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Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

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Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#141

Post by joshstrange »

This is a pretty lackluster "update" for a product that had a number of issues. Not to mention a press release doesn't fill me with confidence that Apple even believes in this product line (if that wasn't obvious when they pulled the HomePod 1). I'm a hardcore apple fanboy and I just can't justify the HomePods. I want to like them but Siri is useful for setting timers, asking the time/weather, and... that's about all I trust it for.

I have near-zero interest in HomeKit (too limited, too locked in, I don't want wifi smart devices) and so while I have hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of smart devices in my house (Z-wave with a few zigbee, all run by HomeAssistant) I can't even use HomePod device to control my lights/etc. Yes, I know about HomeBridge and HA's HomeKit integration, every time I've tried this it's fallen over after a month or less and you have to set it all up from scratch again, the Home app drives me batty, it's so bad.

Maybe Matter will improve things (not holding my breath) but for now I'll stick with my Echo's. They do a decent job of controlling my smart house, are way cheaper, and integrate perfectly with HA. If Siri would actually talk directly to HA then I'd probably switch. It's really not a money thing, it's a reliability thing.

EDIT: After reading some more comments (and from things I've read online or heard on podcasts) I have no doubt the audio quality is amazing. My issue is that I just don't really care about feature as much. I have my AirPods Pro in 90%+ of the time I listen to anything and the other <10% is when I'm in the shower and use a Sonos Roam or in my car. My #1 use case for a "smart speaker" is smart home control followed closely by setting reminders/timers. Siri does great with timers/reminders, smart home (or rather MY smart home), not so much.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#142

Post by gnicholas »

Is this supposed to sound better than the original version? I bought two of them on sale one time (for like $250 each?) and planned to use them as a stereo pair. But when I tested them against the (very old) Bose Wave Radio that we were previously using, it wasn't clear that they were any better. They certainly weren't $500 better, so I returned them.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#143

Post by CameronBanga »

trafnar wrote: post #111
emsy wrote: post #107

The HomePod is the worst Apple product I’ve ever owned, especially for what it’s supposed to do. I need to restart it every few days to even be able to connect to it and playing music with Siri stopped working a few months ago. It also mixes up HomeKit devices that don’t sound similar at all.

I use mine all the time and haven’t had these issues. Just the occasional Siri misunderstanding. My family loves it for playing music and a few other simple tasks like timers.

Echo this - I have 5 of these OG HomePods across two different places, and they've always "just worked" for me. Great multi-room audio, fantastic sound, and good for tasks like timers.

The biggest critique I have is that after relatively major OS updates, it may take a day or two it seems for them to get "in sync" and have stuff like multi-room audio work without funky issues.

Mostly happy about this announcement because if one of my HomePods break, I can get another one without risking a random eBay purchase.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#144

Post by dmitriid »

eddieroger wrote: post #27
dustedcodes wrote: post #7

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 have a mixed Google/Apple smart home environment. I don't know how fast Nest was before, but I find it slow-but-not-unusable nowadays, still useful enough that I wish Apple would introduce a HomePod with a screen. That said, I also wish Google would finally kill Nest and just go forward with Google Home, since it's a pain to have to remember which one configures some of my devices and which does the rest. Apple nee…

> Apple needs hardware partners to more deeply invest in HomeKit

I think Apple themselves need to invest in it more. It's so basic as to be almost unusable.

I have a supercomputer in the form of Apple TV just idling there, and the best HomeKit can barely do is perhaps turn lights on at a certain time, and then complain that it couldn't reach Apple TV.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#145

Post by joshstrange »

plusminusplus wrote: post #110
deanc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're stuck with handoff or airplay.

You can't link Spotify to it? What does the voice assistant on a speaker do if not "Siri play Shooting Star by Bag Raiders"? Surely you can link Apple Music?

I'm like 90% sure that's on Spotify. Apple opened up APIs to do this and Spotify refused to do it because... reasons.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#146

Post by colordrops »

yowzadave wrote: post #130

HomePod is the most annoying piece of technology that I still frequently use. I was an early buyer of the first version, but this update doesn't address any of the complaints that I have about it: 1. No audio line-in! It's a $300 speaker, it sounds great...sometimes I'd like to be able to just plug something into it. If you have a record player, you have to have a separate set of speakers for it, because this thing w…

Any privacy benefits from Apple are mostly nominal. They are a giant corporation beholden to shareholders, that sells ads and collects user information, and works with the government providing said data. They may have marginally better policies but they are still in the same ballpark with Google rather than true privacy products that don't connect to the cloud or self-hosted.

Edit: for those downvoting, don't fall for the marketing hype. This isn't a conspiracy - the evidence is out in the open.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#147

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

perardi wrote: post #87
jsjohnst wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buy $299 or something that has artificial stupidity like Siri? Well, in fairness, it’s designed first as a music device, the Siri seems like almost an afterthought. That said, Spend $299 on a wireless speaker where the stereo pairing often fails, has random Wi-Fi connection issues (that no other Apple device has), and is otherwise hindered by issues? Nah, fooled me on the first gen, fooled me again on the HomePod m…

That what confuses me about the market fit here. It’s not an amazing voice assistant. It’s OK as a wireless speaker, but Sonos is almost assuredly better, and similar aesthetics and ease of use. So this is targeting…uh?

It is targeting Apple customers, who use the ecosystem.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#148

Post by ezfe »

yowzadave wrote: post #130

HomePod is the most annoying piece of technology that I still frequently use. I was an early buyer of the first version, but this update doesn't address any of the complaints that I have about it: 1. No audio line-in! It's a $300 speaker, it sounds great...sometimes I'd like to be able to just plug something into it. If you have a record player, you have to have a separate set of speakers for it, because this thing w…

>3. Siri tries (and frequently fails) to identify me and my wife by our voice, and then won't do things (like turn off the music, find our iPhone, etc.) because she can't figure out who we are.

I've never had this issue in my household. Have you tried re-training it?

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#149

Post by shapefrog »

kawsper wrote: post #60
shapefrog wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Matter might be the thing you've been waiting for. I only have 3 light switches in my apartment, but I made sure they had Matter support.

Matter is certainly taking its time coming into existence!

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#150

Post by rsynnott »

jen20 wrote: post #102
agloeregrets wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like Apple executed the way Google should have with their Google Home Max Google properly executing on Google TV would require them to not build hardware with 1/12th the single core performance of an Apple TV. (Seriously, it has single core performance around that of a 2011 Intel Atom while the Apple TV has an A15 throwing 12th gen Intel laptop numbers. https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/19594628 ) Seriousl…

To be fair, google extend this to software on the Apple TV too - the YouTube and YouTube TV apps are both complete trash that don’t respond to scrolling properly because they’ve been built using some cross platform garbage instead of for the target platform. HBO Max is another offender.

Worth noting that Google has gone to extra effort here to make YouTube bad on AppleTV; their original first-party AppleTV app was actually significantly better.
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