None that are as convenient for those of us the love the ecosystem.
"Siri play my relaxation music".
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Old vs. New HomePod Buyer's Guide
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None that are as convenient for those of us the love the ecosystem.
"Siri play my relaxation music".
That is just an intergrated piece in the system on a chip/package. All in one silicon, they already made the hardware.
I’m very much looking forward to actual reviews from people that have listened to both, it should be interesting.
Side note: Costco is selling 2 Sonos One speakers for $359 in-store & online.
Money wise, that is competitive, and would stop and make me ponder a purchase 🤔🤔
Side note: Costco is selling 2 Sonos One speakers for $359 in-store & online.
Money wise, that is competitive, and would stop and make me ponder a purchase 🤔🤔
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I’m an Apple everything guy except this, where Sonos scratches the “smart,” conveniently-placed speakers itch for me & mine. That stereo pair of ONES would be quite nice… and work with Apple Music and your own rips in Music or iTunes apps… and you can toss play orders to them with Siri on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.
You can also readily use pretty much every other source of music too, as Sonos has a very open “garden.”
If dollars are not the primary driver, paying a little more can buy the Move, which is VERY MUCH like HP, except able to go full wireless (no power cable too). I have one and it sounds surprisingly great. For those most concerned with convenience vs. wired solution, Move cuts ALL cables, even power when one wants it. Pick it up, carry into the next room- or outside- and enjoy it. Drop it back on its storage & charging ring whenever you like.
You can also readily use pretty much every other source of music too, as Sonos has a very open “garden.”
If dollars are not the primary driver, paying a little more can buy the Move, which is VERY MUCH like HP, except able to go full wireless (no power cable too). I have one and it sounds surprisingly great. For those most concerned with convenience vs. wired solution, Move cuts ALL cables, even power when one wants it. Pick it up, carry into the next room- or outside- and enjoy it. Drop it back on its storage & charging ring whenever you like.
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Great guide. I never had the originals so I’m tempted to pick up a pair of these.
Right but do we really need AC on a music streaming device, we also didn’t hear anything about hi-res, but who knows this may be there way of addressing connectivity issues with this ”downgrade” this radio may be more stable
Seriously, Apple is counting every single penny these days… ☹️
Just when you think Apple finally got their stuff together and is listening to consumers they go and do something stupid like this.
What on earth was the point of discontinuing the original HomePod just to come back out with a worse version of it for the same price?
Apple had so much potential with their HomePods and AppleTV integration, but they almost seem to be willfully hamstringing the experience.
If you’re not going to let it have an internal battery and be portable, then make it sounds really, really good. Allow pairing 4 of them to create an atmos / spatial audio compatible wireless surround sound for your TV and music.
I have the Sony HT-A9 and paid $2k for that. I would much rather have had the option to have 4 HomePods do the same thing and end up cheaper with better integration into my smartphone and Apple TV…
What on earth was the point of discontinuing the original HomePod just to come back out with a worse version of it for the same price?
Apple had so much potential with their HomePods and AppleTV integration, but they almost seem to be willfully hamstringing the experience.
If you’re not going to let it have an internal battery and be portable, then make it sounds really, really good. Allow pairing 4 of them to create an atmos / spatial audio compatible wireless surround sound for your TV and music.
I have the Sony HT-A9 and paid $2k for that. I would much rather have had the option to have 4 HomePods do the same thing and end up cheaper with better integration into my smartphone and Apple TV…
Sweet! I just purchased one. This will sound better and louder than the two HomePod minis in my bedroom linked to that Apple TV - 4K. I will use the generation one HomePods in future living room for surround sound in pending house build which will be a truly smart home unlike last 2007 home which was only smart where there was Apple, Phillips, Nanoleaf and Dyson products located.
