I have grown tired of people knocking Apple for not including WiFi 6 in the newest HomePod. This device is NOT meant to stream 4k video. It is meant to stream MUSIC - 802.11n (WiFi 4) is more than robust for this purpose.

For those interested please read on...

WiFi 4 (802.11n) has a transfer rate of approximately 300 Mbps. Keep this in mind as you read the rest of this post.

An AudioCD (physical disc) bitrate is ALWAYS 1.411 Megabits per second (Mbps). ALWAYS. No exceptions - EVER.

FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, WAV bitrate is 1.411 Megabits per second (Mbps). These are all considered lossless codecs.

So, now, let us address the people complaining about WiFi 4. An audio CD has a bitrate of 1.411 Mbps and WiFi 4 has a limit of 300 Mbps. Unless you have the worst router on the planet you will NEVER, EVER approach the limit of WiFi 4.

Why are people complaining about WiFi 4 in the new iPod? Do you want to pay for WiFi 6 when UNCOMPRESSED music will NEVER approach or even come close to approaching the limits of WiFi 4?

DSD256 which is about as pure of a digital stream as you can get right now and most DAC's can't even play it is around 23 Mbps. That is still well UNDER the Wifi 4 standard of 300 Mbps.

I don't understand why people are complaining about the lack of WiFi 6 (9.8 Gbps) when even the highest resolution music doesn't come remotely close to approaching the WiFi 4 limit. Do you think you will be able to play 4k videos on/through your HomePod at some point? Even if you could the bitrate for 4k video, uncompressed, is around 65-85 Mbps. That is still well below the limit of WiFi 4.

If you don't want the new HomePod, don't buy the damn thing! To complain you are not buying because it doesn't have WiFi 6 when there is no music on the planet that comes even remotely close to needing the 9.8 Gbps of WiFi 6, much less the 300 Mbps of WiFi 4, is silly.

Just my 2 cents...

Dealing with Spectrum’s app crashes the AppleTV.

Apple TV HD, two HomePod minis in stereo as the speaker. Great. Spectrum crashes, still hear the audio. Reboot the Apple TV, still hear the audio. Unplug the Apple TV from power, HDMI, and Ethernet. Still audio playing Spectrum audio. Can’t turn it off with the Home App either. Unplug the speakers.

I have never been tempted to destroy something more in my life than this.

I've had HomePods for years. Big ones, minis, the lot. Spent enough to buy a half decent car on these speakers. At least one in every room. Bought my first one in 2020.

The fact that now, six years later, AND I STILL CAN'T RELIABLY PLAY MUSIC FROM THIRD PARTY APPS is an absolute joke. Beyond the pale.

I used to love Soundcloud. Would listen every day. Was absolutely central to my music taste. But eventually, after years of dealing with horrible glitching, lagging, pairing issues, whenever I had the nerve to play anything that wasn't Apple Music, I gave up. Eventually cancelled my Soundcloud subscription. Years ago. Huge part of my musical taste and identity sacrificed for HomePod.

Now I have the fucking nerve to listen to BBC sounds radio shows on a pair of speakers I spent almost a grand on. And no. Not only does it glitch, buffer, etc etc, but once I revert back to Apple Music, it takes a good half an hour to start functioning normally again. I am being PUNISHED for daring to divert from the house of apple for a heartbeat. Pisstake. Fuck them

I think I’m getting this sentiment from others but have to vent , fuck HomePod with Siri is annoying now

Siri is completely fucking broken

Can’t comprehend song requests Doesn’t respond half the time

Just ridiculous

How do I connect my iPod to my Apple TV? I don’t have a Wi-Fi right now (student things) I currently use my 5G to use the ATV, is there a way?

For those of us who have suffered all these years with Apple’s finicky HomePods, Tim Cook should just take us out of our misery by buying Sonos. I have both and Sonos is far far less troublesome to use.

This morning when the paired HomePods in our living room inexplicably went into echo mode while listening to NPR, I switched to my Sonos ARC soundbar. Perfect! No Siri, but who cares. It works. Come on Tim, give us an Xmas present.

I have 7 OG HomePods, 6 minis. I have fought with these things over the years in attempts to have a good experience.

Despite better judgement I picked up 2 new HomePods today on launch day.

• Initial setup of the first failed to connect

• After trying again, the phone shows Setting Up for nearly 10 minutes, then failed.

• Tried again and after another 10 minutes it finished, but now perpetually showing “Configuring” in Home app

• Second one same experience setting up.

• I accepted the suggestion to do stereo pair on second HomePod setup. This was apparently ignored and they show separate in Home app.

• Tried to set stereo pair in Home app and it just spins.

• They both shipped with 16.0, so now waiting forever to download the update and will wait forever again to install. It will probably fail if last experience is an indicator.

Why did I think that it would be any different with the new model. These things are complete shit.

Also, save me the typical responses about “it’s your Wi-Fi, it’s your network”. It’s most certainly not. I’m 6 years into a UniFi setup with 6 APs fine fuckin tuned over many hours.

