The most recent Apple HomePod speaker is on sale for $285 at B&H Photograph, which is $14 lower than shopping for from Apple immediately. This is not the largest cash discount we have seen, and Apple beforehand bundled the machine with a $50 reward card throughout Black Friday. However offers of any sort on the house speaker have been unusual because it arrived in early 2023, so this modest drop nonetheless represents the bottom value we have seen in the previous couple of months. The low cost applies to each the black and white variations of the speaker.
Photograph by Billy Steele / Engadget
This low cost is not an all-time low, however offers of any sort on Apple’s top-end sensible speaker have been unusual.
We gave the second-generation HomePod a score of 84 in our overview final yr. It’s going to take advantage of sense if you happen to’re a very devoted Apple person who prioritizes audio high quality. It nonetheless works simply with different Apple units and companies, from iPhones to Apple TVs to Apple Music, and we typically discover it to sound richer and clearer than competing smart speakers from Amazon and Google. As a sensible residence machine, it is appropriate with Matter and Thread on prime of Apple’s personal HomeKit protocol, so you should use it to manage a rising vary of safety cameras, thermostats, plugs and different sensible residence equipment. It additionally has built-in temperature and humidity sensors, and its included mics do properly to select your voice by noise.
To be clear, that is nonetheless a dear and comparatively area of interest machine. Audio system just like the Sonos 5 and Sonos Era 300 price extra however provide louder and extra dynamic sound high quality, whereas the Sonos Era 100 could also be a greater worth if you wish to preserve just a little more money. Apple’s personal HomePod Mini has almost all the identical sensible residence options if that is your predominant concern, whereas Google Assistant and Alexa customers ought to nonetheless look to Google’s Nest Audio or an Amazon Echo machine. The HomePod has its personal points, too: Siri is not probably the most succesful voice assistant, there isn’t any Bluetooth audio, you may’t customise its EQ and also you want a workaround to manage Spotify by way of voice. Rumors of a touchscreen-enabled HomePod have additionally floated round over the previous yr. All that stated, if you happen to’re all-in on Apple, this can be a first rate probability to save lots of on the corporate’s highest-end residence speaker.
Comply with @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the newest tech offers and shopping for recommendation.
Trending Merchandise
