Apple ​HomePod (2nd-gen 2023) evaluation

The HomePod (2nd-gen) comes practically 5 years after the unique and, whereas the design hasn’t modified, it does herald some large new options. Consider the second-generation HomePod extra as a much-needed refresh, slightly than an all-out model new good speaker.

It’s nonetheless very a lot speaker first, and good speaker second. However the addition of Thread signifies that this Matter-enabled HomePod is usually a centerpiece of the rejuvenated good dwelling over the subsequent couple of years.

Be sure you learn our information to Matter to know all of the complexities.

We’ve spent a few months dwelling with the Apple HomePod 2. Right here’s our thought of take…

Apple HomePod 2 worth

Apple’s newest HomePod has entered the market at £299/$299, surprisingly undercutting its 2018 predecessor’s debut worth.

When you’re studying this due to Matter, know that the $99/£99 Apple HomePod Mini can be a Thread border router, and can allow you to construct out a Matter-powered good dwelling for much less.

The HomePod prices greater than options equivalent to Amazon’s Echo Studio (£190/$200) or the Sonos One (£199 / $219). However it’s nonetheless an reasonably priced gadget, and delivers a good quantity of audio bang for the buck.

Sonos has fired again at Apple by releasing the Period 300 (£449 / $449) which wins on sound and can help spatial audio on each Apple Music and Amazon Music – however prices considerably extra.

Apple HomePod 2: Must know

By way of the design, the 2nd-gen HomePod is equivalent to its predecessor. It’s a compact speaker, that’s only a tad larger than a Sonos One.

Externally, the HomePod appears equivalent to the unique – the identical cloth mesh outer and touch-enabled high. The one variations are the 0.2-inch drop in peak and a slight weight reduction, with it going from 5.5lbs to five.16lbs.

There’s the identical touch-enabled high, with quantity management and pause/play. However it’s not a display screen regardless of the Siri swirl animation and doesn’t present information or playback data. There are a sequence of contact controls, very like the AirPods, with double or triple faucets skipping music ahead or backward.

Simply say “Hey Siri” and you will see it mild up with a colourful swirl, much like what you see in the event you name up Apple’s digital assistant on an iPhone.

The primary signal of life on this contact panel (which may get a bit smudgy in the event you contact it lots) is a white swirling mild throughout setup mode. That’ll final for about 10 seconds, then you definitely’ll hear a noise indicating your HomePod is prepared for pairing.

Pairing this factor is a breeze – simply put your iPhone close to it and also you’re performed. It’s going to switch over all of your Apple account particulars, your property Wi-Fi particulars, the entire shebang. You may be asking Siri to play music inside two minutes of plugging it in.

The brand new HomePod nonetheless helps iOS solely with AirPlay the principle choice for playback with out Siri. There’s no Bluetooth or Spotify Join. So it’s actually for households which can be all-in with iPhones, and finest used with Apple Music.

You continue to can’t ask Siri to play from non-Apple Music apps, as there is not any choice for altering the default music service, like you may with Alexa. So you may need to play to the gadget from inside these apps, which sort of negates the good thing about a sensible speaker.

You do have entry to all the most important streaming companies and radio stations by AirPlay although – and that features Spotify playback in your HomePod.

Each the HomePod Mini and HomePod – the unique and the second-gen model – can do every part that some other common AirPlay speaker does. So, in case your favourite streaming app is on iOS and has an AirPlay choice, then you may beam over your tunes by your iPhone or iPad.

You may discover no aux-in port on the HomePod and, though Bluetooth is inbuilt, that is solely there for setup; HomePod just isn’t a Bluetooth speaker. There are Android workarounds as soon as setup is finished, however they’re actually not price it.

The speaker array has additionally modified barely. The HomePod 2 includes a four-inch woofer paired with 5 tweeters, which is down from the seven tweeters discovered within the unique HomePod.

New options as a look

• Temperature sensor
• Humidity sensor
• Thread powered Matter compatibiltity
• Tweaked speaker array with 4 tweeters and a 4-inch sub-woofer
• U1 chip

Audio and spatial

When you’re right here for sound high quality then you definitely’ll be impressed. The HomePod punches nicely above its measurement for sound and energy – and is surprisingly bassy.

To some, the speaker may very well ship an excessive amount of low-end punch, particularly in smaller rooms, however there’s a setting to scale back bass if wanted.

It actually works nicely in a bigger room, and within the nook of our loft room, we might have required the low bass setting. Nevertheless, our private style is bass-heavy, with a whole lot of reggae and dub on rotation, so it suited us simply high-quality.

Our HomePod lived alongside our Alexa-fired Sonos One, and it blows the One out of the water on sound high quality. There’s actually no competitors, even when listening to the radio, the sound is deeper, hotter, and punchier.

The Sonos Period 300 is a distinct story and might be the one good speaker that may outstrip the HomePod as a standalone Spatial Audio speaker.

