Apple's latest smart speaker that is affordable but still haunts Amazon and Google

Two and a half years ago, Apple finally entered the smart speaker market with HomePod. It was a unique device - rather than prioritizing the accessible price and smart assistant features, it was laser focused on sound quality and much more expensive than its closest competitors from Amazon and Google, while being less capable of a smart speaker. As a result, HomePod didn't really take off. Apple had to cut its price, and other retailers had to discount it hard in order to convince anyone to buy it.

Fast forward to now, and Apple's new smart speaker, the $ 99 HomePod mini, takes a different approach. It's smaller, simpler, and less expensive than its older brother, and thanks to Apple's work on Siri over the past few years, it can actually do more than the original when it launched. Apple has clearly designed this to complement the larger HomePod. If you have an original in your living room, you can place the mini in various other places in your home without having to invest a lot of money or take up much storage space.

But it's clear that the rest of the smart speaker world hasn't stood idly by, and Amazon and Google have released the most compelling options in their respective collections this year. Although Siri has improved, it's still the HomePod mini's Achilles heel - well, that's and the fact that you still need to be an integral part of Apple's ecosystem to get the most out of it.

Mini HomePod sound quality

With its first HomePod, Apple prioritized sound quality above all else. This isn't quite the same with the HomePod mini, but you can still hear the effort to make the miniature sound relatively good.

I say "fine" because the HomePod mini looks really nice for its size. It sounds a lot better than the comparable fourth generation Echo Dot, and it produces more bass than other small smart speakers.

The main thing to note is that the HomePod mini outperforms other "small" smart speakers like the Echo Dot and the Nest Mini, but it can't compete with larger speakers like the Echo, Nest Audio, or Sonos One. HomePod mini is much closer to larger speakers, although it really belongs in the small speaker category when it comes to the sound it can produce.

The HomePod mini is 3.3 inches high, the same size as the fourth generation Echo Dot and much smaller than the full-size Echo or Google's Nest Audio. As a result, it contains only one tweeter: a full-range motor designed downward to spread sound evenly in all directions. Two passive radiators help bring out the low bass notes, but they shouldn't be confused with the multiple active speakers found on the Echo and Nest Audio.

Well it sounds fine, but I can't say the HomePod mini looks great. And next to the larger Echo and Nest Audio, both of which cost the same, it simply can't keep up. It doesn't have either of them, the volume level, or the audio stage, and it definitely cannot match the Echo's bass output. As they say, there is no substitute for displacement.

Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do to improve this either. Two HomePods can be paired in a stereo configuration, but this doesn't significantly increase the amount of sound you get, and it does nothing to improve the bass or the punch. Unlike Echo or Nest speakers, you cannot pair the HomePod mini to a larger subwoofer or speaker system. You're stuck with what he's doing outside the box.

"The mini looks better than other small speakers, but it can't keep up with the new Echo or Nest Audio."

Although not keeping up with Echo's audio performance, the HomePod mini sounds fun for most music, podcasts, and other audio shows. It has good balance in mid-tones and a forward sound profile. You'll hear the lyrics of your favorite song easily, without being overwhelmed by the bass. The existing bass can be heard but not felt.

360 Audio works on HomePod mini as well, as advertised. I can walk around the speaker, and the music doesn't change. This is great if you plan to place the mini in the middle of the room, but realistically, it will be on a shelf or near a wall, where it has less effect. That's why Amazon and Google have switched to more directional speaker designs this year, after years of using 360-degree speakers.

Overall, the HomePod mini excels at casual listening and background music. It's great for playing music during dinner when you don't want to overwhelm the conversation or just play some audio in the background while you are working from home. It's nice to listen to the mini audio at lower volumes or higher settings and it isn't distorted at all. It's not going to do a party soundtrack, and it definitely doesn't replace a proper sound system - but for its size, it's fine.

HomePod mini ecosystem

It won't come as a surprise to many, but unless you buy completely in iOS from Apple, you shouldn't consider buying the HomePod mini. In fact, I'll go further: Everyone in your household really needs to use the services of iPhone and Apple to make the HomePod mini worth the purchase.

The mini setup requires an iPhone or iPad. For any smart home control, you must be using the Apple Home app and HomeKit compatible devices. Asking HomePod mini to make a phone call, read messages, or give you calendar updates requires you to use an iPhone.

HomePod mini does not support streaming audio across platforms like Google Cast or Spotify Connect, so the only way to send audio to it from the device is via Apple's AirPlay. You need an iPhone or Mac to do this.

You can press iPhone at the top of HomePod mini to transfer everything you play on your phone to the speaker, then tap it again to bring the audio back to your phone. Apple will expand this with a new interface and more features for iPhones with the U1 chip (any model released in 2019 or later, excluding SE) in the future, but I wasn't able to test that for this review.

Apple has taken some small steps toward letting HomePod play music, podcasts, and audiobooks directly from sources other than Apple Music, and there is now an API that apps can leverage to become the default choice on HomePod. This allows you to use voice controls to play and play music from a different service than Apple Music. But at the moment, the only app that has taken advantage of it is Pandora, and there is no information when others join in, like Spotify or YouTube Music. (Given Spotify's repeated lawsuits and criticisms of closed Apple platforms, I'm not going to hold my breath anytime soon.)

