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APPLE ANNOUNCES REVAMPED FULL-SIZE HOMEPOD TWO YEARS AFTER DISCONTINUING
ORIGINAL


APPLE ANNOUNCES REVAMPED FULL-SIZE HOMEPOD TWO YEARS AFTER DISCONTINUING
ORIGINAL

/


THE NEW SPEAKER WILL BE SOLD ALONGSIDE THE HOMEPOD MINI INTRODUCED IN 2020.

By Jon Porter / @JonPorty

Jan 18, 2023, 2:05 PM GMT|164 Comments / 164 New


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Apple has announced a new $299 HomePod smart speaker with a similar form factor
to the original HomePod released in 2018. New features available with this
second-generation model include support for the wireless protocol Thread and the
smart home standard Matter, allowing the speaker to control compatible
accessories, and an upgraded S7 chip first seen in the Apple Watch Series 7. It
will be sold alongside the HomePod Mini, the smaller version of the speaker
introduced in 2020. The new HomePod is available to order starting today and
will begin shipping February 3rd.

The second-generation HomePod has a single four-inch woofer paired with five
tweeters, (down from seven in the original model) and a total of five
microphones (down from seven). Apple says the speaker can sense how it’s
positioned in a room, adjusting its sound depending on whether it’s placed up
against a wall or out in the middle of a space. Like the original HomePod, two
speakers can be arranged into a stereo pair or used as speakers for the Apple TV
4K. There’s also support for spatial audio with Dolby Atmos.

The internals of the new HomePod. Image: Apple

New for this model are built-in temperature and humidity sensors that can be
used as triggers for smart home automations. (There were reports that similar
sensors were present in the HomePod Mini, but they’ve never been made available
for consumer use.) There’s also support for handing off music like we saw with
the HomePod Mini using Apple’s ultra wideband tech, and the speaker’s voice
assistant, Siri, is able to recognize up to six different voices and provide
personalized responses.

With a software update coming later this spring, Apple says the new HomePod will
be able to use its built-in microphones to listen for smoke or carbon monoxide
alarms and notify you if it hears anything via an iPhone.


RELATED

 * Apple’s new HomePod unsurprisingly sounds close to the original
 * Here’s how to preorder Apple’s new HomePod

The new model is a little shorter than the original HomePod by 0.2 inches and a
little lighter at 5.16 pounds versus 5.5 pounds.

The original HomePod had an unusually rocky lifespan for an Apple product.
Originally announced in 2017 with a December ship date, the $349 smart speaker
was subsequently delayed to February 2018. When it was eventually released, the
HomePod’s Siri fared poorly against Alexa and Google Assistant, and reviewers
criticized how locked into Apple’s ecosystem the smart speaker was. Despite
getting a $50 price cut in 2019, the HomePod was eventually discontinued in
2021.

As well as its cheaper price, the HomePod Mini also introduced support for
Thread — a smart home protocol that subsequently became an integral part of the
Matter spec. Like the new HomePod, the HomePod Mini can serve as a Matter smart
home controller and Thread border router for the management of Matter devices
across Thread, Wi-Fi, and ethernet networks.

The second-generation HomePod will be sold in the US, UK, Australia, Canada,
China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and 11 other markets, according to
Apple. It’ll be available in either white or gray, with a “color-matched” power
cable.




Comments164 Comments / 164 New

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 3. OPENAI CEO SAM ALTMAN ON GPT-4: ‘PEOPLE ARE BEGGING TO BE DISAPPOINTED AND
    THEY WILL BE’
    
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 4. APPLE ANNOUNCES REVAMPED FULL-SIZE HOMEPOD TWO YEARS AFTER DISCONTINUING
    ORIGINAL
    
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 5. MICROSOFT ANNOUNCES BIG LAYOFFS THAT WILL AFFECT 10,000 EMPLOYEES
    
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