I just use them for music in every room in the house. Period. For real music listening and movies i have a 7.3 and soon .4 and a listening room with analog record and tube amp with a pair of nice sounding bookshelf speakers. These things are really not designed for real full bodied playback. They sound awesome for little speakers though.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Since you are building, I very strongly encourage you to get in there and thoroughly wire the place instead of assuming wireless everything. I suggest multiple runs of RG6 + Cat 6-8 and maybe a few runs of optical minimum. A great rule of thumb is 2 runs of each to every AV outlet but maybe double or triple that (up to 6 runs) for where you want your main home theater. Why 2 runs? It gives you a to/from approach to a central area where the other end can all come together.
The non "hub" end can have very clean outlets that look something like this...
...with whatever jacks you would like in those 8 slots. If I was re-building my home today, I'd have one of those on EVERY wall and a few HIGH on the wall where I might hang some things that can plug into my network.
Since you are an AV fan, do some planning and run some speaker wire to everywhere you might want audio. Bring the other end either together where you might put a whole house amp OR run some of it to where you might put receivers and then get yourself some receivers with zone 2 & 3 options. One receiver can power up to 3 sets of speakers if it has zone 2 and zone 3. I use this exact thing much more than I ever thought I would.
Bring that CAT 6-8 to a single location (like a utility room or closet) where you might buy a 12, 16 or 24-port switch or two to feed wired ethernet to all of those (other) ends. An RG6 switch or two can manage all those runs of RG6. Optical may be overkill but where you are building may already have optical something... or may get it sooner or later. If it's already in the wall, you don't have to jump through enormous hoops later trying to get it in walls.
PLAN! PLAN! PLAN! For example, if you know you will want to hang TVs on walls, figure out where now and then be sure to get multiple runs to that location + power. If you want to hang some speakers on walls, be sure to get runs of ethernet and maybe speaker wires to those locations.
If you want some sound for an outside patio, plan it all out. Buried subwoofer? Get your outdoor-rated, underground wiring together for that. Only stereo speakers or maybe 2+ sets? Get your wiring together for that. Want outdoor television out there? Get wiring and power for that. If money is not there immediately to buy that sub, that TV, etc, that's OK. Just get the wiring there and then add the stuff whenever you are ready.
If you live close enough to a city to pick up over-the-air TV, plan an antenna or two (figure out where the broadcast towers are on something like antennaweb.org, then get your wiring together for that. I set up the potential for SIX runs trying to anticipate all scenarios back when RG6 was used for Antenna, Satt Dishes, FM antenna, etc. Still using a few of those for now ATSC 3.0 signals capable of 4K over the air and very clean FM for the rare times I want to listen to some radio on a main receiver.
Don't forget other "smart home" devices that can usually connect by ethernet like thermostat, appliances, door bell, video security system, garage door, pool heating area, ceiling fans, etc. Get runs to all such locations so you have the flexibility to connect via ethernet instead of leaning on limited wifi bandwidth. Be sure you think through where your mesh wifi units might go to very nicely cover all locations where you would like strong wifi signals. Get cat 6-8 to all of those locations. I'd use cat 8 for that if I was doing it. I'd also run a few runs of cat 8 to anywhere I think I would ever put my desktop computers, any NAS and also to my main home theater room.
While you'll probably have a very solid idea about where you will want to connect to some of this on day 1, other spots may not seem immediately usable. So just terminate the wire in the box behind a solid wall plate. Later, if you need to then jack in to that unused wire, change the plate and give yourself whatever kind of connection you need. Since the wire will already be in there, it will be easy to create the jack(s) for it and start using it.
One last thing: if the drywall is not up yet, consider using conduit on those walls to make it much easier to fish any new cable types to jacks out in the future. Conduit can be some PVC pipe in the wall or behind the drywall running up to the attic and/or down to a basement. In 10+ years, if there is some new wire standard that you wish was available at some of your jacks, it will be much easier to feed it through the conduit vs. trying to work behind drywall with no conduit.
