Apple has announced a much smaller and cheaper HomePod at their October Event. Featuring great audio, Siri improvements and software features at a great price, it will attract a lot of potential smart-home focused audiences. Before we dive deeper into the HomePod mini, here are the links to the other products announced today: (will be updated as the articles are posted)
A shrunken HomePod
The design of the HomePod Mini carries on some elements of the HomePod, like the display on the top, while adapting to a much smaller spherical form factor. It is covered by an “acoustically transparent” fabric mesh. The display up top allows controlling the volume adjustment, skip / backtrack, and Siri.
It features the Apple S5 processor, and the U1 Ultra-wideband chip. It comes in two color options, White or Space Gray
Immersive audio
The HomePod mini features a full-range driver and dual passive radiators for deep bass and crisp high frequencies, and a custom acoustic waveguide for a 360º sound field. It uses computational audio for real-time tuning, based on the frequencies of the music being played. It features four microphones, which allows accessing Siri by voice command from farther away. Using AirPlay 2, it enables multi-room audio with other HomePods.
One of the downsides to using a single smart speaker is you lose the three-dimensional sound you’d get from a stereo setup, which separates music into two channels (surround-sound uses even more) and plays sounds at different levels on opposite speakers.
Other smart speakers let you pair them up in their respective apps, but Apple says when you put two HomePod Minis in the same room, the speakers will recognize each other and automatically separate into left and right channels to create a stereo pair. But unfortunately, you cannot pair a HomePod mini with the larger HomePod.
Software Improvements
A criticism of the HomePod was it’s inability to play music from other streaming services, and was only limited to Apple Music. Now, they’ve extended the support to iHeartRadio, RADIO.COM, TuneIn, and support for Amazon Music and Pandora in the coming months. Spotify is noticeably missing, and probably won’t appear on any HomePod, since they’re Apple Music’s largest competitor.
You can now also search for music by the lyrics through Siri. Speaking of Siri, it’s gotten better with deeper app integrations, mostly with Apple apps, to do specific functions inside apps. Another noteworthy feature is Intercom, which broadcasts your voice to all the other HomePods in your house. It also sends a notification to your phone and watch.
Other noteworthy features include being able to recognize multiple voices, and give personalized Daily Updates. It also features all the standard smart home control with compatible HomeKit devices.
Ultra-wideband is the future
The secondary purpose of the HomePod mini is to be used as a UWB base station using the U1 chip, so it can track devices which have the new UWB chips in them (new iPhones, Watch Series 6, etc). It will precisely track your location as you walk inside your house with other U1 devices, and use the info for media controls, brightness/volume control, & door locks. It can also be used in the Find My app when you’re away from home to alert you if any of your devices have been moved within or taken from your home. It also has insanely fast data transfer rates, helpful for AirDrop.
As tweeted by Jon Prosser, “Base stations like HomePod mini and Apple TV are a very clever Trojan horse from Apple that will enable AR capabilities in your Find My app within your home. Next level stuff.” UWB chips are turning into a much larger thing than I ever anticipated, and are the next big thing for Apple along with Apple Glass.
Pricing, and Conclusion
The HomePod Mini features a litany of next-level features aimed at competing with Google Home/Nest Audio and Amazon’s family of Echo speakers. Not only does the compact HomePod Mini’s $99 price tag make the Siri-powered smart speaker more affordable than the HomePod ($299), but it has unique features like auto-pairing with other HomePod minis’ for stereo audio which has to be done manually with other speakers. And as with any Apple product, the ease of connection and deep integration with other devices in the ecosystem is the greatest selling point.
The HomePod mini will start shipping on the 16th of November, with pre-orders starting on the 13th of November.
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Last modified: October 15, 2020
