The speakers also get pretty loud, though if you need clear sound at a serious volume, I’d strongly recommend looking at something bigger (and pricier) like the original HomePod. It’s quite similar to pairing AirPods: hold the phone near the speaker and you’ll get a familiar white popup guiding you through the process of setting it up, choosing the room and enabling voice recognition. In fact, the whole setup process is pretty simple with an iPhone. From there, you can just say, “Hey Siri, play music in the kitchen” or “Hey Siri, play music everywhere.” You get the picture. If you’d like to spread out, the system will do multiroom audio by simply assigning speakers to different rooms. From there, you can specify which one handles the right and left channels. Just set up two devices for the same room of your home and it will ask you whether you want to pair them. Obviously that goes double if you opt for a stereo pair.
#MII CHANNEL MUSIC WITH SPREAD OUT PAUSE FULL#
It’s full and clear and impressively powerful for its size. I’ve used a lot of different smart speakers in my day, and honestly, I’m really impressed with the sound the company was able to get out of the 3.3-inch device. Your preference may depend on where you place the speaker, but this model is more versatile, especially if you’re not just seated in front of the speaker all day. Where Amazon switched to a front-facing speaker for the new Echo, Apple continues to focus on 360-degree sound. It’s disappointing - but not surprising that there’s no auxiliary input on-board - there wasn’t one on the standard HomePod, either. There’s also a 20W power adapter in the box (admittedly, not a sure bet with Apple, these days). The cable sports a USB-C connector, however, which makes it fairly versatile on that end. It would be nice if the cord was user-detectable, so you can swap it out as needed, but no go. There’s a long, non-detachable fabric cable. On the bottom is a hard plastic base with an Apple logo. I’ve been using one of the two Minis Apple sent on my desk at home, and it’s an ideal size. Of course, being significantly smaller than the HomePod makes it considerably more versatile. The device comes in white or space gray, and unlike other smart speakers, seems to be less about blending in than showing off. Rather than the fabric-style covering that has dominated the last several generations of Google and Amazon products, the Mini is covered in the same sort of audio-conductive mesh material as the full-size HomePod. It also allows for the inclusion of touch-sensitive volume buttons and the ability to tap the surface to play/pause music. The design decision keeps the product more in line with the original HomePod, with an Aurora Borealis of swirling lights up top to show you when Siri is doing her thing. I was trying to figure out what it reminds me of, and this was the best I came up with. Apple, on the other hand, simply lopped off the top. For starters, Amazon moved the Echo’s status ring to the bottom of the device, so as to not impede on its perfectly spherical design. There are, however, some key differences in their respective designs.
The Mini is nearly exactly the same size as the new, round Echo Dot - which is to say, roughly the size of a softball. Not just for its price, but also its size. Apple wants to sell you a good speaker.Īnd you know what? The HomePod Mini is a surprisingly good speaker. Apple doesn’t appear particularly interested in that approach. In fact, those devices could nearly fall into the category of loss leaders for their respective companies - dirt-cheap ways to get their smart assistants into users’ homes. Those devices run roughly half that price and are both fairly frequently - and quite deeply - discounted. That puts the device in league with the standard Amazon Echo and Google Nest, rather than their respective budget-level counterparts. There’s a focus on little touches that offer a comparably premium experience for its price point.
The HomePod Mini is still, in many ways, a uniquely Apple product. This is not, simply put, the Apple Echo Dot. That’s not to say, however, that the companies have met somewhere in the middle. A four-sentence HomePod review (with appendices)Įssentially, Amazon and Google have become more focused on sound and Apple more conscious of price.