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If you’ve been waiting and waiting for Apple’s entry into the smart home speaker race, today’s the big day to at least pre-order the new device. That’s right, it’s January 26th, and if you get in line today, you’ll likely receive one of the first Apple HomePod speakers by around February 9th. We were able to play around with one for about an hour to get some early impressions, and so far, so good. First off: It does sound pretty amazing.
The HomePod features a central woofer and seven high-frequency drivers, and it seemed like wherever we were in the room, sound quality was very good – and quite loud. The HomePod’s built-in microphones sniff out your room’s acoustics and set up the sound accordingly, and it does a solid job of it. Speaking of setup, it was a breeze, as you’d likely expect from an Apple device. It also looks pretty good: Stylish but also low-profile, and it comes in two colors – so far.
One music note: Siri will only control Apple Music by voice, not Spotify or Pandora and so on, but you can route those streaming tunes to the HomePod from your iPhone if need be. Siri worked as expected, although we had to ask twice a few times when the music was loud. And of course it works great with HomeKit-capable smart home toys. So is it perfect? Not quite. Check out our hands-on review and then decide if you want to drop $350 on it.
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