We Spoke With Apple To Unpack The New Homepod

Apple’s HomePod family of smart speakers is once again a family in the sense that it is now a line of two products. Joining the $99 HomePod mini, which hit the scene in 2020, is the $299 HomePod. Equal parts a return story and a reinvention in that Apple’s home ecosystem is more built-out and the virtual assistant that offers easy control, Siri, is more agile and quicker than before.

You see, the HomePod first hit the scene in 2018 and then was discontinued. But it’s back in a similar form with impressive audio capabilities and a bevy of new smart home skills inside. Now, you can read my full review of the second-generation full-sized smart speaker on TheStreet and SI Showcase, but ahead we’re taking a deeper dive.

I had the chance to chat with two key members at Apple who work on HomePod, as well as other aspects of the Home and Music sectors. Specifically Matthew Costello, VP of Hardware Engineering, and Alice Chan, Product Marketing. Ahead I’m sharing points from this conversation, unpacking more of the audio stack of HomePod, and sharing my impressions after over a week with the smart speaker.

Why Is Now The Time For HomePod?

As of Feb 2, 2023, Apple offers the $99 HomePod mini and the $299 HomePod, but it isn’t the first time the latter product existed. Here is some brief history: HomePod was announced and began shipping in 2018 at $349, dropped the price to $299 in 2019, and it was discontinued in 2021.

HomePod mini hit the scene in 2020 and is really the ideal smart speaker for folks in Apple’s ecosystem. I’ve used one for countless months since then and its deep integration with other Apple devices, like handoff with an iPhone, as well as Siri’s chops for answering questions or completing requests, make it the ideal choice. Additionally, it produces great audio from a relatively small hardware setup inside.

Chan shared that HomePod mini has been popular, and that “we’ve heard more interest than ever for the acoustics of a richer larger speaker.” That is where the HomePod comes in, pairing a more advanced audio setup with the additional smart home capabilities that were first introduced with HomePod mini. Things like a smart home hub that works with Matter and boasts Thread connectivity, thus making getting devices connected and managing them more effortless.

“We’ve taken all the learnings from the original HomePod as well as HomePod mini and applied them to the new HomePod,” shared Chan. She expanded that the new HomePod boasts a similar, elegant woven design, immersive sound that’s crafted by hardware and software, and built-in sensing capabilities. The latter is two fold here as it speaks to adjustments in real time for the music, as well as smart home sensors like one for temperature readings and one for humidity measurements.

With the additional smart home features, it really establishes the HomePod as the baseline for setting up or expanding a smart home. At the same time it levels the features, apart from the audio power, with that of the HomePod mini.

You can opt to get a HomePod for the better sound and still have the advantages for setting up a smart home, to gain control from outside of the home or for ease of use with Siri for controlling it. Rolling out as well is the ability to create a smart home routine with just your voice. For instance, you could say “Hey Siri, turn off the porch lights every night at 10pm” and that will be a created automation.

In the Spring of 2023, Apple will be rolling out Sound Recognition to the second-generation HomePod, as well as the HomePod Mini. This will allow the smart speaker to detect either a carbon monoxide alarm or a smoke detector going off, and push out a notification to alert. Apple trained this using the microphone and testing scenarios, Chan noted that the “sound needs to have been playing for 15 to 20 seconds” to reduce false alerts. Apple also trained for the various types of alarms that might occur for either smoke or carbon monoxide around the world.

Improving The Design

I’ve noted it in my reviews of the HomePod, but the design is similar at first glance. Though one key area of improvement was with the physical controls. The top screen or display is six times larger than the original.

“HomePod is meant to emanate from the top cap, edge to edge LED display,” explained Costello. He continued by sharing that while it is larger, it’s also brighter and that given the different spaces where HomePod could go, the team had to focus on this for the right optimizations. There is an ambient light sensor built into the display, so while it isn’t visible to the naked eye, it works to provide an accurate sense while the display is illuminated.

The display team working on HomePod focused on ensuring the right amount of illumination or brightness depending on the color of the speaker, external sources and also for the types of color it is displaying. . When you make a request to Siri, the touch surface displays a vibrant multicolor illumination and when music is playing, the display will glow a subtle white to complement your environment.

This edge to edge display is capped off with the acoustic mesh outer shell, which resembles that of the original HomePod and of the HomePod Mini. In contrast to the latter, which is available in five shades, HomePod second-generation comes in either white or midnight. Costello noted that they kept white from the original, but that “midnight has been down selected from literally every exploration under the rainbow.”