I built my home about 2 decades ago and did this sort of thing. Pretty much all cabling comes to one little room and I use this home networking setup like crazy (some of which I never imagined back when I was getting all this wiring in place). The more things you can connect with wires, the less demand you put on wifi. And wiring is generally faster than "reality" (vs. theoretical) wifi speeds anyway. Yes, I have wifi 6 mesh now but even that could capitalize on the ethernet cable for WIRED backhaul for each node instead of wireless. Even all these years later, almost everything "smart" in my home can still connect to those wired connections, keeping my wifi bandwidth as close to maximum (free) at nearly all times.
Cost of such raw materials like various kind of wire (in big spools) is relatively little but you will likely find uses of it for many years to come. I cannot encourage this enough. If I was building again right now, I would be right on this very same approach again... only wiring to at least a few more spots where I have since wanted something that could use it if I had anticipated such things being there. Instead, those spots lean on wifi because getting ethernet or similar to them would be especially difficult now. In hindsight, I WISH I had just "gone nuts" with runs to every nook & cranny (even closets) to basically be ready for anything since.
The EASIEST time to do this is while a home is being built. To make it even simpler, you can buy big spools of what is called bundled cable to get the various kind of cable you will want to run everywhere cleverly wrapped in a single cable like this...
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Having had some time to think about this:
My thoughts now are that Apple has done some very strict manufacturing cost cutting measures on this device, so they can just leave it for sale as a "Better Speaker Version" and not have to worry about it as they did the original.
It does not have to get massive sales or prove itself in any way.
It can just sit there, making some sales quietly as an option for customers and that's that.
Apple can from time to time, fiddle with it very slighlty.
But there is zero pressure on Apple for the product.
It just sits there, making them a bit of money and they can just focus on other things.
My thoughts now are that Apple has done some very strict manufacturing cost cutting measures on this device, so they can just leave it for sale as a "Better Speaker Version" and not have to worry about it as they did the original.
It does not have to get massive sales or prove itself in any way.
It can just sit there, making some sales quietly as an option for customers and that's that.
Apple can from time to time, fiddle with it very slighlty.
But there is zero pressure on Apple for the product.
It just sits there, making them a bit of money and they can just focus on other things.
If the older cheaper Homepod (still supported) sounds better, why would you buy the new one over this? I mean the most important aspect of any speaker should be the sound quality, right?
If it's lifetime of software support, this is a flaw that would prevent me from buying any of these to be honest. Hate buying expensivew hardware, who's primary purpose is not from the chip inside (such as a TV or speaker) and then it being made obsolete becuase the chip inside is not longer supported (even though the hardware works as well as the day you bought it). I have a good pair of book shelf speakers I've had for 14 years now, still sound good. If they'd have been smart ones, they probably wouldn't work any more. I think this is the reason the original Homepod didn't take off, people spending this amount on audio don't want something which will be limited by software support (as decent as that can be, from Apple).
If it's lifetime of software support, this is a flaw that would prevent me from buying any of these to be honest. Hate buying expensivew hardware, who's primary purpose is not from the chip inside (such as a TV or speaker) and then it being made obsolete becuase the chip inside is not longer supported (even though the hardware works as well as the day you bought it). I have a good pair of book shelf speakers I've had for 14 years now, still sound good. If they'd have been smart ones, they probably wouldn't work any more. I think this is the reason the original Homepod didn't take off, people spending this amount on audio don't want something which will be limited by software support (as decent as that can be, from Apple).
Your post reminded me the house my son is now living in for two years was built as a “smart home”. He had to take a leap of faith into the future as to the way they were going to use the rooms, but at the time they worked with the builder chose what they wanted.
Some things in your list above they didn’t care about like OTA antenna. But virtually the entire house is wired up and can be controlled from their phone.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I can't encourage that OP- or anyone else building a home- enough. While the home is a skeleton (no drywall) but under roof, get in there with bundled cable and run it EVERYWHERE. Anticipate as many possibilities as one can and get the kind of wire that might be needed for those possibilities to wherever it needs to be. It's so easy to insert AV and Ethernet network "arteries" BEFORE everything is sealed up behind drywall or similar. It's much harder to do it AFTER. And the cost is so little for the materials.
