51–60 of 302 posts
I would love to hear the inside story about why the old one was discontinued and it took so long for the v2. The HomePod mini is the "first device" we have given to our children. No screen, I am comfortable with apple privacy, access to music and podcasts, etc. The mini has shockingly good sound for $100 and what it is.
Just a guess, but matter compatibility probably caused some slow down. That spec was still in a minor flux until last year.
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…
I live with my partner and I’m debating whether a homepod or two minis is the correct choice for our 3 room apartment. Seems cool you can have a mini in each room and just walk around and there’s music all over. But also seems a bit like a hastle having to link/unlink them depending whos where. My airpods already give me enough trouble connecting to my comp/ipad/iphone. 1 regular homepod might just be the simpler, be…
Just read through the page and couldn't figure out what's new. I was expecting much more from a new version.
Is it time to complain about Siri again? Sure is! I am an old-school Apple fanboy. I learned HyperCard on a Macintosh SE/30—I am that old. I still appreciate the Apple ecosystem, and I do like certain aspects of my HomePod mini…but Siri. C’mon. Get it together. It just fails at the absolute basics. https://imgur.com/q0H788Y The basics being: please add stuff to my shopping list when I yell it into the aether while in…
Why on earth would you play some unknown version over the popular original?
Oh also ... what's the "next song pls" command in German? With Alexa I can say "Alexa, weiter" and the next track plays. With Siri? "Weiter" won't do anything. I have to say "Hey Siri, nächstes Lied" ... or I can just switch to English and say "Hey Siri, next" which then works.
Oh another one: The German Siri pronouncing English song titles with the German voice-set makes my ears hurt. Like you would read an English word but pronounce it like you would a German word.
But then again some Band/Song Titles she gets perfectly right. Cannibal Corpse sounds like perfect English.
Those AI assistants are a hot mess and get worse with time. Seems like feeding more and more data into your model won't make it better.
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…
On a side note, I still have my old Apple Hifi and it continues to sounds great. I use it as computer speaker via optical audio.
I also have a pair of Sonos Ones and a Sonos Move. I am fairly underwhelmed by the Sonos One sound quality, but the Move sounds great and is very convenient as a portable speaker.
tbh find the full size a bit expensive for my personal needs - more interested in the mini (still overpriced). Certainly makes the mini a more compelling option however if they add more functionality. "Apple's HomePod mini includes a dormant hidden sensor that can measure temperature and humidity, potentially providing the means to power upcoming features that could arrive in a future software update, according to Bl…
according to this page the mini (current model) will have it activated I suspect when the Homepod 2 comes out.
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…
I played with a cheap wifi camera vs an actual wired (network) cctv camera. The difference is night and day, even just viewing the stream in VLC. Speed, stability etc. "Consumer" stuff just feels underpowered and little more than a toy. I hope matter brings a better landscape for all this stuff - but then I have been sitting on my hands waiting for years as the next version of everything is just 12 months away.
I only have 3 light switches in my apartment, but I made sure they had Matter support.