Why You Can Trust CNET Apple HomePod review: Great sound, but it's trapped in Apple's world
The HomePod delivers amazing audio quality, but this pricey speaker is an iOS-only device that effectively requires an Apple Music subscription.
Update, Nov. 12: Read our HomePod Mini review.
Apple HomePod
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Apple's $349 (£319, AU$499) Siri-powered HomePod smart speaker produces awesome sound across a broad range of genres, making it stand out, particularly compared to the $199 Sonos One, Google's $399 Home Max and Amazon's next-gen $100 Echo. Its crazy-fast setup and excellent long-range Siri microphones also make it appealing. Offering multiroom audio and stereo pairing, courtesy of AirPlay 2, helps the HomePod compete with Alexa and Google Assistant speakers.
Read more: Will HomeKit and HomePod get any attention at WWDC?
But it isn't all good news.
Siri still has a lot of maturing to do before it can compete with Alexa or Google Assistant. Buying a HomePod also means you're signing up for a speaker that's built with the Apple Music streaming service in mind. You can't play Spotify and other third-party music services straight from the HomePod via a Siri command. Instead, you have to send that audio to your Apple speaker from the corresponding mobile app.
You really need to be OK with these limitations to justify buying a HomePod today, unless you don't care about anything but its stellar sound quality. Everyone else should wait to see what Apple will add to this promising speaker in the months ahead.
You'll want to update your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to iOS 12.0 to make sure your HomePod has the latest software.
Hey, good lookin'
The fabric mesh-wrapped HomePod, available in either space gray or white, weighs a hefty 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg). It's 6.8 inches tall and 5.6 inches wide (170 by 140 mm) -- petite compared to the 11.7-pound (5.3kg) and foot-wide Google Home Max. But the HomePod feels surprisingly dense when you lift it.
In true Apple form, the HomePod has a sleek, minimal design. It looks good, but not distractingly so, and I'm glad you get a couple of color finishes to choose from. We got a white HomePod and while I like how it looks, I can easily imagine smudging it with repeat handling. The HomePod's mesh exterior isn't interchangeable like the Amazon Echo's removable shell. What you buy is what you get. You can, however, clean it with a dry or damp cloth.
The HomePod relies on a single, two-prong power cord, which you can plug into any standard outlet. Apple says the HomePod can go pretty much anywhere in your home, from the bathroom to the garage, either near a wall or in the center of the room. Just be aware that the cord isn't detachable as the HomePod doesn't have a battery onboard, so you might have to hide it under a rug if you want to show it off in the middle of a space.
At the top of the speaker, you'll find a touch display. It isn't a screen, so it can't display high-res text or video content like an Amazon Echo Show or Spot, but it does have integrated plus and minus signs for adjusting the speaker's volume manually. Tap or hold them to increase or decrease volume.
Touch and hold the center of the display to get Siri's attention without having to say, "Hey, Siri." A familiar, blue-green-purple LED status indicator will begin to glow on the display to let you know Apple's voice assistant is listening. Tap the display to play or pause music or to stop Siri midsentence. You can also double-tap to skip a song or triple-tap to skip back and replay a song.
The various taps and LED status indicators have a slight learning curve at first, but the HomePod is easy to control straight from the speaker.
The display glows white to tell you it's ready for initial setup and green during a phone call. You can place and receive calls directly from the HomePod by saying "Hey Siri, call Tyler (or anyone listed in your iPhone's contacts)" or "Hey Siri, call (and then list a specific number)." And when you're receiving a call, you can say, "Hey Siri, answer the phone" instead of answering from your iPhone. All of this works seamlessly via the iOS 12 update.
The HomePod doesn't have a button on the speaker itself to mute Siri, weirdly enough. Both Amazon and Google speakers have dedicated mute buttons so you can manually disable voice control. With the HomePod, you can only decrease the music volume from the speaker itself, which isn't really the same as muting Siri. Instead, you have to use the app or voice control to turn the "Hey, Siri" feature off or on.
