Apple HomePod

ECO_Mental

https://www.cnet.com/news/apples-new-homepod-smart-speaker-brings-siri-home/ Apple’s new HomePod smart speaker brings Siri home

Well it looks like Apple have jumped on board with their speaker seems expensive. Well I suppose it's Apple...

€300 and out it December this year. Does the same as the GH and Alexa but will sound fancier more human.

OU812

Obviously gonna wait until I can demo one in person, but just from the usability aspect, already want it.

I have Sonos speakers in the house & I'm hoping they pull something out of the bag & release a home kit or airplay unit that'll plug into the system because I can see myself selling & switching over.

I'd definitely be interested in at least one Homepod with maybe the rest of my speakers being non apple airplay ones. I'm in the market this year for re-building my home cinema setup (had to get rid a couple of years ago because of space) & will be looking at building out that system with something that's decent, but not "dumb".

Creamy Goodness

They sold it more as a music speaker than a Siri device, probably justifies the price somewhat in their mind.

Can bet it'll work great for Music and HomeKit devices.

Nelbert

Extremely underwhelmed myself. For that price I could get echo with screen and 2 or 3 echo dots for full house voice control with visual display in kitchen (logical place for it in my opinion). I've already got Apple based multi room audio with airport expresses running speakers in some rooms.... repackaging something they already did 5+ years ago (works well to be fair) on the airplay front.

If I was Sonos I'd be looking to just revamp existing lineup at same price point with Alexa built in (that's been confirmed as coming anyway)..... maybe I want the same price point more than Sonos themselves do.....

bk

Obviously I'll wait for reviews, but I'm pretty underwhelmed.

€300 is a bit pricey, for that money I bought a GHome, Echo, Echo Dot and 3 Chromecast Audios!

They say it has better audio, but it is very small, good quality audio needs space. We will have to wait and see what reviews are like, but I don't expect it to be too much better then GHome or Echo in terms of audio.

Chromecast Audio and Echo Dots can be hooked up to any speakers you want, so should give much better audio then this when you want it.

Having said all that, another competitor is always welcome.

degsie

So Apple 're-invents' the home assistant three years after it was established and expects a premium margin for their efforts. Thinking I'll pass on this one.

Nelbert

Sonos releasing the Alexa enabled units anytime soon will kill their premium market target before it's released in December.

Dardania

degsie wrote: »

So Apple 're-invents' the home assistant three years after it was established and expects a premium margin for their efforts. Thinking I'll pass on this one.

They have a history of re-imaging existing concepts - remember this:

https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod

Cabaal

Dardania wrote: »

They have a history of re-imaging existing concepts - remember this:

https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod

What won the iPod for them was ease of use, navigation and syncing was easy compared to most MP3 players at the time and most avg people still get confused by dragging and dropping files.

They'll need a cheaper product if they want to make headway in the smart speaker market, google and amazon are already well established and offer very easy to use devices.

Jayop

More revolutionary tech from Apple several years after its already been released elsewhere. How anyone could justify buying this when you could for the same money get two of the big amazon units.

OU812

First impressions in: Spoiler - Sounds better than Sonos Play 3. I have play 1s & think the sound off them is incredible so now I'm VERY interested.

dam099

OU812 wrote: »

First impressions in: Spoiler - Sounds better than Sonos Play 3. I have play 1s & think the sound off them is incredible so now I'm VERY interested.

Sounds better in an Apple demo in a controlled environment. It well might do but I'd want to see some independently supervised and set up tests before drawing that conclusion.

tomwaits48

Anyone know why this is not available to purchase from the Apple iE store? Any reason why I can’t order it for the Apple Uk store or elsewhere?

degsie

tomwaits48 wrote: »

Anyone know why this is not available to purchase from the Apple iE store? Any reason why I can’t order it for the Apple Uk store or elsewhere?

Possibly because we have more discerning tastes in this part of the world.