[Intro Music]
Hello everyone it's SpawnPoiint and welcome back to another video and today we're unboxing
setting up and taking a closer look at the brand new apple homepod mini now i've got two of these
here both in the new blue color which launches today but there's also the orange yellow space
gray and white to choose from but these give a nice hint of color without being too in your face
okay let's get this opened up and see what we get and here it is this is the new blue homepod mini
and this looks well nice yep i'm really pleased i went for this color then under that there's
the setup instructions with an apple sticker and finally the plug and it's a 20 watt brick
which is also usbc okay so taking a closer look at this awesome little speaker now this is actually
my first home pod speaker i've ever owned as i usually have google speakers around the house
but this looks so nice i did assume the exterior was going to be hard like a like a hard plastic
but it's not it's actually a very soft fabric and as you can see it's got a kind of a mesh
design to it now the reason for this design is it means it doesn't actually interfere with the sound
of the speaker and it also means it can provide a 360 degree sound around the back there's the
braided usb-c cable now this is permanently attached so you cannot remove it but i like
the thickness of this cable it's actually very similar to the new macbook cables that we get
the bottom is also color coded as well and that's showing a little apple logo now this is a nice
rubbery texture giving it some decent grip when it's on your table or your desk then on the top
there's this large white panel this shows you the plus and the minus icons which we'll go over later
but a nice touch here is the buttons are actually color matched to the fabric the same applies to
the orange and the yellow minis now this entire panel is actually a touch sensitive panel which
i will show you once we get it set up in a minute but there are no physical buttons on
the mini there's no power button or physical mute or volume buttons just this touch panel on the top
the mini is actually very small too it's measuring only 3.3 inches tall and 3.9 inches wide
which means it will fit practically anywhere just about the same size as an amazon echo dot
now setting up the homepod mini is probably one of the easiest things you can do you just
need an iphone or an ipad then connect the usb cable to the plug and wait for it to power up
then once it is powered on simply place your iphone near it and just wait for the prompt
from here it will ask you to set up choosing which room you wish to add it to and within
about two minutes it's good to go what can you do i can do lots of things like turn on the lights
give you a news update and tell you about the weather the next thing you need to do is decide
where you wish to place it for me i think these are minimal and pretty aesthetically pleasing
so they will fit practically anywhere around the house obviously it's mains powered so it will need
to be near a socket i've only got two of these at the moment but i would want one on my desk
and probably one on my bedside unit this would be useful for turning the lights on and off at night
if i added more i would probably put one in the kitchen where i can have music playing
saying that i currently have a google mac speaker which is hard to beat in terms of sound quality
and bass but what about you if you had or already have a smart speaker where's the most likely place
that you would use it when it comes to using the mini is absolutely packed with features
most of these you would use on your phone anyway but the fact you can use them hands-free is what's
really useful you don't even need to have your phone nearby to use them now the entire touch
panel on the top is also backlit which is pretty cool and you'll see that when it's listening or
responding to commands it lights up but one of the best features about this is the fact you
can airplay straight to it this means whatever you're listening to or watching on your iphone
or your ipad you can send the audio straight to the speaker you can either choose the speaker
from the menu on your phone or now this is a really cool feature just tap your phone on it
so here i'm listening to the radio on my iphone and just by tapping the speaker it will transfer
the audio over now the same again if i wanted to cancel the music from the speaker and transfer it
back to my phone i just need to place my iphone near the speaker and it will send the audio back
you can group multiple speakers together so if you have two or three in different rooms around
the house the music you're listening to will be in perfect sync across all of your rooms that's a
pretty cool feature for parties or just creating a nice atmosphere as you're moving around the house
it has the usual smart speakers that you would expect like setting reminders timers checking
the weather or asking siri general questions like could you please drop a like on this video
you can even use it to send and receive messages and phone calls i actually dictated a message to
my wife in imessages which is the default app but you can use it to send messages via whatsapp too
you just need to say a command such as sender whatsapp message too and it will do it for you
now i don't know if anyone else picked up some air tags earlier this year when they launched but you