I really wish the HomePod had a dedicated mute button. It would be good to have another option beyond having to grab your phone or use voice control.
You know Siri's listening when you see this.
Apple's HomePod has seven tweeters, all placed in the bottom of the speaker. Each tweeter has an amplifier and a transducer. Six Siri-ready microphones sit above that, followed by the woofer and Apple's A8 chip at the very top.
Apple makes impressive claims about the design of its speaker and how that translates to better performance on its website. The tweeters are supposed to provide 360 degrees of consistently good sound, while the microphones (with help from the A8 chip) ensure Siri can hear you over loud music from a fair distance, without you needing to shout. The woofer brings that rich bass.
The HomePod claims omnidirectional sound through a feature called "spatial awareness." No matter where you put your speaker, a built-in accelerometer (movement and motion sensor) is supposed to kick in and recalibrate based on its location. This helps it determine how to direct sound and should help ensure consistently good sound quality no matter where the HomePod is -- and no matter where you are in a room relative to it.
The same is true if you use two HomePods as a stereo pair in the same room. The speakers are supposed to take measurements to get a sense of the space they're in, as well as where they are relative to each other.
Stellar sound quality for its size
For a compact speaker, the HomePod offers big sound, and in testing I found it pretty much unflappable no matter what kind of music I threw its way. It's hard to say that about many speakers, regardless of size. From dance pop to guitar rock to orchestral pieces, the HomePod sounded excellent. It doesn't produce stereo sound by any stretch -- you'd get more "presence" or "you are there-ness" from a pair of stereo speakers. But the HomePod is a solid performer you can plonk in your kitchen without having to worry that it might distort at high volume.
The HomePod's uniform sound across so many different types of music separates it from its two main competitors, the Google Home Max and the Sonos One. Most of the time in our tests at CNET's Smart Apartment, the Max and the HomePod sounded similar, with both exhibiting a relatively open sound and good extension, while the less-expensive Sonos One sounded slightly more distant.
One of the tracks that created some separation among the three speakers was Yulunga (Spirit Dance) by Dead Can Dance. It's the kind of song made for the HomePod -- the combination of airy vocals, deep booming notes and crisp percussion brought out the best in Apple's speaker. The HomePod made the song come to life from its droning beginning, into the palatial vocal line and beyond.
Although the Max presented more of a stereo effect, the sound was a little harsh in comparison, and the Max just wasn't able to dig deep enough in the bass. Sonos, meanwhile, sounded more closed off.
The HomePod sounds similar to Google's Home Max and better than the less expensive Sonos One.
On a track like 3WW by Alt-J, with its deep bass bed, the HomePod has an authority that the Google Home Max and the Sonos One can't muster. Despite the track's weighty synth bass, the Apple speaker never struggled. While the other two were balanced, they lacked heft -- especially the Sonos, which didn't even attempt to reproduce the deep notes.
The HomePod's bass extension sounds great, but it wasn't always as tight as I expected. The kick drum in Girlfriend is Better by Talking Heads sounded a lot looser than I've ever heard it before, for example, and resonated a little too long. If you like funk or other styles with a prominent deep bass drum, this speaker may not give you the kind of quick response you're used to.
Most of the time the HomePod and Max sounded similar, with Apple edging ahead for bass extension and balance, though there was one track where the tables turned. Don't You by Amber Rubarth, with its rich, reverb-drenched vocals and languid drawl of the violin, sounded crisper on the Google Max. The pitter-patter percussion sounded more immediate on the Google speaker, though the HomePod was able to amplify the boom of the bass drum. Though the Apple device gave a better sense of the hall, it created a distance between the singer and the listener that Google's gadget didn't have.
Unlike the Sonos and the Max, which are typical "directional" speakers that sound better when you listen from the front, the HomePod is supposedly more versatile. Apple talks up the speaker's ability to sit anywhere in the room and create great sound, but I found performance on all sides hit-and-miss.
