Apple - HomePod - Space Gray

I recently purchased an Apple HomePod for myself as a little b-day gift. After living with the speaker for a while, here is what I can offer. 1. Set-up is perhaps the easiest I've ever done for a network device. Plug it in, hold your iPhone near it, and it automatically starts the set-up for you. Click a few buttons on your phone to complete the set-up and you're up and running in like a few minutes. Very nice. 2. Once set up, using the speaker is amazingly simple, yet feature-rich. "Hey Siri, play some Coltrane", or "Hey Siri, play Music for Airports by Brian Eno" and in about 2 seconds, it starts playing. Too loud or quiet? Just say "Hey Siri, raise/lower the volume" and it'll take care of that. 3. Ask it the weather, or what your appointments are for tomorrow. It seems like it can pretty much do it all. 4. The "ring" issue. Some people have found that the speaker can leave a ring on some wood surfaces. You can go ahead and buy a little $10 stand to put it on. I just used a folded piece of paper. Works great. 5. Let's talk about sound. Plenty of reviews talk about the great sound, and for its size, the sound is impressive. Don't expect your HomePod to sound like Tannoys or a nice pair of vintage Klipschorns, but the sound is pretty good. It's an active speaker, so it adjusts its sound reproduction based on its surroundings. So don't worry too much about where you're putting it. It can adjust. Speaking of Coltrane, I played "A Love Supreme" and was actually impressed. The bass solo sounded pretty decent, not as muddy as I would expect a small woofer to be. The drum solo sounded relatively tight. The piano was missing a bit of brightness, but still more than passable. Sax just stood out nicely. Overall, the sound was more natural that I was expecting, and definitely better than the artificial sound you'd get from a similarly-sized speaker from Bose. 6. Volume control. You can tell it to raise or lower the volume, or tape the plus/minus sign on top. I do wish the volume increments were a bit smaller, though. Raising the volume sometimes is a bit too high and I wish it could raise it just a little bit less. But this is a minor issue in my book. 7. The power cord. OK, yeah, I'm making a point of the power cord. They actually give you a decent-length cord! I know this seems like a small issue, but I do get tired of getting electronics that have these short, dinky power cords. In all, I think this would make a fine addition to your home, assuming you are well-invested in the Apple ecosystem.

I have been intrigued by this product since released, and frustrated with Apple's pricing practices and desire to be a "top tier" company by only offering high end high price products. This device always seemed a bit overpriced and unnecessary for me as I have a nice sound system connected to my TV, but I wanted something for Home Kit control. I like Apple's focus on encryption and privacy especially with the alway on always listening home controlling devices like this. I have apple Home Kit enabled devices in my house, and wanted a quick way for my pet sitter to turn them on and off when she comes in. I tried the Amazon dot last year, but found it difficult to setup and you need to have the always listening feature on. It also required setting up my already existing already working HomeKit enabled devices in the Alexa app which was hit and miss. I was waiting and hoping that Apple would release a cheaper version of this with less speaker and more control. Then Best Buy had this on holiday sale for 100 dollars off retail price. I figured it was worth a try knowing I had time to return it if it did not work. I set it up in seconds yesterday, and immediately transferred the podcast I was listening to on my phone to the speaker. I often wear headphones around the house and listen to music or podcasts throughout the day. This makes it easy to transfer what I am listening to via my phone airplay button and I can hear it clearly from anywhere in the downstairs. It sounds amazing and is so much easier to use to listen to anything on my phone. Yes you can use it without the Hey Siri feature listening. You can press and hold the center of the top panel which prompts Siri so I can turn off the "always listening" or if it does that annoying digital assistant thing where it mishears something I say that sounds vaguely like "Hey Siri" and becomes disruptive (This has not happened yet). I also like that in the Home app on my iPhone I can turn off the Home pod analytics which will not share my always on always listening recordings with Apple or anyone else. I wish the $200 price was not a promotion, but the retail price. After 1.5 days it has proven its worth and made me realize something I was overtly critical of and uninterested in is as good as I was sure it was not. I like being proven wrong. I am not sure I would pay $300 for it at full price, but if it keeps impressing me like this I might eat those words as well.

The HomePod is something really special that will expand its options as updates come available over time. The sound on this impeccable piece of engineering is absolutely INCREDIBLE. I’m a audiophile at heart. I have to have the best of the best when it comes to sound. This has 7-speakers that offer crisp and clear keynotes that can make you hear things that you normally couldn’t in the smart speaker world. I also have a Sonos and believe me when I say this that the sound comparison between the Apple’s HomePod and the Sony’s Sonos has a marginal gap. I was blown away by how impressive the HomePod sounds. The microphone also has pretty good range. I was 3 rooms away and Siri picked up what I said (with kids running in the background) and played 80s Rock. That was impressive for a small but heavy speaker. Speaking of heavy. That is due to the magnet that is in this speaker. The bass that comes from this thing is MIGHTY impressive. I’ve had friends come over during the weekend and they never guessed it was coming from the HomePod. They thought it was my Bose Home Theatre system that I usually have on. Needless to say they were blown away as it knows where it’s sitting by using sound waves reporting back to the device so that’ll it’ll adjust to any room setting. On another note. This is is limited for now. If you don’t think Apple won’t open the HomePod up to other apps and add new features then you obviously don’t know Apple. For now if you can be a little patient until Apple releases updates this year and can just admire the sound quality the HomePod has then its for you. It’ll eventually be able to connect to other devices within time. Everyone just has to be patient. That shouldn’t stop anyone from buying a speaker to listen to music via Apple Music, iTunes and Spotify. Overall, The HomePod is an incredible sounding machine. Apple spent 6 years in development to get the sound perfect and they did just that. Now they will focus on updates throughout the year to improve what’s already THE best sounding device in my home. Go get one especially if you’ve invested in iTunes, Spotify and Apple Music!!