Nevertheless, the substantial worth enhance means you possibly can seize a pair of HomePods at the same worth, and we’ll come onto why you would possibly do this shortly.

The USP of the HomePod, when paired with Apple Music is Spatial Audio. These are tracks which can be combined in Dolby Atmos for a extra ‘immersive’ sound, which ought to go away you with the impression of the band enjoying round you.

Some spatial mixes are spine-tinglingly wonderful, some not a lot. However when it’s performed proper, it’s a recreation changer. And we a lot want the impact on HomePod, which may deliver tracks to life, slightly than on AirPods, the place the head-tracking sort of ruins the expertise.

New tracks usually tend to have a good Spatial Audio remedy than older ones. The Narcissist by Blur advantages from the separation of the lead and backing vocals.

Nonetheless, Easy Man by Lynyrd Skynrd exhibits off the deftness of the HomePod’s tone on the excessive hat, whereas additionally delivering on the guitar and bass as nicely. We regularly use ‘well-rounded sound’ to specific an evenness between all ends of the spectrum, however none excel. The HomePod delivers each, and there’s no actual space for criticism.

Critics of Spatial liken it to the pretend encompass impact on 90s stereos, and there are actually examples of that inside the catalog. However Spatial could make you sit up and take discover, and the HomePod delivers this expertise in spades. And given it’s obtainable for no further value on Apple Music, we’re large followers.

Away from Dolby Atmos, the HomePod additionally helps lossless playback in Apple Music, (24-bit/48kHz) which additionally sounds fabulous, whether or not you play to the HomePod by way of your iPhone, or ask Siri for music instantly.

On the multi-room entrance, there’s nothing to arrange as such – you may simply see the HomePods exhibiting up within the AirPlay speaker listing in your iOS gadget or Mac, and simply choose as many as you’ll want to get music pumping round your property.

Good dwelling abilities and Matter

Good audio system are in fact a key part of the good dwelling – which is the place The Ambient involves play.

The HomePod (2nd Gen) is Matter suitable, and it’s additionally a Thread border router for seamless and fast management of good dwelling units that help the usual. That is the stuff you’re going to want when build up a sensible dwelling of Matter units as we go ahead.

We arrange one of many first Matter merchandise – the Nanoleaf Necessities Gentle Strip – and had it working in seconds, with a wealthy vary of options, together with shade management.

After all, Matter is constructed out of Apple’s current good dwelling know-how, so including a product is a carbon copy of the HomeKit means of scanning a QR code. There’s no must seize the proprietary app or make an account elsewhere.

Matter will massively increase the quantity of units that may play with Apple House, so the good dwelling ecosystem is about to get a lot larger and higher.

After all, the place the HomePod falls down towards the likes of the Echo vary and Sonos audio system is that it depends closely on Siri.

Siri nonetheless lags

Siri remains to be not pretty much as good a voice assistant as Alexa, neither is it simple to hold out comparatively easy duties by voice. There are such a lot of examples. Whilst we write this, we fired off a fast climate question to Siri, which it did not reply after an extended deliberation. That actually is past primary stuff.

Music queries are usually dealt with significantly better – and Siri is absolutely adept at listening to a ‘Hey Siri’ over loud music.

However there are niggly downsides. Within the UK, BBC Radio has no help and must be performed by way of AirPlay from the BBC Sounds app. Not an enormous imposition, however Alexa has a BBC Sounds ability, so we’re used to only asking for radio and it enjoying – I do not wish to pull my cellphone out.

Ultimately, we gave up listening to the radio by way of HomePod, which is maybe a win for Apple, if not for the consumer.

We additionally bumped into issues with Siri figuring out whether or not we needed data by way of the iPhone or HomePod. This often occurred if we have been holding our iPhone when speaking to the speaker.

The HomePod is also now a humidity and temperature sensor, and the accuracy stood up. Our heating system doesn’t enable for third-party sensors, however we might see this develop into extra helpful as Matter rolls out.

iPhone calling means you may ask Siri to make a name or reply an incoming one. As soon as the function is enabled, you may merely say, “Hey Siri, name Jennifer” or “Hey Siri, reply my name.”

Hyperlink to Apple TV

HomePod works finest in all-Apple properties, and it actually acquired good after we hooked it as much as our Apple TV 4K (third Gen).

In our loft room, we arrange the HomePod as a default speaker for the Apple TV. If we had a stereo pair it might have been even higher, however the HomePod did a masterful job.

Even higher was the brand new eARC function of the brand new Apple TV 4K, which permits the HomePod to take over the sound of something performed on the TV. This makes a stereo pair an efficient different to mid-range soundbars, and greater than a match for the likes of the Sonos Beam.

We additionally turned our Xbox Collection X right into a CD participant, and eventually had an excellent high quality outlet for the handful of particular CDs we’d retained.