With the HomePod in the center of the room, for example, I heard distinct wedges of good (and less-good) sound around the speaker. Sometimes the front sounded great and the back not so much. Sometimes the best sound came from 90 degrees to either side.
Apple says the speaker adjusts itself based on room position, and as I moved the speaker around I could hear the difference as it recalibrated. Overall I found that the HomePod sounded best placed against a wall or in a corner, which is fine since that's where most people will probably place it anyway.
I listened to a number of different tracks comparing the Apple HomePod in stereo to the Sonos One in a pair -- from disco, to acoustic, to rock. On a whim, I started with the HomePod and The Replacements' Nightclub Jitters and the testing room was immediately transformed into the smoky jazz club the song seeks to emulate. The sound was huge. Meanwhile, the song was offered better stereo separation on the Sonos One with the ride cymbal appearing in the right speaker even though the sense of space was lessened.
Charged with something more challenging, the bass underbed on 3WW by Alt-J seemed more fully formed on the HomePod. The Sonos combo didn't go quite as deep or feel so full, but it is also half the price.
Does the stereo HomePod sound better than the stereo Sonos One? In some ways the HomePod is better, it's a more relaxed combo with better extension. But in others the Sonos offers greater articulation and a keenly-honed stereo image.The Homepod is easier to listen to in the long term, and if you listen to lots of abrasive music this might be more important to you. You also don't have to wave your phone around your room for three minutes which is the worst/weirdest thing about the Sonos setup routine -- Apple's microphones do it all for you.
30-second setup, Apple-centric lock-in
Before you can start listening to music on your HomePod, you need to configure it. The good news: It literally takes seconds to set up. Not unlike AirPods, just holding your iOS device next to the HomePod triggers the process. Follow the steps to start playing music and more with Siri on your HomePod.
The bad news: You'll need an iOS device for this. The HomePod and Apple's Home app don't work on Android phones or tablets . Scroll down to the bottom of this page for a complete list of compatible iOS devices.
Your iOS device prompts you on setup to give your HomePod a dedicated location, sign up for Apple Music (if you haven't already), and enable something called "Personal Requests."
You don't even need to download an app to set up the HomePod.
That Apple Music prompt is important, because when it comes to voice control, Apple services are pretty much the only game in town. Here's what you can ask Siri to play as outlined on the Audio Sources section of this Apple specs page:
- Apple Music
- iTunes Music Purchases
- iCloud Music Library with an Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription
- Beats 1 Live Radio
- Podcasts
Multiroom audio is finally here with the iOS 11.4 software update.
What about the Spotify, Pandora, third-party podcast apps or any other audio source? They're all playable on the HomePod -- from iPhone, iPad , iPod Touch, Apple TV and Mac -- but you'll manually need to tap the AirPlay 2 button on the screen of the source device. (Windows PCs running iTunes can also be used as a music source.) That's a big step down from the Sonos One, which works with dozens of music services, as do the Google Home and Amazon Echo speakers.
AirPlay 2 enables multiroom audio, meaning you can play the same song or podcast in multiple rooms (on multiple HomePods, or on a combo of HomePods, Apple TVs and additional AirPlay 2-compatible devices) at the same time. Launch multiroom audio from your iPhone or iPad Control Center by selecting more than one HomePod. Saying, "Hey Siri, play a song in the Living Room and in the Bedroom" works, too.
If you simply say, "Hey Siri, play a song," only that HomePod will play. I like that it doesn't assume you always want to play audio on every compatible speaker. That means that you do have to specify "in the Living Room and in the Bedroom," though.
You can also say, "Hey Siri, move the music to the Living Room" if you want to switch rooms -- or "Hey Siri, play this song in the Living Room" to add a room via voice commands.
It's important to note that the HomePod doesn't work as a basic Bluetooth speaker, either. So an Android-toting guest or family member won't be able to send any music to the HomePod from their device.