Hardware And Software For Audio

Of course, all of this wraps what delivers the main feature of the HomePod, all of the audio hardware inside. First is the four-inch high-excursion woofer, which is what enables this speaker to deliver a pretty epic amount of bass.

Costello expanded, “It’s really a powerful motor driving the diaphragm 20 millimeters” and it’s controlled by the DSP to ensure accurate bass response at any volume level. He specifically shared that it’s the same or better output over the original HomePod.

Secondly, in an effort to ensure good performance from the woofer, there is an EQ microphone inside to ensure the consistency of bass regardless of the location. And the way it works is as follows: “It’s taking pressure measurements sitting in the middle of the device and we’re using the external microphones to take pressure measurements outside,” shared Costello. From there, the onboard processor, Apple’s S7, compiles and analyzes this to create a ratio between both and applies an EQ filter. All to ensure that wherever the device is, be it in a corner of a room or out in the open, the bass response is consistent.

In my testing so far, this does remain the case to ensure that the bass doesn’t overpower a track based on the location of the speaker. It’s these kinds of optimizations, specifically with low and mids of a track, that give the HomePod an edge in the audio space. Of course, the woofer is paired with five horn-loaded tweeters that are arranged at the bottom of the device. It’s technically a minus two from the original HomePod, but that didn’t result in any lesser sound quality from our testing.

Why at the bottom of HomePod for speakers that primarily create higher frequencies? Well, it’s what Apple calls a Zero Height Array and it first premiered on the original HomePod. Costello shared that the audio source is positioned near the surface to ensure that it fires across the device evenly for a proper mix. This is specifically engineered for higher-frequencies as well.

More interesting though is the room-sensing capabilities of the HomePod, which calibrate and tune the audio mix in real time. Using the four microphones built into the speaker, “as we play music, we’re taking measurements of the room and then adapting the HomePod sound signature by using the directional, beamforming capabilities of the tweeters,” explained Costello.

And yes, it is beaming or figuring out the right place to push music out. So if it’s in the center of the room, it can push out in all directions, but if it’s up against a wall, the HomePod can send music out to a surface to have it reflect off to create a specific impact. For instance, it could be bouncing off a wall, which aids in immersion with Spatial Audio. This expands further when you have two HomePod speakers paired together as it extends beyond left and right traditional stereo, to all heights and aspects of the space.

All of this might seem similar to other speakers, but there is another significant piece of hardware inside. Costello noted that HomePod has a closed loop feedback system and it’s in fact “the first system at Apple that’s actually continuously monitoring woofer performance and we do that to push the output of the system as far as possible.”

Furthermore, there is a sensor inside HomePod that is managing the state of the system, specifically electrical and mechanical capabilities, to then inform the tuning algorithms for the audio mix. It’s really managing the total power needed and being used, and balancing that to create the desired audio output. Costello summed it up as “optimizing the whole system for efficiency and performance” and it speaks to that HomePod is as much hardware as it is software.

Kind of acting as the maestro and conducting all this on the fly is the Apple-made S7 chip, which is a leap over the original A8 that powered the first-generation HomePod. It’s actually double the energy of that previous chip and the HomePod still features a suspension system inside to ensure it doesn’t shake even at the highest volumes.

So what does all this mean for using it everyday? Well, essentially when you first plug the HomePod in and begin playing a song, it will sense the room through microphones to figure out its location. Let’s say it’s up against a wall on the rear, it can push sound out the front and sides, but also out the rear to have it reflect off the wall. And if it’s in the center of the room with no blocker or wall directly nearby, the HomePod will know to push sound out in a 360-degree fashion. All happening in the span of a few seconds, to deliver a well rounded mix that is clear and crisp at any volume.

Additionally, if you’ve already invested in say a HomePod Mini or an original HomePod, you can still group those with the second-generation HomePod through multiroom audio. It’s clear that Apple wants these all to play well together and that’s an advantage to the ecosystem.

By Jacob Krol

Check out the great products and gear we recommend to Men’s Journal readers

Why Is Now The Time For HomePod?#

Improving The Design#

Hardware And Software For Audio#

By Jacob Krol#

Why Is Now The Time For HomePod?

Improving The Design

Hardware And Software For Audio

By Jacob Krol