Apple HomePod mini smart speaker review: will it get past your front door?

Apple’s HomePod mini speaker is smart and is heading to shops.

Apple HomePod mini smart speaker

Apple’s HomePod mini speaker is a device with two stories. One is its audio capability as a smaller version of Apple HomePod.

The bigger speaker was released almost three years ago. It’s a great speaker, with a high-excursion woofer and seven tweeters, but at $469, not everyone was rushing to their local Apple store to buy it.

At a more affordable $149, its little sibling HomePod mini may lack a feature or two found on the bigger HomePod, but it packs a punch sound wise and there is the other story.

More people will be tempted to buy it at $149 which means Apple will gain a toehold in its personal assistant Siri permanently stationed in people’s homes. It can compete alongside Amazon Echo and Google Home devices that have been available for several years.

There are good and bad points to this. The good point is that provided you accept Apple’s commitment to privacy, HomePod mini is not listening to your conversations and sizing you up for advertising.

Apple HomePod mini smart speaker

On the other hand I’m not convinced that Apple’s Siri personal assistant which is part of the HomePod mini offering is as seasoned and sophisticated as an Amazon Echo or Google Home. Echo comes with more than 100,000 skills while Google Home has been savvy in telling users about the environment around them – the shops that are open, where the best coffee places are and useful directions based on Google Maps.

However, if you use other Apple devices, a HomePod mini can extend your ecosphere. For example, when I felt exasperated about locating my iPhone I could call out “Hey Siri, find my iPhone 12” and it pinged it instantly.

The new intercom features – which is not unlike an Echo feature – means I can call out “Hey Siri, intercom everyone, there’s tea and scones on the table” and my voice message goes to all Siri speakers at home, as well as iPhones and iPads that you set-up to accept these messages.

It works the other way too. I could intercom messages from my iPhone to all speakers at home. This worked without the iPhone being connected to Wi-Fi, which means I can intercom from my iPhone to all speakers from miles away.

Apple HomePod mini smart speaker

You can also intercom to a speaker in a particular room, for example: “Intercom the kitchen – turn on the kettle” or intercom a person’s device. You can use terms other than intercom, such as “tell everyone” or “announce” and people can respond by chatting to the speaker.

The HomePod mini’s audio quality is excellent given it is small. It’s made of a mesh fabric, has a touch screen at top and is just 8.5cm high. Treble has a richness and high frequencies don’t seem distorted, while bass is firm without it being boomy.

It doesn’t have the spatial awareness capability of the larger HomePod which can analyse its surroundings and adjust the acoustics to match, but it does create 360-degree radial sound by channelling the sound down and out the bottom of the speaker.

Apple, which is big on computational photography with iPhones, is similarly big about computational audio with this device. It has a built-in S5 chip which it says tunes the sound more than 180 times per second. I’ll have to take Apple’s word for that.

I can say that its three microphone system works well, detecting that you might be saying “Hey Siri, turn the music down” when it is blaring.

Apple HomePod mini smart speaker

When you’re in a room with a HomePod mini and your iPhone, the network will give preference to your HomePod speaker to handle the Siri query.

You can channel music to play on multiple HomePod speakers throughout your home, pair two HomePod minis as a stereo pair, and when I had music playing on my iPhone, I could transfer it to a nearby HomePod mini by touching it.

You can’t make a stereo pair using a fully-sized HomePod and a HomePod mini. The sound output would be uneven if you could anyway.

Apple has said that these music services will eventually play natively with HomePod mini: Apple Music, Pandora, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn and iHeartRadio and Radio.com. Apple Music and podcasts work now and Pandora is the first third-party service to be available.

I am a Spotify user, mainly because it works across a large range of speakers and phones in the market. It’s not part of HomePod mini but I could get Spotify tracks playing on the HomePod mini using AirPlay.

Apple HomePod mini smart speaker

Siri may not be as broad in the skills base as Amazon Echo, but it has its strengths. Voice commands to select, play and pause music is one, and you can use your voice to set reminders and tasks, take a note, interrogate your calendar, and listen to a personal briefing around news (ABC news here), weather, calendar events and traffic.

You can command Siri to make a call for you and channel it through the HomePod mini. The calling function on speakers uses your iPhone to send it across the cellular network. Likewise I could use my voice to send text messages by chatting to the speaker. You can enable and disable personal requests for different speakers using the HomeKit app, and allow multiple people to ask for their personal briefing. They are recognised by voice.

Finally there’s home control. I could issue voice commands through HomePod mini to switch on lights and other devices managed though the Apple HomeKit app.

HomeKit works with more devices than before. I could control my Philips Hue bulbs through HomePod mini. Nanoleaf light kits including the new Nanoleaf Essential bulbs, Eve smart devices, Logitech Circle compatible cameras, Linksys Velop Mesh Wi-Fi systems, LIFX smart lights and the Yale Assure digital deadbolt are among devices that work with HomeKit.

Apple HomePod mini smart speaker

I couldn’t operate my Sensibo switch that controls my air conditioner nor my Australian Laser $10 smart lights with HomeKit which is a pity; you need to settle for more expensive smart lights.

Apple tells me the Tado Smart AC Control V3+ is HomeKit compatible if you want to use Siri on the speaker to control an air conditioner.

HomePod mini may not duplicate the functionality of Amazon Echo and Google Home, but it offers a big range of features you can access through voice control. As to my favourite commands; making hands free calls and speaking text messages through HomePod mini takes the prize.

HomePod mini is good value for a $149 investment. It‘s available in white and space grey from next Monday, November 16, with pre-orders open now.