What do you think of the HomePod Mini?

[EdwinG]

Context: I’m considering buying a second HomePod Mini, and stereo pair it with my current one. It's for playing podcasts (not the most appropriate), but also movies/TV shows that I stream on my laptop.

Question: is it worth it? Does it sound much better?

 

[anon(50597)]

Purchased my first mini. My other home speakers are all Google so I want to see how well these work. If it meets my needs I will probably switch over completely.

 

[tcuprof]

Not sure where I saw the article but it stated that the Mini in pairs doesn't offer STEREO. Found the article on iMore.

You can't use two HomePod minis as stereo Mac speakers despite AirPlay and it's madness
There's a workaround but it shouldn't be needed.

https://www.imore.com/you-cant-use-...-mac-speakers-despite-airplay-and-its-madness

I would love to use two minis as stereo speakers for my pc but cannot because 1) they aren't stereo and 2) they can't be bluetooth speakers (nor do they have an aux in). For me, those are fatal flaws. I really don't understand why Apple would not have bluetooth capability.

 

[Lee_Bo]

I really don't understand why Apple would not have bluetooth capability.

Because Apple only wants their HomePods working with Apple devices, not to be used as bluetooth speakers for pc’s and Droid phones.

 

[Wotchered]

Because Apple only wants their HomePods working with Apple devices, not to be used as bluetooth speakers for pc’s and Droid phones.

Entirely reasonable in my eyes !

 

[Hendri Hendri]

hello


I initially want to buy a new bluetooth speaker, and I'm interested to purchase homepod mini, amazon echo 4th gen or google nest

I don't use much for smarthome feature, I used ipad and iphone, using windows 11 for computer.

Some consideration :

what's the sound quality compare to general same level from bluetooth speaker ?
Homepod mini has call feature that I like, how's the phone call sound quality (at the receiver side) ?
no whatsapp, microsoft team or other app call support yet ?

is it possible for 1 pc to connect all together with homepod mini and other device such as google nest or amazon echo ?

i have iphone 12 mini and 7, can iphone 7 use the handoff feature (by touching the homepod mini) as well ?

any interesting feature from homepod mini apart from some smarthome feature ?

thx

 

[EdwinG]

hello


I initially want to buy a new bluetooth speaker, and I'm interested to purchase homepod mini, amazon echo 4th gen or google nest

I don't use much for smarthome feature, I used ipad and iphone, using windows 11 for computer.

Some consideration :

what's the sound quality compare to general same level from bluetooth speaker ?
Homepod mini has call feature that I like, how's the phone call sound quality (at the receiver side) ?
no whatsapp, microsoft team or other app call support yet ?

is it possible for 1 pc to connect all together with homepod mini and other device such as google nest or amazon echo ?

i have iphone 12 mini and 7, can iphone 7 use the handoff feature (by touching the homepod mini) as well ?

any interesting feature from homepod mini apart from some smarthome feature ?

thx

The HomePod mini sound quality is really good (for their small size). I can’t tell the difference between my home theatre system and HomePods in terms of quality.

About call quality, I have not noticed any quality issues on my side, but I have no idea on the other side of the call. In my limited testing, I have not seen a way to transition meeting audio from my iPad to the HomePod (someone else might have more experience with that).

I don’t see why your computer couldn’t be able to connect to multiple speakers, provided it supports them. Important to note that HomePods only support AirPlay 2, which is available on macOS, iOS, iPadOS and tvOS (not sure for watchOS). They are not Bluetooth speakers; they might be iTunes compatible on Windows, but I don’t have access to a computer with iTunes.

The tap-to-transfer feature requires the ultra wideband chip (aka U1). That was added in the iPhone 11 series of phones. As such, the iPhone 7 will not be able to use the feature. You still will be able to transfer content using the regular audio device sheet.

The HomePod supports Siri and Apple Music natively, so you don’t even need a phone or an Apple device nearby. You can simply ask Siri to play music and it will do so on its own. Another feature is stereo pairing of speakers, so you can get stereo separation for music (left and right channels on different speakers). And finally, you can set the speakers as a default audio output device on the Apple TV 4K and later (feature not available on the Apple TV HD, but you can still manually use the HomePod as an output device on that Apple TV generation).

 

[Hendri Hendri]

The HomePod mini sound quality is really good (for their small size). I can’t tell the difference between my home theatre system and HomePods in terms of quality.

=>> is that good ? wow. I assume with small size, compare with general more less same price bluetooh speaker will be better


About call quality, I have not noticed any quality issues on my side, but I have no idea on the other side of the call. In my limited testing, I have not seen a way to transition meeting audio from my iPad to the HomePod (someone else might have more experience with that).

