Apple HomePod (1 Viewer)

[Carlo_M]

Hey Nelson, what's good? I too love my HomePod pair. There is a rumor of the smaller, cheaper version, but if you love the sound, I doubt the smaller/cheaper one will be better (or even equal) in sound.

If you love the sound quality (which is admitted the strong suit of HomePod vs. Alexa/Google smart speakers) I wouldn't hesitate to pick it up on sale.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Ted, Carlo! I guess you didn’t try to talk me out of it.

I’ll let you know if I pull the trigger.

 

[Carlo_M]

@Nelson Au best buy has them on sale today for $199.

 

[Nelson Au]

Hi Carlo, yes, I saw that too, thanks. So tempting!

 

[Ted Todorov]

Hi Carlo, yes, I saw that too, thanks. So tempting!

Yes, Best Buy was the place/for this price that I purchased several from last year. They also offered me a refurbished HomePod for even less, but I stuck to the sealed box

 

[Nelson Au]

Well guys, with the pandemic having me home all the time, I decided to indulge in another set of Homepods. I did order from Best Buy last Sunday. They arrived last night, pretty fast. I left them in the garage to let any Covid 19 on the box die. However, I did open the box to check the contents as the box was kind of crushed. Upon opening the box, I could see Best Buy barely had any padding and the Homepods were sliding around.

That wasn’t the worst of it though. One of the HomePods did not have the plastic wrap on the box, as if it was opened. And the vertical edges of the box had some small dents. So I did lift the top of the box off to see if the HomePod inside was OK. It’s in there. But I didn’t look closely at it yet. I suspect there are two explanations for this:

1. The Apple plastic wrap is pretty easy to rip and fall off. I noticed on the earlier set of HomePods I got from Best Buy, one had the plastic wrap halfway open and falling off. So I figured the plastic wrap was damaged in the warehouse. That HomePod looked fine and works fine. There wasn’t any dirty finger prints on the white speaker fabric. So I’m guessing this is the case for this new HomePod.

2. This could be a returned HomePod. And I remember another member here got a similar price reduced deal at Target and the HomePods he got were all without the plastic wrap, so he thought they were opened and maybe returned to the store.

I will pull the HomePod out of the box and if the cords are still coiled up with the factory wrappings then I’ll feel better this was never used. And if the other stuff in the box appears undisturbed, then maybe it’s just a unit that’s been sitting around a long time and the wrap was torn off.

With the Covid 19 situation still raging, I’m not sure I want to deal with exchanging this, but I’ll see if this unit is OK first before deciding what to do. Bummer though!

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey Ted, I got an email that you replied to this thread this morning. But for some reason, it’s not showing on the forum. It’s as if it was not posted. Or removed. Or there’s a time delay. I tried to see if it might show on a desktop and my phone and iPad.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thought I’d take out my iPhone 5 to fire it up and see if it’s battery was ok. I haven’t used it since the iphone 6 came out. But I do take it out to charge it to maintain the battery. I bring this up because I was curious if it could be used to send music to the HomePods. The iPhone 5 has iOS 7.1.1. After I was able to remember how to find Airplay, i was so surprised it saw the HomePods. I was able to send music to one! That was pretty cool! I probably won’t be using it to play music, but it was an interesting experiment.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Hey Ted, I got an email that you replied to this thread this morning. But for some reason, it’s not showing on the forum. It’s as if it was not posted. Or removed. Or there’s a time delay. I tried to see if it might show on a desktop and my phone and iPad.

Funny, the exact same thing happened in the other direction — I have an email about you asking about the rumored new $99 HomePod mini but it is missing from the forum... There is definitely something fishy going on.

 

[Sam Posten]

Funny, the exact same thing happened in the other direction — I have an email about you asking about the rumored new $99 HomePod mini but it is missing from the forum... There is definitely something fishy going on.

Probably a spam post. Again we ask folks to report spam, don't reply to it. When you reply to it there is a very high likelihood that we will have to nuke your post too.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Probably a spam post. Again we ask folks to report spam, don't reply to it. When you reply to it there is a very high likelihood that we will have to nuke your post too.

But shouldn’t either one of us be worried about it — meaning that some has hijacked our accounts?? I doubt that either I or Nelson are the kinds that would intentionally post spam or something that is declared to be spam??

 

[Sam Posten]

But shouldn’t either one of us be worried about it — meaning that some has hijacked our accounts?? I doubt that either I or Nelson are the kinds that would intentionally post spam or something that is declared to be spam??

Are you sure it was this thread? Can you send it to me as a picture via PM or email redacted please?

 

[Nelson Au]

Yes Sam, I did post on this thread yesterday asking what people think of a new $99 HomePod mini if the rumors are true. And Ted must be subscribed to this thread and got the email notification that I posted.

Some months ago I made a post and Ted replied, but I couldn’t see his reply on the thread, I only knew he posted a reply because I’m subscribed to the thread and I got an email he replied and I could see his reply in the email from the HTF.

So yeah, something spooky is happening. It’s only happened in this thread for me. So far.

 

[Sam Posten]

Attn @Dave Upton @Adam Gregorich

 

[Nelson Au]

Wow, I was just watching this guys HomePods Mini review and learned of a new feature with the HomePod Mini and full size HomePod. A new feature he called beaming that I didn’t know about. He demonstrated it by placing his iPhone 12 near a spot along the top edge of the speaker and it ”pulled” the music he had playing on his iPhone to the HomePod.

Now I regularly use Airplay from my iPhone or iPad to play music to the HomePod speakers. I don’t have Apple Music, I just play music I have in my iTunes from my ripped CDs. So this beaming thing kind of blew my mind. Maybe you guys knew about this feature. I didn‘t and thought I’d try it with my iPhone 12 Pro and I walked up to the original HomePod I have and did the same thing the reviewer did, and it worked, it played my music to the HomePod!

 

[Sam Posten]

Apple Discontinues Original HomePod, Will Focus on Mini

Link to: https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/12/apple-discontinues-original-homepod-will-focus-on-mini/

daringfireball.net

 

[Nelson Au]

This is really unfortunate. Might be time to snag a few more before they are gone.

I have not heard the mini version yet but imagine it’s fidelity is not quite at the same level as the larger HomePod.

 

[Carlo_M]

It's not a surprising decision based on what I assume were lackluster sales. That said, I love my stereo pair and find myself rarely turning on my big system unless I'm truly doing critical listening or playing high def audio media (DVD-A, SACD, BD-A).

 

[Ted Todorov]

This is really unfortunate. Might be time to snag a few more before they are gone.

I have not heard the mini version yet but imagine it’s fidelity is not quite at the same level as the larger HomePod.

I'll tell you this right now -- I bought an AIrPort Express right after they were discontinued. My deep regret? that I didn't buy four of them. When they upgraded the AirPort Express (after it had been discontinued, and after all the existing supply was gone) to AirPlay 2, they became priceless. It meant that any receiver with TOSlink could now get AirPlay 2. And supposing you had one or more with very, very, very good (and very expensive) amp, replacing it with a receiver that directly supports AirPlay 2 would cost you way up into four figures.

Moral: get your HomePods now. Truly ancient versions of the AirPort still work fine -- i.e. there is no reason to think Apple will stop supporting HomePods, and we never may get a new one that sounds nearly as good...

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I am so happy I didn't buy into Homepods.

I am truly sorry to see them go, but I thought they were overpriced (as every Apple product is) and competing in a market with lots of other wireless offerings including Sonos (which I am heavily invested in).