- [Siri] Hey guys, it's Justine
and I'm so excited
because today we are unboxing
a brand new product from Apple.
This is something like you've never seen before.
It's called the HomePod.
Oh.
Wait.
- And here they are,
the brand new second generation HomePod.
We have the midnight and the classic white.
I don't know if it's classic white,
but it's the same as the the other one,
so it's classic to me.
I'm hyped about this because I love my HomePods.
I honestly, when I say no joke, I have them
in literally every single possible room
and crevice of my home and office
that I possibly could have a HomePod.
I'm not joking.
So now the question is,
who's getting replaced by the second gen?
Or do we just squeeze these in somewhere else
where there's not a HomePod already?
Hmm, decisions, decisions,
although I will say some of my HomePods,
especially the one that I have in the bathroom
because I'm always doing my hair and makeup,
it has turned a different shade of white.
It's more a little tan now,
so that's a personal problem.
All right, first up, let's unbox the midnight.
You've got some nice little tabs here.
(box tears)
I don't even need a knife.
(box tears) Or do I?
(knife clinks)
I don't even think I could use a knife if I needed,
if I wanted to.
(knife slices)
I tried.
Here it is.
Okay, I can already tell the color is different.
I gotta look right now.
I gotta see.
Well, like, slightly,
like a slight different color,
and it looks like, yeah, like a little bit darker maybe?
And like a slight hint of like a blue little undertone.
Hmm.
Hello, little friend.
(Justine gasps)
Okay.
This is
the most exciting thing
about having this new generation,
is the cable is actually detachable.
I was concerned because there were some rumors
that it was detachable,
and then I read some other articles
that said that it wasn't, and I'm so glad
that we can officially confirm
(Justine sniffs) that it not only smells good,
but the cable is also detachable.
Oh, that's so, that makes me so happy.
Okay, so inside of the box, we have our cable.
(cable rustles)
Look at that.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you, Apple.
Oh, this just makes me so happy.
(packaging rustles)
Okay, do we have any stickers?
Oh, yes, we,
we do not have stickers.
(papers rustle)
Are there stickers?
Are there no stickers?
Oh no.
It's okay, it's okay, it's gonna be okay.
Everyone's gonna be okay.
We're all gonna be okay.
So comparing the two tops side-by-side,
the new HomePod is set in a little bit,
whereas this one is completely flushed to the top.
You can also see that they have the plus and minus
and that's visible, which is actually really exciting,
because before you wouldn't actually be able to see those
until you activated Siri.
So you can just kind of come up very quickly
to turn up music or turn it down.
Also, the entire top will light up now,
whereas the other one
just kind of was focused more in the center,
so I am excited to see what that looks like.
But that is also kind of very similar
to the HomePod mini that we have right here.
You can see that also has the plus and minus visible
and the top is also recessed in just slightly.
Honestly, this HomePod mini is so impressive.
It's so crazy how much they've packed
into this tiny, tiny little treat.
All right, first HomePod has been unboxed.
Let's check out the white one.
(packaging tears)
This is a very satisfying unboxing experience.
Like, look at this.
Just (Justine gasps)
wonderful.
This white is so white,
like, it's so clean.
I don't even wanna hold up one of my old versions
next to this because I don't think that it's that clean.
(cable rattle)
Also got the cable.
I'm not gonna disappoint myself by looking for stickers.
Wow, look at you.
You look so nice.
You look just like your friend,
but slightly different.
Here they are.
Let's get the white one and hold it up next to it.
So I have two.
Let's see which one is cleaner.
Like, yeah, you can definitely tell,
this one needs to be in my bathroom.
So that's all, like, from, like, makeup.
It's not even that bad.
Well, okay, it's not,
I mean when you compare it to the brand new one,
I mean, look at that.
Can you see the difference?
You can see it, can't you?
- [Camera Person] In stunning 4K.
- Now that they're unboxed,
it's time to find a place for these pods in my home.
(upbeat music)
So here it is.
This is the new HomePod, second generation,
which by first look,
actually looks very similar to the first gen.
So, what really is new?
It has a very similar body style
but a slightly larger touchscreen area
that's more recessed into the HomePod.
I actually really prefer this look over the original.
The mesh looks almost the same as well,
but is supposedly more acoustically transparent.
The new HomePod is priced at $299
while the original was $349
and was sadly discontinued in April, 2021.
Now compared to the HomePod mini,
which is still such a surprisingly
powerful small little speaker,
you can get one of those for $99.
I do feel like this is such an interesting move by Apple
to basically launch such a similar product
but with internal specs that technically on paper
don't seem like that much of an upgrade,
but more on that in a second.