===> I'm curious what the receiver end will hear, clear ? muffle sounds ? etc ? Hope someone will have some comment in this


I don’t see why your computer couldn’t be able to connect to multiple speakers, provided it supports them. Important to note that HomePods only support AirPlay 2, which is available on macOS, iOS, iPadOS and tvOS (not sure for watchOS). They are not Bluetooth speakers; they might be iTunes compatible on Windows, but I don’t have access to a computer with iTunes.

==> Itunes PC can connect with airplay, i read somewhere on googling, that if our pc has 3rd party software for airplay, than we can connect the PC to homepod. Need to find out more first


The tap-to-transfer feature requires the ultra wideband chip (aka U1). That was added in the iPhone 11 series of phones. As such, the iPhone 7 will not be able to use the feature. You still will be able to transfer content using the regular audio device sheet.

==> yeah, I like this feature


The HomePod supports Siri and Apple Music natively, so you don’t even need a phone or an Apple device nearby. You can simply ask Siri to play music and it will do so on its own. Another feature is stereo pairing of speakers, so you can get stereo separation for music (left and right channels on different speakers). And finally, you can set the speakers as a default audio output device on the Apple TV 4K and later (feature not available on the Apple TV HD, but you can still manually use the HomePod as an output device on that Apple TV generation).

I use the speakers at my home office, with windows dan doors open. My bluetooth voombox speaker need to be replaced already. But I wonder whether in term of loudness and quality, can 1 homepod mini be the new replacement.

 

[EdwinG]

The HomePod mini sound quality is really good (for their small size). I can’t tell the difference between my home theatre system and HomePods in terms of quality.

=>> is that good ? wow. I assume with small size, compare with general more less same price bluetooh speaker will be better

It's just slightly less bass-y; but my home theatre has a subwoofer for that. Also, you don't get anything beyond stereo on HomePod Mini.

The Bluetooth speakers should be slightly lower quality, because they have lower bandwidth capacity.

HomePods use Wi-Fi at 72Mbps (Wi-Fi 4 specifically), where as Bluetooth gets around 2Mbps. In most cases, you won't notice the difference, as long as you have the same codec support between both your sender and receiver (AAC for Apple devices).

I don’t see why your computer couldn’t be able to connect to multiple speakers, provided it supports them. Important to note that HomePods only support AirPlay 2, which is available on macOS, iOS, iPadOS and tvOS (not sure for watchOS). They are not Bluetooth speakers; they might be iTunes compatible on Windows, but I don’t have access to a computer with iTunes.

==> Itunes PC can connect with airplay, i read somewhere on googling, that if our pc has 3rd party software for airplay, than we can connect the PC to homepod. Need to find out more first

I checked Apple's documentation for iTunes for Windows, and it seems to support AirPlay to HomePod: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/itunes/itns08497dc0/windows

I use the speakers at my home office, with windows dan doors open. My bluetooth voombox speaker need to be replaced already. But I wonder whether in term of loudness and quality, can 1 homepod mini be the new replacement.

No idea how loud voombox is, but I use my HomePod mini at around 10-15% volume and it fills my 10m[SUP]2[/SUP] room more than enough. The microphone is sensitive enough to hear me from the 5m away, two doors away, to trigger Siri timers.

 

[Hendri Hendri]

It's just slightly less bass-y; but my home theatre has a subwoofer for that. Also, you don't get anything beyond stereo on HomePod Mini.

The Bluetooth speakers should be slightly lower quality, because they have lower bandwidth capacity.

HomePods use Wi-Fi at 72Mbps (Wi-Fi 4 specifically), where as Bluetooth gets around 2Mbps. In most cases, you won't notice the difference, as long as you have the same codec support between both your sender and receiver (AAC for Apple devices).


I checked Apple's documentation for iTunes for Windows, and it seems to support AirPlay to HomePod: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/itunes/itns08497dc0/windows


No idea how loud voombox is, but I use my HomePod mini at around 10-15% volume and it fills my 10m[SUP]2[/SUP] room more than enough. The microphone is sensitive enough to hear me from the 5m away, two doors away, to trigger Siri timers.

I’d purchased the mini 1 pcs. Hope it’s better or at least not worse than my previous bluetooth speaker. Crossfingers


UPDATED 21/9

Well ... I'm not disappointed for sure for the sound quality. My voombox is more loud, but homepod mini just give me a very balance (for me) bass and voice clarity, and nice orange ball sitting comfortably on my work desk
Haven't tried using for phone calls yet, and quite curious whether I can handoff whatsapp call as well or not.