I mentioned in a previous post about Amazon Echo‘s “Comming Full Circle with Amazon Alexa” that the Apple HomePod minis came out at the perfect time for me. Not only did it fill a gap that I voluntarily created by not using Amazon echo anymore. I also had some gift card money and was able to pick up several of the HomePod mini‘s when they came out and not break the bank.
The original intention was to put speakers in every usable room. We put one in the kitchen to replace an echo. We replaced another echo in our master bedroom. I replaced the last echo in the guest room / office with another mini.
We had a charging base for the Amazon tap in the living room and we put two HomePod mini’s there. The intention with the two HomePod minis in the living room was to make them stereo speakers to use with the Apple TV. They sounded fine however we noticed early on that there was a delay between what was spoken and what we saw on the screen. That was really annoying so I reverted back to my Bose speakers that were hardwired into the TV. We still have both HomePod minis in the living room however it’s only for stereo music playing.
I like that I can handoff from my iPhone to a speaker to play music. What I don’t like is it’s not a consistent experience yet. There are times when it takes a really long time to hand off. There are other times when it tries to hand off to my office speaker when I just have my iPhone on my desk near it. Same problem happens on my nightstand at night sometimes.
Another function I like is streaming to multiple devices at the same time. Although that has been a problem in the past when there were a few instances that I couldn’t break the pairing as easily as you would think. It feels like the functionality is improving however it’s not quite fully seamless.
I also like the intercom. The girls like it as well. They’re not yet using it to message us between rooms however they are using the speakers to put music on every once in a while.
As of this writing it’s been over six months since getting the speakers and they may not be functionally on parity with an Amazon echo for us they are working out just fine.