Now, with that being said, I love my HomePod so much
and I use them absolutely every single day
in almost every room of my home and my office.
It basically powers my smart home
and the sound is so amazing
that I'm always listening to music or audiobooks
or podcasts throughout the house,
and I love that I can easily move the sound with me
from room to room.
Now let's take a little look inside here
and see what's actually in these things.
Now, this is the high-excursion woofer.
There's a four microphone array,
beamforming array of five tweeters
to direct the sound down and out of the bottom
of the HomePod to prevent unwanted table reflections,
the S7 chip for the advanced computational audio,
internal base EQ microphone to actively measure
the internal pressure created by the movement of the woofer.
All of this is used to create room sensing
to optimize the location of wherever your HomePod is placed.
Creating a stereo pair with your HomePods
is one of my favorite things.
You can use this for your Apple TV
or even if you just want to have
a surround sound experience, but unfortunately,
if you do have an old HomePod
and you do get one of the new HomePods,
you won't be able to use
the first and second gen together as a stereo pair.
Now, like the HomePod mini, this has a built-in sensor
that can detect temperature and humidity of the room.
This can let you set up different triggers
to close blinds or turn on a fan automatically
when the room reaches a certain temperature.
There will also be an update later this spring
that will allow for sound recognition
for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.
I really love this feature
because it will be able to alert you
if an alarm is going off at home and you're not there.
Because not all detectors are smart home-enabled,
so this can give you an added peace of mind
if yours isn't one of the smart home connected devices.
Another big upgrade is this has built-in support for Matter,
which is a new smart home standard
that should make it much easier
to connect smart home devices to whatever system you like.
We do actually have this Matter-enabled plug here
that I can use to make any outlet smart.
So now more on why I said on paper the tech specs
of the new HomePod is less than what you would expect
of a new device.
The new HomePod is using Bluetooth 5.0
when the old one used 5.3.
It also only has four microphones when the first had six.
It's also using WiFi 4, and the first generation had five.
Now, comparing the actual speakers,
they both have a single large speaker facing upward,
and the new HomePod only has five smaller tweeters
arrayed along the bottom when the previous had seven.
As for what's powering it, it has the S7 chip
and a 64-bit dual core processor
that is used in the Apple Watch Series 7,
whereas the original HomePod used the A8 chip
which was first in the iPhone 6.
And now this brings the question
that I think everyone is asking,
is how much of a difference does this really make?
Because there are obvious enhancements
with the brand new HomePod, with the U1.
Matter support and even the new temperature sensors,
so, like, it just doesn't seem like Apple
would release a product
that is worse off than the first one.
Like, it just doesn't make any sense to me.
I think that everything now is being streamlined
into a more compact package,
which somehow surprisingly sounds even better.
Now, what makes the HomePod really so effective
at producing the best sound
is that the speakers have adaptive audio.
They use those microphones to listen for echoes
that allow it to map out the location that it's in
to optimize the audio for that space,
so having these in various locations in my home and office,
it's automatically detecting and optimizing for each room.
So now that this is all set up,
I can show you guys how this actually works in my home.
I use Siri all the time for pretty much everything.
Let me just give you guys a quick demo,
and this is actually, it already feels faster
than the previous version.
Hey, turn off main lights.
(HomePod chimes)
Did you hear that little chime?
That's also something that is new because before,
it would just do an action
and you wouldn't actually know if it was done,
so that's kind of like a little confirmation tone.
Hey, turn main lights back on.
Okay.
Hey, open kitchen slider.
The kitchen slider is very slow.
(slider buzzes)
It's a very slow open,
but it works.
I can use this with all of the blinds in my house
that I have that are electronic and it makes it so seamless
because I can just tell Siri what to do.
Or, you could just go like this,
(slider buzzes)
but which one is more fun?
Let's see what it actually sounds like.
I'm going to try to find a royalty-free track
in my library so that I don't get a copyright strike,
so let's see what we can find.
(upbeat music)
Whoa.
Okay, I'm gonna pause that for a second.
The first thing that I noticed was that bass.
Its already, it seems way better than the previous version.
Like, that was actually so crisp.
Like, I felt that in my heart.
(upbeat music) Whoa.
Let's turn it all the way up.
(upbeat music continues)
Okay, now I need to get the other one.
We gotta, I gotta find the, I gotta find my old one.
Where are you?
Come here.
This HomePod, after they discontinued it,
like, they were going on eBay for like six to $700.
Wild.
So now I'm gonna test out a little music comparison
to see what it sounds like between the old and the new one,
so now here we go.
We're gonna be playing on the old HomePod.