My electronic "cardio" backbone in my home is about 20 years old now, leaning heavily on increasingly dated cat 5e (best at the time) + RG6, but ready for optical if it will ever come one last mile into the neighborhood. I am very happy I had the foresight to "load" up this house with all of that and wish I would have "gone nuts" (or nuttier) with even more runs than I did. Bringing one end of all of those connections to a single room means it's easy to connect anything to anything else with just some switching around of cable connections. Make sure each bundle is clearly labeled so you know which wires connect with which outlet and it's very easy to manage. My network "hub" room is basically a part of a pantry space. Generally, I can leave it alone but I have the flexibility to get in there and switch connections when something calls for it.
I strongly encourage anyone building a home to build in bundled cables like you build in electric wire runs and plumbing. Think of it as essential and get it everywhere you can. It is so useful to be able to take advantage of wired infrastructure vs. having to keep piling more and more stuff on hard-capped wifi bandwidth. Certain kinds of devices are absolutely going to eat up wifi bandwidth. There's only so much bandwidth to go around. Anything that can be wired relieves its load from that pie. It nearly everything can tap into existing wired connections, there is plenty of pie for the things that MUST use wifi.
Personally, I mostly got it pretty right but I have since had a few spots where I wish I had easy access but did not anticipate ever needing anything there. If I could go back and redo, I'd just assume I might need something on every wall sooner or later and get a run to those spots too. In general, we do that now when installing electric wire and outlets (on every wall). Why not AV + network too?
If OP or others heed this advice, I'm certain they will be very glad they did. Those who think "I'll just use wifi" will likely be disappointed at wifi congestion when too much stuff is making wifi demands at the same time. What's Nike's long term catch phrase???
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I can theorize that 4 optimized tweeters can do the job of the original 6 (possibly better), same for the microphones - perhaps having too many is not inherently better, but I cannot wrap my head around the downgrade to wifi 4 when Apple should have moved up to wifi 6/6E.
It cannot be that much in terms of savings, unless Apple/their suppliers are sitting on piles of wifi 4 cards getting thrown in at no cost - it would be too good a deal to pass on, regardless that it's dead tech.
It cannot be that much in terms of savings, unless Apple/their suppliers are sitting on piles of wifi 4 cards getting thrown in at no cost - it would be too good a deal to pass on, regardless that it's dead tech.
Good advice. We recently had our house remodeled and sheet rock was replaced in most rooms. I thought about wiring up the house and said, nah. My house has basic cable and telephone wiring and I’m happy with that. To each their own. One thing my son got is usb-a on virtually every outlet. That to me is useful.
Anyway fun diversion but a bit /ot.
Apple DID reduce the price to $299 at the last 2 qtrs of the OG HomePod.
Serious Questions:
WHY on earth is Apple using an S7 chip?
And by doing so, WHY did we drop from WiFi 5 (802.11AC) to Wi-Fi 4 connectivity (802.11n)??!?!! Grrrr!
Don’t really understand the response. Of course it’s good if Apple introduce new models, particularly if they constitute improvements! The problems I see with the new HomePod is that there are issues with the original that made it less popular than it could have been, and Apple didn’t choose to remedy these. At all.
The design is lower cost to Apple, but the issues with connectivity, focus on Siri as means of control, and of course price point remain. With lack of compatibility with the previous model adding insult to injury.
This is, IMHO, bad.
Because there is some nice and interesting audio engineering going into these speakers. But $600+import+sales taxes is too rich for testing a couple of speakers that are pointlessly hamstrung.
Did I read that right? New HomePod is Wifi 4 (802.11n) vs old HomePod at wifi 5 (802.11ac)?
Backwards?
Backwards?
No, more expensive. Less tweeters, lower spec WiFi. Interested in hearing reviews of people who have spent time with them and "listened" to the new ones over the old.
How? For the same price (inflation has skyroceted since the original release) it has less components and lower spec'd networking. That makes it less value.
Worse sound is definitely a no for me. I dont see any reason to upgrade if you also have homepod minis which add the extra features of this new version.