21–30 of 302 posts
The last HomePods sounded great, but it’s hard for me to imagine them taking off without fixing Siri. Siri is still remarkably dumb compared to Alexa and certainly when compared to GPT3.5 tools. If you ask Siri “What is 220°C in F” it will correctly hear the words you’re saying, then convert 220F to C. Because of this, I never use Siri outside of contexts I’m sure Apple has tested thoroughly (e.g. read my last text).
I love my OG HomePods that I got on close-out at Best Buy, but both of them have given me near constant connection issues over the last few months -- excited to have something to replace them with. I much prefer the appearance of the Big HomePod over the (not-really) equivalent Sonos One.
In our house we have Google's home speakers and the original Nest cameras and also some new cameras which only work with the Google home app and over the years I could see a gradual decline in reliability, functionality and just in general a decline in the usefulness of those things. The camera feed is so slow since Google took over Nest, it barely works with the Google home app and keeps cutting out, doesn't load at…
My Nest Hub Max will only show the camera in the old Nest app while it never loads in the Google Home app.
I'm thinking I may have to try something else in the near future.
Worth noting: - We lost two tweeters (7 down to 5) - We lost two mics (6 down to 4) Really curious how the sound compares to the original.
Amazon and Google have the "works with Amazon/Google" so you can buy any brand of hardware (smart plugs for ex) and control them all with one device.
In our house we have Google's home speakers and the original Nest cameras and also some new cameras which only work with the Google home app and over the years I could see a gradual decline in reliability, functionality and just in general a decline in the usefulness of those things. The camera feed is so slow since Google took over Nest, it barely works with the Google home app and keeps cutting out, doesn't load at…
Apple needs hardware partners to more deeply invest in HomeKit, particularly in the camera space. It's coming along but still feels behind. A compatible camera (or one bridged to HomeKit) will show up on the AppleTV pretty quickly. The official HomeKit devices I have work consistently and well, and the ones I bridge in with HomeBridge work most of the time without intervention. It is super cool to ask Siri to open the garage door when I'm walking the dog and it's cold out. I would say it's viable, if not improving all the time.
Seems like Apple executed the way Google should have with their Google Home Max. They've added stereo pairing, so you can have two of them sync up together and then connect them to an Apple TV 4k and you basically get a pretty nice wireless sound bar with Dolby Atmos enabled. Still, at $300 per pod, I really need Siri to do better than the "dumber than a bag of rocks" vibe she currently gives off for this to be at al…
All that being said, it doesn’t need to be either or. They could have a great Siri product for those who want it, and allow it to be deactivated for those who don’t.
been very happy with my homepod mini - doesn't seem like there's many additional features in the larger size one (except for higher sound levels?)
Is it too much to ask to say “Siri turn off all lights except kitchen island” and expect it to do it? No matter how many times I have reconfigured things in the Home app it just can’t do it I have to ask it to turn off all lights then turn on the kitchen island :facepalm: