy alternatives that make great additions to your smart home.