In other words, unless you have an exhaustive database of music you purchased on iTunes, you're going to need an Apple Music subscription. Apple extends a free three-month subscription to Apple Music when you're setting up your HomePod. After that 90-day period ends, the service costs $10 per month for one person (or $15 monthly for a family plan). College students can sign up for just $5 per month, but Apple will ask you to verify your student status. (Those prices in the UK are £10, £15 for family and £6 for students. In Australia it's AU$12, AU$18 or AU$6.)
Allow it to transfer your settings and any existing HomeKit devices and other details will be sent to the HomePod.
With Apple Music, you can ask the HomePod to play specific songs, bands or musicians. It can also chose for you, based on your listening history. Ask Siri to play a particular genre or category such as "bluegrass" or "calming music" if you want a HomePod-curated playlist. And if you can't remember the name of the artist, band or song -- you can ask Siri to "play a song that goes like...(insert lyrics here)."
Searching for songs by their lyrics was relatively easy, with a few hiccups. If you just give a generic, short phrase like "baby, I'm yours," you could end up with any number of songs. And if you don't remember the exact lyrics, you might not get the right thing. It also didn't work if I wanted to play a song written in another language. So when I said, "Hey Siri, play the song that goes ..como si fuera ésta noche la última vez (from the classic Spanish-language song Bésame Mucho)," the voice assistant had no idea what I was talking about.
Enabling the Personal Requests feature mentioned earlier means anyone can ask the HomePod to set reminders, alarms and timers, as well as send and read messages and calendar appointments from your iOS device as long as it's connected to the same Wi-Fi network. You can run multiple timers at the same time, too, if you need to keep track of a bunch of things simultaneously.
In addition to iMessages, the HomePod works with third-party messaging services such as WhatsApp. The HomePod can find nearby Apple devices as well. I asked Siri on the HomePod to find my iPhone and it immediately responded "I found CNET's iPhone nearby. Should I try to make it play a sound?" If you say yes, if will ping the phone so you can more easily locate it.
You can see the Dining Room HomePod in the HomeKit accessory list in the Home app.
Importantly, you can't train the HomePod to recognize different voices. Unlike "Hey, Siri" on your phone, the HomePod responds to everyone. That makes it easier for the whole family to use, but hurts its customizability across multiple users, since it can't recognize a specific voice to allow purchases. Still, Alexa and Google Assistant aren't foolproof -- just check out this video where we flummox both voice assistants by trying to sound like our colleagues.
The HomePod operates over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, which allows for this simple configuration process. Apple automatically grabs your iCloud details, Wi-Fi login, details of any existing Apple smart home products you have, and any other pertinent information it needs to configure (and later operate) your HomePod.
While there's no app required to get the HomePod up and running, the speaker lives in the Home app for iOS. Immediately after you configure your speaker using these steps, it appears as an accessory in your list of HomeKit devices (see screenshot).
Giving your HomePod a dedicated location name such as "Dining Room" or "Kitchen" helps you differentiate between multiple Apple speakers in your home, both in the Home app and with AirPlay 2 multiroom audio.
Stereo pairing works a little differently, since you assign two HomePods to the same room. I nicknamed my two HomePods "Living Room" and my iPhone automatically asked if I was trying to create a stereo pair. After that, it asked me to identify my "Left" versus "Right" speaker to optimize sound. I didn't even have to move them -- I simply tapped the arrows (as shown the second screenshot below to switch them).
Both speakers automatically play audio once they're set up as a stereo pair. You don't have to specify "on both living room speakers" or on my "stereo pair." It just works. And if you want to unpair them, just select "Ungroup Accessories" in the Home app.
Stereo pairing is ridiculously easy to configure.
Siri speaks
We already know the HomePod can't differentiate between voices, but Apple's voice assistant still has a lot to say. Here's a look at Siri's capabilities on the HomePod.
News
Not only can Siri give you a news update on the HomePod, Apple's voice assistant lets you choose from among four different media outlets. If you simply ask Siri for the news, she defaults to NPR. But you can also request the latest headlines from Fox, CNN and The Washington Post. I like that the HomePod automatically gives you choices without you having to enable a specific software skill, as you do with Alexa.
