Hey, Siri —

New astute location features header the revived astute speaker.

Samuel Axon - Jan 18, 2023 6:38 p.m. UTC

As antecedently rumored, Apple contiguous announced the merchandise of a caller second-generation, $299 HomePod astute talker successful a akin plan to the first-generation HomePod from 2018.

This caller exemplary is simply a comeback for the HomePod, which was discontinued successful 2021 aft it struggled successful the marketplace contempt a terms cut.

Critics and consumers felt that portion the HomePod delivered outstanding audio prime and large easiness of usage wrong the Apple ecosystem, its inability to elegantly play backmost non-Apple content, the limitations of Siri compared to Alexa oregon Google Assistant, and the speaker's steep terms made it unappealing compared to much affordable astute speakers from Sonos, Amazon, oregon Google.

Apple went connected to merchantability a cheaper relative to the HomePod called the HomePod mini, which fared amended but inactive didn't predominate the market.

As acold arsenic we tin archer from what Apple has said truthful far, the caller full-size HomePod doesn't bash overmuch to alteration its spot successful the marketplace wherever the large complaints astir its predecessor are concerned. It does, however, adhd a clump of features. Some of them are acquainted from the HomePod mini, but others are new.

Most notably, it supports the wireless Thread protocol and the Matter astute location standard, which was arguably the prima of the amusement astatine CES earlier this month. Apple has been pushing astute location functionality crossed its merchandise enactment lately. To that end, the HomePod has humidity and somesthesia sensors that tin beryllium utilized successful our astute location automation flows. (The HomePod mini has technically ever had this capability, and that has present been activated for that device, too.) Later on, it volition besides beryllium capable to observe c monoxide and fume alarms, but that diagnostic is coming successful a aboriginal bundle update.

The caller talker includes Apple's S7 chip, which we antecedently saw successful the Apple Watch Series 7. In immoderate different ways, though, it's an evident downgrade from its predecessor. It has 5 tweeters, down from 7 successful the 2018 model, and 5 microphones, besides down from seven. It's unclear however overmuch of a quality that volition make, though, fixed that the HomePod's audio prowess is arsenic overmuch astir computation arsenic anything.

The second-generation HomePod is disposable successful achromatic and a black-adjacent colour called "midnight." It costs $299 and is available for order. The archetypal units volition vessel to buyers connected Friday, February 3. The 2020 HomePod mini remains successful Apple's merchandise lineup for $99.