Apple HomePod (2023) Review

The HomePod (2018) is dead, long live the HomePod (2023)! Nearly two years after the original was discontinued, the new 2023 avatar arrives with a look that’s nearly identical to the original. I said nearly identical – it’s a bit more squat, with a slightly larger screen on top and a power cable that’s removable, and it comes in a slightly darker shade of black.

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Dive under the mesh fabric surface, and Apple has incorporated five tweeters and a 4-inch woofer, alongside the S7 chip and a slew of new humidity, temperature, and sound recognition sensors. If you have compatible smart home equipment, the new sensors allow for triggering home automation, and support for the Matter protocol inches the HomePod towards smart home hub territory.

For anyone counting, the new HomePod has two less tweeters than the first gen, yet the sound that emanates from the HomePod is surprisingly big. Apple has used computation audio wizardry to produce an airy, roomy sound that sounds good no matter where you’re standing in the room. The sonic signature leans towards the bass-heavy, which sometimes tends to overpower the treble and mid-range on certain tracks, and there’s no equalizer settings to finetune the audio to your liking.

For the most part, it sounds perfectly at home with modern pop or classic rock. Courtesy the new chip, Siri works and responds faster to requests, but music playback is limited to Apple Music…with Spotify and other services available to stream only over AirPlay via your iOS/macOS device. No Bluetooth connectivity or line-in connectivity for Android, either. 

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If you have the money lying around, you could more than double your experience by pairing two identical HomePods yielding a far bigger soundstage and audio big enough for large rooms. Two identical models, mind you – not a recent HomePod with an older gen model or a HomePod mini. It’s also gotten more expensive, so unless you can justify the outlay, you’d be better off with a HomePod mini (or two).
 
Rating: 7/10
Price: INR 32,990

The writer is a tech columnist and commentator and tweets @2shar.