can also find them via siri on the speaker too so for me i've got five of these for different
sets of keys my bag and my bikes it means if i lose them i can ask siri where they are and
it will ping them provided they are within range "where are my car keys" "looking for chris's keys"
apple music is the best way to listen to music on the mini as that's what it's integrated
with but what if you use spotify like me well unfortunately spotify is not natively integrated
so you cannot say play today's top hits on spotify but spotify does work with
the mini what you actually need to do is airplay it from the spotify app instead
this does mean that you're using your iphone but at least you're able to use it google on amazon on
the other hand will they actually allow spotify to work and can even be set as the default music app
if you've got an apple tv 4k you can actually ask the mini to play a movie or show straight
to the tv just by using a simple command like play the morning show it will then turn
your apple tv on and you're good to go you can also even pair the homepod mini to an apple tv
and if you've got two of these you can create a stereo setup this would make an awesome little
soundbar type setup and plus they look pretty cool now the mini can be used to control all of
your smart home accessories or gadgets anything that is home kit enabled so for me that's things
like my lights plugs my heating and even my alarm anything at all that integrates can be controlled
with it this is useful for walking into a room and turning all the lights on or off in one go
i actually did a smart home house tour a few months ago where i showed all of the tech that
i'm using basically everything that includes the alarm and my lights can all be controlled
via these minis there's no need to use the apps or physical buttons to control them
essentially the more apple or apple compatible things you have around the house the better this
little speaker will become but the sound on the speaker is nothing short of incredible especially
for its size i've had small speakers like the google mini and the echo dot but this speaker
is on a whole different level they are priced at two to three times more expensive though so
there's that but they do sound awesome on their own they sound great but you can also pair them as
a stereo setup and when you do this and set them up properly as a left and right they sound very
impressive whether you're pairing them as part of your apple tv setup or on your desk or just around
the room the sound generally impressed me they create a truly immersive sound something you'd
normally get from bookshelf or surround sound speakers volume wise they go up to an acceptable
level especially for the size and when they do go up to that level there's no distortion at all
the sound really is perfect even the bass on these little speakers are insanely good
they're not particularly loud though so you're not going to be able to crank them up to a level
where you couldn't speak over them but for the size you can't really expect any more
and the 360 degree sound certainly fills the room plus that mess fabric i mentioned earlier
that does an awesome job of creating a pretty clean and unfiltered sound
but here's a demo to give you an idea of what they actually sound like
so overall i think they sound awesome they're very clear the clarity is there there's enough
bass especially considering the size a few other features worth mentioning is siri can
recognize up to six different family members this is great if you've got children or other
family members around the house you might want to use their own playlists calendars or reminders
and if you've ever wanted to broadcast a message to everyone in the house you can do that too
it's called intercom on here which is very similar to google's broadcast feature
whatever message you share it will send it to everyone including your homepods watches iphones
privacy is always a concern as it should be unfortunately nothing is stored or sold on these
devices everything is used for analytic purposes only and apple have been very upfront about this
but it would be even better if there was a physical mute button on the device somewhere
where you can actually switch the microphone off if you were concerned about anyone listening in
so the homepod mini is 89 pounds or 99 and i think it's really worth that price the sound
quality you're getting is on par with the larger speakers out there but there's no distortion
and it's very very clear on top of that it looks nice and if you're already in the apple ecosystem
with say an iphone and ipad and a macbook this fits well with those i'm actually surprised at
myself for having google speakers around the house instead of these saying that i did have
google speakers before homekit was kind of a big thing and where the home kit logos were showing
up on product boxes generally speaking google and alexa are more widely used and supported
but in short if you're using apple items already definitely go through one of these homepod minis
and hopefully we'll see the larger homebob minis relaunched again next year but which color would
you go for let me know in the comments what speaker and color you would pick well you've
made it to the end of today's video so thank you for watching if you've enjoyed this please
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