(upbeat music)
Okay.
(upbeat music)
I don't know, I don't know.
I don't really have an answer for you.
I did feel like this did have a little bit more bass,
but the fact that this is using less microphones,
less speakers, and you're getting potentially,
like, a better sound,
is still pretty impressive all things considered.
But just listening to both of them kind of side-by-side,
I'm honestly not really sure.
I don't know.
I can promise you it does not sound worse.
Does it sound significantly better?
I feel like they're pretty on par with each other.
They both sound incredible,
so I don't really know, this is really difficult
and you guys are sitting there online
watching this through YouTube
where you're already getting reduced audio.
The music that you're listening to
is coming through my lav microphone,
so it's really kind of a hard demo.
But I think honestly,
just looking at these two side-by-side,
even though they do have a very similar look,
this recessed LCD, it makes it look more refined.
Now looking at this one, it just looks weird.
Like, it just doesn't look,
like, that should not be like that.
So something that I never tried before,
I didn't even know that you could do this
so this is kind of news to me,
is you can have Siri play you ambient sounds.
So, hey, play 30 minutes of ambient forest sounds.
- [Siri] Forest now playing.
- Oh. (forest sounds)
A little ambient forest.
(forest sounds continue)
If I didn't know it,
I would think we were outside
in an ambient forest jungle.
Hey, play Miley Cyrus, "Flowers."
♪ Talk to myself for hours. ♪
Hey, stop.
Such a hit.
So I like to listen to a lot of audio books.
I just finished Prince Harry's book "Spare".
So what I like to do is if I'm listening to it in the car,
so here I am, I just got in the house,
I come into the kitchen.
I'm listening to this now
on my phone. - Controlled the purse strings
throughout my adult life.
- I just need to bring this close-
- Cutting me off- - To the HomePod.
- [Prince Harry] Therefore meant firing me.
Without- - And
it instantly
- [Prince Harry] Purse strings throughout-
- Transfers to the HomePod. - My adult life.
Cutting me off therefore meant firing me.
- And that's something that you couldn't do
with the previous version, but this is available
in the HomePod mini.
Ooh, ooh, something else that I like is Intercom.
I don't really use this that often, but it is really cool
if you do have these in various parts of your home
and somebody is upstairs or someone's downstairs
or if you wanna call the kids for dinner,
you can just have Siri use the intercom feature
and you can leave them voice messages throughout the house.
Hey.
Intercom.
Hey Justine, wow.
I can't believe how fast you are.
You made it all the way from over there
to all the way over here so quick.
(Siri speaks indistinctly)
Hey Justine, wow.
I can't believe how fast you are.
You made it all the way from over there
to all the way over here so quick.
I know, I know.
Hey, Siri.
Intercom, yeah, I know, I'm so fast.
I should run in races more often.
I'm so fast, bye.
(Siri speaks indistinctly)
Yeah, I know, I'm so fast.
I should run in races more often.
I'm so, so fast, bye.
I don't get out very much.
This is my form of entertainment.
So one of the cool things is you can set up a stereo pair.
So I'm gonna set up this HomePod
and sync it with the other one over there.
I will say that it's probably gonna drive me crazy
that these are two different colors,
but for the sake of this video,
these are the two that I have that are brand new
so let's set this one up and get these all synced up.
I moved both of the HomePods into the same room,
so we're in the entertainment room.
I'm gonna do a long press here.
Scroll down to our settings and create stereo pair.
Select both of them.
Hit done.
There we go.
We've got our stereo pair.
So now I'm gonna pair of these with my Apple TV
so I can enjoy some incredible stereo pair surround sound.
- [Doctor] Sophie, are you ready to begin?
Take me back. - Oh my God
- [Doctor] Where were you before?
(dramatic music)
And before that?
- Everyone keeps telling me-
- If you're wondering what I'm doing right now,
I'm buying another black HomePod.
- [Speaker] To where it starts.
- [Sophie] That if my life was so perfect-
- For a stereo pair here. - Why do you trust anything?
- That's what I'm, not even joking.
It sounds so incredible. - About that day-
- Like, I'm so upset that I haven't done this before.
Like, the only time that I've really done this
is for demos and tests, and I'm just like, yeah,
I can listen to this audio through my TV speakers,
which are I thought were really good.
This just ruined everything.
This, (Justine laughs)
I'm so, so impressed,
but I cannot have one black speaker and one white speaker
and I cannot, that cannot be.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video.
If you guys have any other questions,
please leave them in the comments below.
Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe
and be sure to hit the bell to be notified
when I post new videos.
I will see you guys in the next one.
Bye.
(upbeat music)