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Apple’s HomePod has stood alone as the only smart speaker in the Cupertino company’s lineup for more than two years. So it’s no wonder that as smart speakers grow in popularity, Apple is introducing a smaller, cheaper version in the form of the HomePod mini.
Revealed as part of the iPhone 12 announcement, the HomePod Mini is unsurprisingly a smaller, less expensive version of its older brother. But it’s more than a scaled-down HomePod, with a few features of its own that could really appeal to Apple fans. Read on for a breakdown of how the HomePod mini compares to the original HomePod.
HomePod mini vs HomePod: price and availability
The HomePod mini also comes with a mini price tag, at least compared to the HomePod. At $ 99 it’s a third of the price of the $ 299 HomePod. That price puts the HomePod mini in the ballpark of Google’s new Nest Audio, as well as the 2020 Amazon Echo Dot speaker, which also has a spherical design like the HomePod mini.
What’s interesting here is that a cheaper HomePod is another entry to what appears to be a growing range of affordable but capable Apple devices. After all, this year has seen the 2020 iPhone SE with its diminutive but powerful A13 Bionic design and the Apple Watch SE, which may not have the feature set of the Apple Watch 6, but is still a very capable smartwatch. Combined, you could have a suite of Apple smart devices for less than an iPhone 12 Pro.
The Apple HomePod is currently available; The HomePod Mini will go on sale starting November 16.
HomePod mini vs HomePod: Design
At 3.3 inches tall, the HomePod mini is less than half the size of the 6.8-inch tall HomePod. It’s also significantly smaller overall, which probably makes it a device that will sit well on a small desk, rather than needing a sizeable shelf like the HomePod.
And while the original HomePod looks a bit like the cross between a Sonos One speaker and the high-end junk look of the old Mac Pro, the HomePod mini has a design that’s more in line with Google’s smart home products. and Amazon.
Looking a bit like a cloth-covered Magic 8 Ball, and in some ways like an Echo speaker upside down, the HomePod mini has a pretty neat and clean aesthetic.
The small touchscreen on top of the HomePod mini and the design and color (white or space gray) of its fabric cover echo some of the design cues of the original HomePod. But otherwise, the two speakers look quite different.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so which speaker tickles your interior design glands will be a matter of personal taste.
HomePod mini vs HomePod: sound
With a single full-range driver and dual passive radiators, as well as two tweeters, the HomePod mini has less physical audio technology than the original HomePod, with its custom-amplified high-excursion woofer and seven tweeters.
But for its size, the HomePod mini still packs enough power to fill a room with sound, according to Apple. And its design means it offers 360-degree sound that could give it a bit of an edge over other small smart speakers like the Sonos One.
We haven’t heard the HomePod mini in action, so we don’t know how it compares to the original HomePod, which offers fantastic hi-fi sound for a smart speaker, although it can be a bit noisy for a small room at times. If Apple manages to bring some of the HomePod’s audio strengths to the HomePod mini, then we might be looking at a small smart speaker that punches well above its weight.
HomePod mini vs HomePod: features
With its ability to set your sound output in the room you are in using its audio beamforming technology, the HomePod has quite a cool feature to ensure you get the best sound regardless of when you place it.
Given its size, the HomePod mini doesn’t have that beamforming technology. But it has Apple’s S5 chip which allows it to use computational audio to better balance the sound output at different volumes. We will have to wait and see how well this works in practice.
Similarly, the original HomePod has a six-microphone array to receive commands that bark at Siri. While the HomePod mini has four microphones, we suspect that won’t make much of a difference in practice.
Both speakers support a variety of streaming services from Apple Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Prime Music, and others. Spotify is still missing from the mix, which is disappointing. But on the software side, the HomePod and its mini brother should be on par.
The HomePod is set to get Dolby Atmos support for use with Apple TV 4K, giving the Bug speaker a new home theater feature. But that is likely to attract a reasonable niche audience.
One feature that the HomePod mini has over its big brother is the ability to transfer the music played on your iPhones to the HomePod without relying on Bluetooth pairing. It also works the other way around, meaning when you go out you can swipe your iPhone over the HomePod mini and the audio playback will be picked up by the Apple phone. We can see that this feature really appeals to iPhone users.
HomePod mini vs HomePod: Outlook
Without being able to compare the HomePod and HomePod mini side by side, we can’t say if there will be a huge gap in audio quality, at least on a room scale. But at $ 99, the HomePod mini feels more like a device that iPhone users will enjoy, as it doesn’t require the level of investment that the larger HomePod requires.
Audio enthusiasts may still prefer the original HomePod. But even then, the HomePod mini could be Apple’s second-bedroom smart speaker. And with the transfer function, we can see that the HomePod mini is perfectly suited to an Apple-centric smart home setup.
But given its sleek design, price, and what looks like pretty solid audio tech, we expect the HomePod mini to be a lot more successful than Apple’s old smart speaker.