Messages
You can send messages to contacts -- or any phone number you give Siri -- straight from the HomePod. It can also read your new messages out to you. This works roughly the same as Alexa and Google Assistant.
Alarms, timers, reminders and calendar events
You can create one-time or recurring alarms, set timers with your voice so you can cook without grabbing your phone and ask Siri to set birthday reminders for your friends and family. You can also ask Siri to give you details on existing alarms, timers, reminders and calendar events. It can run multiple timers simultaneously.
When I set up a reminder to call a friend the next day on the HomePod, Siri didn't ask me what time I wanted to call them. Neither did Google Assistant. Siri defaulted to 9 a.m. and Google Assistant randomly chose 8 a.m. Alexa, on the other hand, actually asked what time I wanted the reminder, which is much more helpful.
Note: Your phone has to be on the same Wi-Fi network for these features to work with the HomePod.
Comparing voice assistants
| Apple HomePod | Amazon Echo | Google Home | |
| Voice assistant | Siri | Alexa | Google Assistant |
| Voice-supported music services | Apple Music, iTunes, iTunes Match, Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn | Google Play Music, YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn |
| Streaming audio support | Any iOS audio via AirPlay 2 | Any Bluetooth audio source (Android, iOS and others) | Any Chromecast or Bluetooth audio source (Android, iOS and others) |
| Smart light bulb compatibility | Philips Hue, Lifx, Nanoleaf, Sylvania Smart Plus and more | Philips Hue, Lifx, TP-Link, Nanoleaf, Sylvania, GE Lighting, Eufy, Sengled and more | Philips Hue, Lifx, TP-Link, Nanoleaf, Sylvania, GE Lighting, Eufy, Sengled and more |
| Smart thermostat compatibility | Ecobee, Elgato, Honeywell, Netatmo, iDevices, Emerson, Tado and more | Nest, Ecobee, Honeywell, Emerson, Netatmo, iDevices, Tado, Trane and more | Nest, Ecobee, Honeywell, Netatmo, iDevices and more |
| Smart lock compatibility | August, Yale, Schlage, Kwikset and more | August, Yale, Schlage, Kwikset and more | August, Schlage, Kwikset and more |
| Smart light switch compatibility | Lutron, Elgato, iDevices, Leviton, iHome, Belkin WeMo and more | Lutron, iDevices, Belkin WeMo, D-Link, iHome, TP-Link, Lowes Iris, Leviton, GE and more | Lutron, iDevices, Belkin WeMo, D-Link, iHome, TP-Link, Lowes Iris, Leviton and more |
| Voice-supported media services | Apple TV | Dish Network, Logitech Harmony, Amazon Fire TV (Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, PlayStation Vue, CBS All Access, Showtime, NBC and Bravo) | Logitech Harmony, Google Chromecast (Netflix and YouTube) |
| Price | $349, £319, AU$499 | $100, £90, AU$149 | $129, £129, AU$199 |
Smart home
When you set up a HomePod, all of your HomeKit devices automatically transfer to your Apple speaker. Say, "Hey, Siri, open the shades" and your HomeKit-enabled Lutron shades respond. You can also access your HomeKit devices from the Home app, just as you could before. One exception is security devices. If you ask Siri on the HomePod to unlock a door, she'll respond: "I wish I could, but I can't control security devices here." She can tell you whether your locks are locked or unlocked, though.
Nothing has really changed here with the HomePod. Apple is still behind Amazon and Google in terms of third-party integrations. But since HomeKit lives natively in iOS via the Home app, it's more seamless to operate than competing speakers. There's no need to enable skills or actions with HomeKit on the HomePod since everything automatically migrates over from your existing HomeKit setup and new smart devices are simply scanned in with a unique code.
