Apple HomePod (2nd generation)  Speaker Review

This speaker's design is quite similar to the original Apple HomePod. It has a cylindrical shape wrapped in tight mesh fabric to blend in with your home decor. You can find it in White or Midnight color variants.

This speaker isn't really designed with portability in mind. Rather, it's a wired home speaker that's meant to live mostly in one place in your home. Still, it's lightweight enough to transport from room to room with ease.

This Apple HomePod is made of good-quality materials overall. It sits on a plastic base with mesh fabric wrapping around its sides for a look and feel similar to its original model. The glass plate on top of the speaker gives it a premium touch. Plus, this version has a removable power cable, which is handy if you want to thread the cable through a hole in your desk.

On top of the speaker, there's a glass panel that you can use to control the device. You can adjust the volume or tap the buttons twice to skip to the next track or return to the previous track. You can also take calls on the HomePod and answer them by tapping on the top of the speaker. That said, the speaker is designed to be controlled with your voice, so you can command it using built-in Siri. If you want to mute the microphone, for example, you need to ask Siri to stop listening, as there isn't a physical control for this function.

• Apple HomePod 2nd generation
• Power cable (4.9 ft / 1.5 m)
• Manuals

This speaker has very good frequency response accuracy. Its room-sensing feature works like a room correction tool, using built-in microphones to analyze your room's unique acoustics and optimize its audio reproduction accordingly. It's always active, too. Overall, its sound is relatively even with a touch of extra brightness, making it suitable for listening to many different types of audio content.

While listening to the speaker subjectively, we found that the bass holds nicely, so you get a good round sound even at lower volumes. It's likely because of Apple's bass-EQ microphone, which they say is designed to dynamically tune lower frequencies in real-time. To test this feature, we ran a pink noise file at different volume levels, the results of which you can see here. The louder the volume, the less of a bass range difference we see in the graph. At higher volumes, the bass tends to align with the treble.

We've received some feedback from users interested in whether it would be worthwhile to pair two 2nd Gen HomePods or to purchase the premium Bose Smart Soundbar 900. Ultimately, we found that the Bose soundbar gets much louder, and its soundstage is cleaner and more defined. Meanwhile, the HomePods have a pleasant soundstage, though it isn't as precise, giving a slightly veiled feel. There's somewhat of a hole where the center channel would usually be located, too. That said, the HomePods bring an impressive amount of bass for their size, and their Siri capabilities are a definite advantage. Depending on your preferences, you may opt for one setup over another. Adding a sub to the Bose soundbar is also a good option if you want bass with that setup.

This speaker's soundstage performance is good. You get consistent sound from all angles around the speaker. On its own, it has to downmix stereo content into mono.

There's been some chatter in the community about whether the HomePod is truly a mono speaker. We compared it to a true stereo speaker—the Ultimate Ears MEGABLAST—to demonstrate why we categorize it this way. We started by playing a left-driver-only pink noise audio file, then connected a microphone to pick up the audio. As you can see in this video, there's about a 10 dB difference when we move the microphone from the left side of the speaker, which is playing sound, to the right side, which isn't. Then, we used our hands to cover and uncover each side of the speaker to confirm that all sound came from the left side. Finally, we repeated the same process on the HomePod. This time, there was only about a 1 dB difference between the left and right sides of the speaker. Even when we use our hands to cover one side of the speaker, audio is still heard without issue. Thus, it acts like a mono speaker.

That said, you can always stereo pair this speaker with another 2nd generation HomePod. Given community chatter, we decided to stereo pair two HomePods together and add them to an Apple TV 4k to get a sense of its performance. Subjectively, when listening to stereo content like music, the second speaker offers a clear separation between the left and right channels. Dialogue and other details are clearly reproduced in movies, too, though they're missing the rumble in the bass you'd get with a dedicated subwoofer. Similarly, there's a good sense of left and right separation with Dolby Atmos content. You get some elevation to the front and the sides, but the speakers don't bring a sense of action happening above and behind you like a true 5.1 setup.

This speaker gets loud enough to fill an average-sized living room with sound. However, it's unsuitable for listening in larger or more open spaces. While our graph shows some compression in the bass range at max volume, we suspect that this is due to the speaker's bass-EQ dynamic tuning, as, in actuality, you don't notice much compression in the mix.

Thanks to built-in Siri support, controlling this speaker using your voice is easy. You have multiple options for muting the microphone, too. You can either ask Siri to stop listening or turn this feature off in the companion app.

The Apple Home app lets you control the speaker from your phone or mobile device. Only available with iOS, it helps you manage other Apple speakers in your ecosystem for stereo pairing or spreading audio throughout multiple rooms in your home. Also, you can set alarms and timers, which is handy. However, there aren't any sound customization features on hand, like with the Sonos Era 100, which is disappointing.

Given the interest from the community, we decided to stereo pair two HomePod speakers and subjectively evaluate the sound. We also launched an Apple TV 4K and added the device to the same Room as both speakers in the Apple Home app. With stereo content such as music, we found speakers offer a balanced sound with a solid amount of bass. The soundstage is wide, and sound effects are accurately localized to the left and the right, as you would expect with stereo speakers. With movies and videos, dialogue and other details are reproduced with clarity. There's a good amount of bass, but not as much as you would find with a dedicated subwoofer. Similarly, Atmos content is clear and engaging but not as immersive as a 5.1 setup. There's a sense of elevation towards the front and the sides on some scenes, but no real sense of height over your head or behind you. You can also ask Siri questions while watching movies or listening to music, which is handy. Siri's only functional on one of the two speakers, though.

While the manufacturer advertises this speaker to support Bluetooth 5.0, you can't stream audio to the speaker over this connection. It's only really used in the initial setup process.

This Wi-Fi-compatible speaker makes streaming audio from the manufacturer's other devices easy over Apple AirPlay. Its AV sync error over this connection is a touch higher than that of the original Apple HomePod (1st generation). However, it still falls within good limits. You aren't likely to notice a delay between the audio you hear and the visuals on screen, which is ideal for watching videos.