so almost five years ago Apple released the original homepod it hit the market for 349
dollars and at the time I thought it was the best sounding speaker of its size that you
could buy but the problem is the price tag was just too high and you had competitors like Amazon
and Google offering similar size speakers for significantly less plus you had Sonos offering
the same sort of soundscape maybe not as good but for a lower price tag and the idea of one
day owning a proper home theater experience but here we are in 2023 with the homepod 2.
it's retailing for fifty dollars less at 299 and offers similar sound quality to the original one
in a design that you're really used to now if you were to take both of them and place them side by
side you'd have to look really hard to see the differences but the new version is supposed to
be shorter than the old one but by using my eyes I really can't tell the difference I'd probably
have to break out the ruler the other change is the display it's been recessed in the new
version with the material going over it whereas on the original one it's just a flat top going
over the Recycled mesh the actual feel of both devices are identical but the colors are a bit
different the new one is darker it's more of a midnight black compared to the charcoal on
the original homepod the other Edition a welcome addition is the ability to disconnect the power
cable this is good news because if you ever rip the power cable on the original one you
probably got to send this in and get something fixed which would cost you time and extra money
whereas if the power cable on the new version rips or has an issue you can just go out and buy
another one to replace it the other difference is the bottom on the original version it kind
of goes recessed inwards whereas on the new one it stays completely flat now there are some technical
differences like for example Wi-Fi 4 on the new one compared to Wi-Fi 5 on the original one based
done my testing they both respond similarly in terms of speed hey Siri what's 12 times 12.
12 times 12 is 144 but it's still using Bluetooth 5.0 but they did upgrade the chip that's inside of
here the original homepod was using an A8 which you could find in an iPhone 6. this is using the
S7 which Apple says is significantly faster and will help with computational audio now granted it
still has those amazing sensors inside so that it can detect the distance from a wall and any
objects in the surrounding area to give you the best sound quality possible but they did make
some weird changes like they removed two of the tweeters the original one had seven of them but
the new one only has five they are angled a bit differently like the original one they kind of
just go circular and they go outwards on the new one they kind of angle up and I'm not noticing
that much of a difference in fact I'd probably say the overall sound quality on the new version
is slightly better than the previous one now you still have a four inch woofer inside of here but
the mic airray has been reduced to four from six however I'm not noticing a difference in how it
picks up my voice it does without any issues no matter where I am in the room the other thing is
there's new sensors inside of here and when Apple first announced this they said you can now detect
carbon monoxide and smoke right off the bat I'm like wow this has a carbon monoxide detector but
that's not what's happening all it's doing is listening to the sound of your current smoke
alarm or carbon monoxide detector if it ever goes off if it does it will send you a notification
but they did add a temperature and humidity sensor this is something that was built into
the homepod mini but wasn't active until recently so if you have a homepod mini you should be able
to ask it what the temperature and humidity is in the current room where your mini resides and
you can do the same thing on the brand new home pod hey Siri what's the temperature in the room
it's 22.8 degrees Celsius in the office hey Siri what's the humidity like in the room
humidity in the office is dry at 28 but this is a smart speaker at the end of the day and it's still
using Siri it's always going to use Siri and look if you're doing basic commands Siri does it fine
like she's not the best smart speaker in terms of difficult questions the competitors out there
obviously do a better job but for everyday normal stuff she does it quick and she handles it fine
hey Siri what's the weather like today looks like it will be cloudy today daytime temperatures will
hover around minus one degree with overnight lows around minus 10 degrees I do like some
of the Apple specific features like being able to hand off your phone to the speaker
to transfer the call or the music that you're listening to but I decided to connect this to
a monitor with two homepod speakers connected and an Apple TV and I was actually blown away
by the sound it actually sounds really darn good with two speakers connected like way better than
two Sonos speakers or Sonos ones connected to a TV the stereo pair works perfectly there's
no delay when the person's talking the sound quality is expensive way better than using the
speakers on your TV and way better than most smart speakers out there now sound quality is
where things get very interesting I first compared it to two homepod minis in Stereo
mode The homepod Minis actually kept up in terms of overall max volume but it didn't
have the same Sound Stage as the homepod 2 just because there's bigger speakers inside of here
the overall sound that was coming out of this was more immersive than two homepod minis but
it also made me realize how good the homepod Mini sound for a speaker of that size [Music]
now granted I think most people are going to be comparing this to a Sonos one just because
the size is similar and it's a product that's in direct competition with this
and here's what I found the Sonos one does get about five to eight decibels louder than
a homepod 2 but the way it sound is quite different it tends to emphasize the high
end the high end is brighter and because of that it sacrifices a bit of the low end
I found that the high end of the homepod 2 was not as bright as the Sonos one but the
overall balance was more significant like I prefer the sound quality on the homepod
2 over the Sonos one there's just more depth to the sound it sounded smoother and cleaner
foreign
[Music]
but if you're planning on buying a homepod 2 to pair it with a homepod one it will not work if
you want to stereo pair any of these devices it has to be with the matching product so homepod
mini with homepod mini homepod 2 with homepod 2 or homepod 1 with homepod 1. now in terms of
spatial audio and all that stuff I can't tell the difference I I honestly don't care about
spatial audio at this point it doesn't really make that much of a difference in terms of the
sound that I'm listening to maybe if I had like 10 speakers around my head then I could really
appreciate spatial audio but it's hard to get really excited about it with one speaker or two
speakers paired together this is what I have to say if you're buying a smart speaker and
you want the best sounding smart speaker and you don't mind spending 300 then the homepod
2 is the one to get if you're in the Apple ecosystem and you're looking for bookshelf
speakers that are also smart speakers two home pods together sound incredible but if you have
any inclination of creating a home theater experience I really suggest looking at other
brands because for six hundred dollars for a stereo pair which sound great are never going
to compare to a proper sound bar and at least with the Sonos products you can pair the rears
and then eventually buy a sound bar and then eventually buy a subwoofer and have a proper
5.1 Channel experience and for those of you out there who just want a smart speaker in the Apple
ecosystem I'd honestly just look at a homepod mini as well you can buy two of them for a total
of two hundred dollars and save 100 bucks I still think this is the best sounding smart speaker out
there for this size but I feel like it's still a tad bit too expensive I think a retail price
of 249 would have been a lot more attractive anyways that wraps up my review of the homepod
too let me know if you have any questions in the comment section down below like the
video if you liked it subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you guys in the next one