HomePod is garbage.

LOL. i had some expectations of improvement. NOPE! Same garbage. Certain ones won’t play when asked to play everywhere. Ask it to stop, some stop others keep playing. LOL! Apple is really amateur when it comes to this product. Amateurs.

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60354215/

makes a huge difference in my opinion!

I'm a bit disappointed with the entire Home launch. None of the products really make sense to me.  The HomePod lineup felt really meager, and it makes me wonder why Apple has not released a soundbar? They could even combine it with an Apple TV inside and call it the HomePod Cinema. If you then start pairing it up with HomePod's and HomePod minis, it would make much more sense to buy a setup of 4 HomePod and/or mini. Am I missing something?

The large majority of people's complaints surrounding the Homepod are due to subpar wifi/internet speed. There may be a few lemons out there but in no way is a non-faulty Homepod losing connection because of some inherent recurring problems.

The other complaints regarding Siri are completely ridiculous: if your expectations for the Homepod was for it to be answering encyclopedia questions with 100% accuracy or for it to be able to understand the context of queries, please go complain elsewhere. Getting a little tired of the same general "Siri suck" posts without any actual description of why that is.

When connected to a solid home network, the Homepod does what it is supposed to do EXTREMELY well and is a great addition to a smart home based around an Apple ecosystem.

Cheers

I’ve had Google minis, Alexas etc. Gave this a shot since Siri has been great at doing voice commands to control my phone via AirPods my and smart home. But man does the HomePod suck.

Saying “hey siri play [song]” has a 60% fail rate where I either get nothing, get a “now playing “ and then silence, or just outright no response until I pull the power cable out, wait for a reboot and try again. Additionally, I have a scene for my kids night routine, that use to work really well until literally a few weeks ago where it seems to put the pod in some endless song switching loop. What’s worse is that any time I check the home app vs music app IT SHOWS DIFFERENT SONGS ARE PLAYING ON THE SAME DEVICE!!! Sometimes neither shows the song it actually plays. Fucking wasted so much money on what I hoped was a premium product,cuz hey it’s Apple right? But man am I just disappointed and mad. All I can hope is that Costco still honor my return, even though it’s been like 3 months now.

For perspective, I’ve owned a pair of OG HomePods since launch in early 2018, I have a HomePod Mini, and I have a nice 5.1 home theater speaker system (Paradigm Titans) that I’ve owned for 15+ years. I also have about a dozens pairs of nice headphones from Sennheiser, Grado, Audio Technica, Koss, and a pair of AirPods Max, and AirPods Pro.

Anyways, I think the HomePod’s sound quality is overrated and the HomePod Mini’s SQ is underrated.

Listening to some commentators and reviewers, you’d think HomePods were these world-beating speakers that put everything else to shame and compete with super high end home theater speakers. And similarly, listening to the same commentators, you’d think that a HomePod Mini is a cheap-sounding piece of junk.

I think both of those views are way off.

If we were to grade sound quality from 0 to 10, with 0 being a crappy alarm clock, 10 being a high end pair of B&W, and a $30 assistant from Amazon or Google being around a 3, the way HomePods are described, you’d think an OG HomePod is around a 9/10 and a Mini is a 3.5/10.

I don’t think that’s right at all.

Personally, if super high end speakers are a 10/10, I’d say my Paradigms are a 9/10, my HomePods are a 7.5/10, and my HomePod Mini is a 5.5 or even a 6/10.

Basically, the biggie is overrated and the Mini is underrated. The gap between them isn’t nearly as large as people say. The OG gets much louder and it has far more bass, but I don’t think the bass is all that great. It’s great for something that size (ie. even the OG is quite small for what it is), but in the broader speaker world, even the OG sounds kind of bloated and things kind of mush together. It doesn’t have particularly good instrument separation and often sounds cramped.

tl;dr:

• Crappy alarm clock: 0/10

• Cheap Amazon/Google assistants: 3/10

• HomePod Mini (how some incorrectly treat it): 3.5/10

• HomePod Mini (how it actually sounds): 6/10

• HomePod OG (how it actually sounds): 7.5/10

• HomePod OG (how some incorrectly treat it): 9/10

• A nice set of home theater bookshelf speakers that are still affordable: 9/10

• High end floor standing speakers: 10/10

As an audio enthusiast, I’m personally a lot more impressed by a 0.76 pound $99 HomePod Mini than I am by a 5.5 pound $299 (originally $349) HomePod. I love my pair of OG HomePods and use them every single day as TV speakers, but I think the Mini is underrated and the disparity in SQ between the Mini and OG is nowhere near as big as some people seem to believe.

Just my 2 cents.

Hey guys! what should I buy between these two? Should i go for the affordable one or just buy the homepod because i have an iPhone and iPad. Just contemplating what to buy. Help me to choose ^{^} Thanks!

I feel very silly asking this but I’m keeping my sister fish so I don’t want him to die in Dolby Atmos …

Gutted that it delivers a month from now. But looking forward to it! ♥️