HomePod

About HomePod

HomePod is Apple's full-size smart speaker, and the larger of the two speakers the company builds for the home. It is the one designed around sound first: a high-excursion woofer at the top of the enclosure, an array of beamforming tweeters around the base, and microphones that listen to how the room reflects sound so the speaker can adjust what it sends where. The line has run through two generations, the first sold from 2018 until 2021, the second announced in January 2023 and offered in Midnight and White. Both sit above HomePod mini in size and output, and both assume you already own an iPhone. That last assumption shapes almost everything else worth knowing about it.

Where HomePod sits in Apple's speaker range

Apple sells two speakers for the home. HomePod mini is the small one, priced for buying several and scattering them through a house, and it does well as an intercom, a timer and a Siri endpoint in a kitchen. HomePod is the one you buy when the speaker is meant to be listened to rather than talked at. It is taller, heavier and louder, and it is the only one of the two that supports Dolby Atmos home theatre with an Apple TV 4K.

There is no third, larger model in the range, and no soundbar. If you want more from a HomePod than one can give, Apple's answer is to buy a second and pair them. Two HomePods of the same generation form a stereo pair with a wider soundstage. A mini and a full-size will not pair together.

How it sounds, and what it trades away

Reviews of the second generation tend to converge on the same point: the bass is bigger than the cabinet suggests it should be, and the speaker is unusually good at making a small room sound larger than it is. The woofer moves a long way for an enclosure this size, and the tweeters around the base are steered rather than fixed, so some sound is aimed at the middle of the room while the rest is bounced off the walls.

The trade is in the middle of the frequency range. Tom's Guide, comparing it directly with a Sonos speaker, found the HomePod stronger in the low end but less present through the mids and highs, with voices sitting further back in the mix. Whether that reads as warm or as thick depends heavily on what you play through it and how close the speaker sits to a wall.

Home theatre with Apple TV 4K

This is the strongest single argument for the speaker. Pair two HomePods with an Apple TV 4K and they become the television's sound system, with Dolby Atmos support and an Enhance Dialogue setting that lifts speech above the rest of the mix. For a room where a soundbar and a subwoofer would be unwelcome, it is a tidy answer, and the setup is a few taps rather than a cable run.

The conditions are strict, and worth knowing before you buy. Both speakers have to be HomePods of the same generation. The source has to be an Apple TV 4K. A television's own apps will not drive them, and neither will a games console or a disc player.

What it does when nothing is playing

The second generation carries a temperature and humidity sensor, so it can report the conditions in a room and act as the trigger for an automation that turns on a fan or a heater. It works as a home hub, which means it holds your automations and lets accessories be reached from outside the house, and it supports Matter and Thread, which widens the set of accessories that will talk to it at all.

Sound Recognition listens for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and sends a notification to your phone if it hears one. It is not a replacement for a working alarm, and Apple does not present it as one, but it is worth having in a house that is often empty.

What to weigh against a Sonos Era 100

The Era 100 is the speaker most buyers put next to it, and it is the cheaper of the two. The difference that matters is not sound quality, it is what you are allowed to plug in. Sonos accepts Bluetooth, and with an adapter a wired input, so a turntable or a laptop can play through it. HomePod accepts neither. Audio reaches it over Wi-Fi, through AirPlay or from a service Apple supports directly, and that is the whole list.

Voice control divides along the same line. Sonos offers Alexa and its own voice control. HomePod offers Siri and nothing else, and Siri will not start Spotify playback by voice. If your household runs on Android as well as iPhone, that gap will come up most days.

Who should buy something else

Buy something else if you do not own an iPhone. Setup requires one, and without an Apple device in the house the speaker is close to unusable.

Buy something else if one speaker has to serve a mixed household, or if you want to feed it from a record player, a games console or a television that is not an Apple TV. The Sonos Era 100 does those things and costs less.

Buy something else if the assistant matters more to you than the sound. Siri is the weakest part of the product, and reviewers have said so consistently across both generations.

And buy a HomePod mini instead if the speaker is going on a bedside table, in a hallway or in a kitchen, where the extra size and the extra money buy you very little.