Apple - HomePod - Space Gray

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.

I’d been pondering about the purchase due to my questioning how much I’d actually use it; since I don’t have like a smart home... And after the purchase was made — oh my word 8) I’m Uber excited about its usage and beautiful sound. I use it as: • my wake-up alarm • to listen to my music (outside of my iPh 11 Pro Max (smiles) without interruption of calls, texts, notification of any sort • but can still take/make calls through my speaker • the sound is absolutely true, clean and powerful • the response “hey Siri” whether anything is playing or not is so accurate, even from a distance (*at least up to 15ft tested in my home) I’m considering purchasing another (1 or 2) for an area or two more in my home. The current pod is in my bedroom. I’m quite happy with the investment made and addition to my Apple goods!

I’d been pondering about the purchase due to my questioning how much I’d actually use it; since I don’t have like a smart home... And after the purchase was made — oh my word 8) I’m Uber excited about its usage and beautiful sound. I use it as: • my wake-up alarm • to listen to my music (outside of my iPh 11 Pro Max (smiles) without interruption of calls, texts, notification of any sort • but can still take/make calls through my speaker • the sound is absolutely true, clean and powerful • the response “hey Siri” whether anything is playing or not is so accurate, even from a distance (*at least up to 15ft tested in my home) I’m considering purchasing another (1 or 2) for an area or two more in my home. The current pod is in my bedroom. I’m quite happy with the investment made and addition to my Apple goods!

From reading the reviews, I expected this thing to immediately blow me away. It didn’t, but I had to give it a proper chance. I put it in a different spot that was more open from obstructions, and gave it a shake to recalibrate its audio scan feature. I played another song and noticed it was sounding a bit better. It’s about 6in from the wall on a shelf 3ft off the ground with some small decor around it. It’s in my bedroom so I wanted it at a height that would reach above the bed. Well, I laid in bed on my laptop while I had some music playing on the HomePod. I noticed it sounds fuller and more balanced when you’re about 6+ feet away from it. Up close, it’s loud and clear, but no depth to the sound. When at this 6-8 foot distance, you can actually notice the HomePod filling the room and the walls resonate with bass. At that point, I was actually impressed this was coming from the little black speaker on my tv stand. I listened to various genres of music, and some bass-lines in LoFi music made me smile. How can something so small and simple make the room seemingly vibrate around me? HomePod is best for someone looking for an always ready speaker to cast your music/audio to from your Apple device. Siri isn’t the brightest AI, but she can make phone calls, send/read texts, and control your smart home well enough. HomePod is for those that love to listen to music and experience proper sound quality while doing so. If you seek brains over sound quality, check out Google’s offerings.

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.

Got on sale ($100 off) and I jumped on it! It has completed my Apple collection—thank you Best Buy! It’s everything that Apple’s marketing video says. I’m so happy! I gave my aged Bose Sound Dock with the 30 pin and now everything is wireless and wanted new technology within the Apple ecosystem even though I love my Alexa Echo, I don’t use it in the most intimate way (my contacts, etc) for fear of privacy concerns.

Okay. I do love Apple and their products. I had some WiFi issues that made setting this unit up very difficult. ( finally had to part with my airport extreme after five years). After I replaced my router all was fine. Asus AX88U which is awesome. Set up on this unit was not bad at all with my iPhone 11 Pro. The sound quality is very good and I like pairing it with my Apple TV as a great external speaker. I love being able to make calls and text, and speaking to my girlfriend on the HomePod has been a great hands free experience. I wish Siri had the breadth of function that Alexa and Google Home do-but it’s still not a bad experience. I got mine for $199. At $300 I couldn’t justify the purchase. If you have an iPhone, iPad, iMac and use Apple Music I would recommend this. Hopefully Apple can improve on Siri’s functionality. It’s a shame that they started the whole personal assistant deal and have fallen so far behind. Although I will say she now can tell me how long it will take to get someplace (specific to contacts or business with road names included). I like the voice recognition as Echo doesn’t have that feature. I can also turn my Apple TV on and off which is lazy but fun. I control my lights and switches seamlessly too. Bottom line is it’s a fantastic Apple person product for $199. I also have a SoundTouch 20 and 30 so I didn’t really need another speaker. When the price dropped I grabbed one. I hope this helps!

The HomePod has been a great speaker for my loving room entertainment. It has great sound quality that literally fills the space! Works great with my AppleTV and really the only thing that would make it better if there was a wireless speaker model. I’d love to carry this powerful sound around without having a cord. Also, I wish it connected via Bluetooth and not only the AirPlay connection.