The HomePod also works with Apple's Shortcuts app. Shortcuts lets you create customized "scenes" that can link your HomeKit devices to other apps on your phone. So instead of a HomeKit-specific "Good morning" scene that adjusts your smart thermostat and your smart lights at the same time, you can design a "Good morning" shortcut that adjusts your thermostat and your lights, but also plays music and opens up the weather app to let you know the forecast in your area.
I found the Shortcuts app confusing to navigate at first, unsure of where to start. Fortunately, Apple provides a "gallery" section where you can peruse some possible Shortcuts to get you started. After that, I was able to create my "Good morning" shortcut and run it successfully.
Note: Apple's HomePod acts as a remote bridge in the same way the Apple TV does, so you can control your HomeKit devices outside of Wi-Fi range with Siri.
General questions and info
Similar to your iOS devices, you can also use the HomePod to ask Siri for local weather stats, directions, restaurant info and more. Siri is more conversational than ever before thanks to advancements in machine learning. When I asked Siri who Bob Dylan was, I successfully followed up with, "How old is he?" without having to say "Bob Dylan" again. Siri already knew who I was talking about.
The HomePod also knows "musicology" trivia so you can ask Siri about the lead singer, drummer or guitarist of the song you're currently playing. She doesn't always know the answer, but it's a neat feature.
Overall, Siri was almost as good at answering random queries as Google Assistant and slightly better than Alexa, which often struggled to answer or even understand my follow-up questions.
Multiple users
This is a HomeKit device, so anyone with shared access to the Home app will also be able to configure your HomePod. Of course, since the speaker doesn't differentiate between voices, your entire family can use voice commands to play music and more. But enabling and disabling in-app features is limited to folks with Home access.
Since the HomePod doesn't support voice training, anyone can talk to Apple's speaker with the "Hey, Siri" wake phrase. That makes the HomePod a great all-purpose smart home speaker that's ridiculously easy to set up and use. At the same time, you lose some of the nuanced features you'd get from a speaker that knows who it's talking to.
If your phone is trained to respond to "Hey, Siri" like mine, it will likely wake up when you're talking to the HomePod, but it shouldn't actually respond to any questions. I found this to be true most of the time, but not always. Turning your phone face down lets iOS know you're talking to the HomePod, but I don't think you should have to do that to make sure "Hey, Siri" works correctly.
Privacy
Apple's approach to voice on the HomePod is unique compared to Amazon and Google's approaches. From a privacy standpoint, Apple says your information is only transferred to Apple servers after you say "Hey, Siri." Apple claims this information is encrypted and labeled as an "anonymous Siri identifier." In contrast, Amazon doesn't anonymize data and Google Assistant can keep information on the voice commands you use, as well as your search history and location.
As mentioned earlier, Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers have dedicated voice-control mute buttons. That means you can turn Alexa and Google Assistant off easily on the device. Not so with a HomePod -- you instead have to go into the Home app, select the HomePod speaker under your list of HomeKit accessories and turn off "Hey, Siri." Or you can ask Siri to turn the feature on or off using voice commands.
The verdict
As a small wireless speaker, Apple's $349 HomePod is strong. Its quick setup, impressive bass and far-field "Hey, Siri" listening range make it a worthy centerpiece for a smart home. Its consistent sound quality solidifies it as a great speaker for everyday use, as well for entertaining on special occasions -- especially when you use two HomePods as a stereo pair or for multiroom audio.
But Siri is still behind Alexa and Google Assistant. Apple's voice AI can't tell jokes, play games or turn on an Apple TV -- or your favorite Netflix show. And forget about using it with Android devices.
If you and everyone else you live with has an Apple device and you're sold on having an Apple smart home, the HomePod is worth a close look. It's also a reasonable option if you simply want a smart speaker with superior sound quality. Everyone else should hold off to see if Apple opens up support beyond the iPhone -- and Apple Music -- so other folks can also take full advantage of the HomePod.
Editor's note: CNET's Ty Pendlebury contributed to this review.
Updated, Sept. 17, 2018: Added information relating to iOS12.