Another thing I would like to see is the ability to set separate default services for Music, Podcasts and Audiobooks, for example, Spotify for Music, Pocket Casts for Podcasts, and Audible for Audiobooks. Currently, the default service setting limits all three categories to a single app.

None of this is a problem if you are bought entirely in the Apple world, but the truth is, few individuals (and thus families) are. Apple's smart speaker competitors each have their own services and ecosystems, but they also allow more freedom to choose preferred services and work with iOS and Android devices.

Siri on HomePod mini

In 2018, my colleague Nilay Patel rightly pointed out that the status of Siri on the original HomePod could be summed up by the fact that it couldn't handle multiple timers. I'm glad to say that the HomePod mini can support multiple timers, you can even call them now.

Siri has gotten other improvements over the years, too. He can now differentiate voices, so I get a different answer for "what's on my calendar" than my wife's answer when they ask the same question. It also prevents a random person from sending messages or making phone calls from my iPhone using the HomePod mini, which is a problem we encountered when reviewing the original HomePod.

You can also turn on Siri Shortcuts from HomePod, provided you have finished the legal process to program them on your iPhone. Siri can also do a bunch of things with Apple apps, such as Notes, Calendar, Reminders, and Maps, and some limited actions with third-party apps that have added support for SiriKit commands.

The new feature in Program version 14.2 is the ability to give you an itinerary at the start of your day, including a weather report, upcoming appointments, traffic and travel, and a news announcement from NPR. You can request a different news source, such as Fox or CNN, but this is about as much as you can customize this feature. Either way, it's nice to see Siri keep pace with something Alexa and Google Assistant have been offering for years.

I ran into a number of strange bugs with Siri within the two weeks or so of testing the HomePod mini. When you ask Siri to play an album from Apple Music, it's playing songs out of order rather than the way they appear on the album. When I use HomePod mini to make a call, neither I nor the other party can hear anything until I transfer the call to the iPhone and back to HomePod. While Siri is able to distinguish between my husband's voice and my husband's voice and provide personalized answers, he didn't know my wife by name and referred to her as "secondary user 1", even though Siri has all his information on the iPhone.

Some of these bugs, like Apple Music, were either resolved during the test period or didn't happen every time. But collectively, they explain why many people still have a negative perception of Siri.

Bugs aside, Siri is still behind where Amazon and Google are with their virtual assistants. It does the basics well, like playing music, providing weather reports, and setting timers and reminders. But Google still holds the lead when it comes to answering random facts and Alexa is constantly being improved with proactive features that make it appear more like an actual assistant than a voice remote.
HomePod mini Smart home is offered by Google, but it is still comprehensive.

HomePod mini smart home

The smart home capabilities of the HomePod mini are largely unchanged from the HomePod. It can control smart home devices that have been set up in the Home app on iPhone and can be integrated into home automation. It can also act as a home hub, which allows you to control your smart home devices using your iPhone from anywhere you have a data connection.

Mini supports a new smart home protocol called Thread, which allows devices to communicate with it over longer distances and using less power than Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. (Smart home geeks will remember Thread as the standard that Google originally pushed and adopted Eero routers before effectively stopping off and going nowhere for years.) A few smart lights have been announced with support for Thread in HomeKit (Apple's smart home platform) Thread, however, at the moment, Thread is way too young. HomeKit itself has a wide range of compatible smart home devices, including lights, contact sensors, cameras, thermostats, door locks, smart plugs, and more, all of which can be controlled by voice through the HomePod mini. It's not as comprehensive as Alexa and Google, but it is still comprehensive.

Also new to any HomePod is the Intercom feature that allows you to broadcast messages from HomePod to another HomePod or Apple device. You can send it to a specific HomePod or send it to all HomePods in the house as an advertisement. You can even call intercom using Siri from your phone or Apple Watch to send messages to anyone in the house.

But despite its name, intercom is not really a two-way communication device. It effectively sends recorded audio messages to devices instead of opening live audio. It's fine to tell the family that you are on your way home from the grocery store or to tell the kids that it is time to have dinner on another floor of the house, but I didn't find it particularly necessary in my home. Google and Amazon both offer similar features on their smart speakers, but they have more two-way direct connection options than the HomePod.

When HomePod was originally launched, it felt like Apple was operating in a completely different world than other smart speakers, one that didn't make sense to a lot of people. The HomePod mini feels on the same pitch as the rest.

At $ 100, compared to the original launch price of the $ 350 HomePod, the mini's price is low enough that you can imagine purchasing more than one device and spreading it throughout your home. It does most of the things you'd expect a smart speaker to do and looks good when done. If you've already purchased Apple's fully integrated system, including services, it's hard to go wrong with the HomePod mini's price or capabilities. It also provides an escape from some of the privacy and baggage concerns that come with Echo or Nest smart speakers, including the increasingly popular ads that appear in Alexa responses.

But it seems that Apple is still two years or more behind Amazon and Google when it comes to smart speakers. And compared to equally priced Echo and Nest Audio devices, the HomePod mini strives to keep up with audio quality and features.

Apple has shown that it is willing to turn things around and hear feedback when it comes to smart speakers, so I'd be interested to see how it continues to evolve. Hopefully, now that the HomePod mini is here, it starts moving a little faster.