The HomePod mini is now irrelevant — here’s why

The HomePod mini is at present irrelevant — hither's why

(Image credit: Apple tree)

This by week, Apple provided all the same one more reason non to get its smart speakers. That's considering now you can stream Apple tree Music not just through Alexa speakers, but Nest speakers likewise. Unless you lot're actually wedded to Apple's ecosystem or smart home platform, there's no reason to buy a HomePod or the new HomePod mini.

Don't get me wrong — Apple's HomePod and HomePod mini sound great, merely neither would exist my first option for a smart speaker. That'due south because a smart speaker's value is half audio quality and half smarts, and Apple's products are lacking in the latter.

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Let'due south first with option. With Apple, yous're limited to but two devices: The $99 HomePod Mini and the $299 HomePod. Amazon, by contrast, has the new Echo Dot ($l), the Echo Dot with Clock, the Echo Show 5 ($45), the Echo Show 8 ($79), the Echo ($99), the Repeat Show ($149) and the new Echo Show 10 ($249) — not to mention the Repeat Auto, the 3rd-generation Repeat Dot, and Echo Flex.

While not as numerous, Google also has more options than Apple too, including the Nest Mini ($50), the Nest Sound ($99), Nest Hub ($89), Nest Hub Max ($229), and the Google Abode Max ($179).

My go-to smart speaker is the $149 Sonos One, which has proven to exist the all-time when it comes to audio (and which tin can exist used with either Alexa or Google Banana).

Adjacent, there's streaming music services. On a HomePod or HomePod mini, you can cull from Apple Music, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and Pandora, but that's information technology. Alexa and Google/Nest smart speakers don't offer a lot more, but they both have Spotify. And the Sonos One has hundreds of services.

Then nosotros have smart dwelling house smarts. Here, Apple's smart speakers have an advantage over Google in that yous can create more sophisticated smart home routines, merely fall brusk of Alexa in terms of how you lot can command your smart habitation gadgets, such as lights and locks.

After that, though, the HomePod's skills fall behind the others. When it launched the HomePod mini, Apple touted its intercom feature, which lets you lot broadcast a bulletin to other HomePods or Apple tree devices. However, all you're doing is sending a pre-recorded message. Alexa and Google devices, by comparison, let you lot have total-fledged conversations.

Both Google and Amazon have far more robust parental controls, too. Although I'g loath to give my child a smart speaker in her room, if I were, I'd have much greater command over what she listens to if it were an Alexa speaker.

Perhaps the only unique feature of the HomePod and HomePod Mini is that you tin start playing music on your telephone, and so only tap your phone on the speaker to transfer the music. It'south a cool feature, but information technology's ane I've rarely used. Information technology'due south far easier to only tell Siri to start playing something rather than walking across a room.

The fact that Apple is assuasive its music streaming service on other devices is perhaps a tacit admission that it's not going to dominate the smart speaker market the mode information technology has with smartphones and tablets. Simply the company has now given away the all-time reason to purchase a HomePod or HomePod Mini to the competition.

Michael A. Prospero is the deputy editor at Tom's Guide overseeing the home, smart home, drones, and fitness/wearables categories, as well as all buying guides and other evergreen content. When he's not testing out the latest running watch, skiing or training for a marathon, he's probably using the latest sous vide machine or some other cooking gadget.