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Short Summary
Main recommendation: The HomePod mini is worth buying if you are deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem and care about sound quality in a small speaker, but not if you want the best deal, the widest smart home compatibility, or the best assistant. Its strengths come from seamless integration with Apple Music, iPhone, and other Apple devices, plus sound that is notably better than comparable small speakers.
Key Points
- The design is compact and unobtrusive at about three inches tall with a mesh fabric body, though the black model's plastic top shows fingerprints and the attached braided cable with a USB-C end can be awkward to route behind furniture.
- Siri handles timers, facts, jokes, news, weather, and messaging, but the speaker's value rises sharply as you use more Apple services such as Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Apple Maps, Notes, and the Calendar.
- The "beam" feature, which uses the U1 chip in newer iPhones, moves music between your iPhone and the speaker by touching them together, and it works quickly once you find the right spot.
- Multi-room audio is easy with Apple Music, including stereo pairs and playing the same song everywhere, and Pandora is also supported for beaming and multi-speaker features, with a bit more delay, around a second and a half.
- Sound quality is the speaker's standout strength for its size, with good bass, clarity at higher volumes, and roughly even audio from every direction, which the reviewer says beats the Google Home Mini and Alexa Dot.
- Smart home compatibility is weaker than competitors: Amazon Alexa has roughly a hundred thousand skills and the widest compatibility, Google Home ranks second, and Apple HomeKit ranks a distant third.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: To beam music, touch your iPhone to the front or back of the HomePod in the right spot until it transfers, and touch the speaker to pull the music back to the phone. To create a stereo pair or play everywhere, use the iPhone drop-down controls with Apple Music, or say "Hey Siri, play this everywhere." To send a family-wide message, say "Hey Siri, Intercom," followed by your message, which lights up everyone's Apple Watches, iPhones, and other HomePods. To get started with a smart home, buy HomeKit-enabled accessories and build from there. For the black model, choose white if you want to avoid visible fingerprints on the top.
- Spotify support is not available at launch; the reviewer says it may come later and depends on Spotify.
- Apple TV integration with one or a pair of HomePod minis for Dolby Atmos sound was described as coming later in the year.
- Google Home is recommended as a cheaper way to start with multiple rooms, since three Google Home Minis cost about the same as one HomePod mini.
- Alexa Dot is roughly the same price or less, and you could get a pricier one that's dramatically more compatible with smart home devices to start.
- The reviewer recommends Google or Amazon if you want a better voice assistant than Siri.
Bottom Line
The HomePod mini is a strong choice for someone already committed to Apple devices who values sound quality in a compact speaker, but it is a weaker value and less compatible option for building a general smart home.
