Apple has announced HomePod mini 2, six years to the day after it unveiled the first HomePod mini on October 13th, 2020. The new one gets the Apple S10 chip, a top that lights up with your music, and the option to be a Mac’s default speaker. Its biggest feature, Siri AI, isn’t in the box yet: it will come in a future software update.
A top that dances, and the chip under it
The touch surface on top turns into a light panel that glows and pulses with the music on the new HomePod mini 2. It’s called Sound Glow, and it reacts to the bass and treble as they play. Colors come from a song’s album art in Now Playing, so every track gets its own light show.
It even works with calmer stuff, too. Pick a soundscape like rain and the top plays its own animation to match. Controlling Sound Glow by voice is possible, it just needs an Apple Intelligence-powered iPhone.
Under the mesh, the S10 runs what Apple calls computational audio. The speaker can analyze music as it plays and adjusts its loudness and dynamic range (the gap between the quiet and loud parts) on the fly. Inside them are a full-range driver and two passive radiators, with a waveguide that spreads the sound in 360 degrees, all in a ball 3.3 inches tall.
Siri AI, eventually
Siri AI is Apple’s rebuilt Siri, running on the latest generation of Apple Foundation Models – which are Apple’s own AI models. On HomePod mini 2 it answers questions on almost any topic with fresh information from the web, holds a real back-and-forth conversation and gets better at finding music.
The personal part runs through your phone. The speaker recognizes up to six people in a household by voice, and with an Apple Intelligence iPhone or iPad paired, Siri AI can act on each person’s own apps: find the song a friend recommended in a text, set a reminder tied to a calendar event or add ingredients to a grocery list.
The only thing is, Siri AI will only come later, in English, in the US, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and the UK. The home’s owner needs an Apple Intelligence iPhone or iPad for it to work at all.
A Mac speaker, and the rest
HomePod mini 2 can now be the default speaker for a Mac, for movies, games and FaceTime calls. It works on any Mac with Wi-Fi 6E or later, with one speaker or a stereo pair.
Four of them, in matching front and rear pairs, can also be surround speakers for the new Apple TV 4K (4th generation). As a home hub, it lets you control HomeKit and Matter accessories from anywhere, and with Apple’s new Home Collection doorbells and cameras it announces who’s at the door.
Sound Recognition listens for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and alerts your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, and the Home app lets you listen and talk through the speaker to check on things. Neither the alarm alerts nor telling voices apart is new, though. Apple already listed alarm alerts for HomePod mini when it added the midnight color in July 2024, and the 2020 original could already tell who was speaking.
HomePod mini 2 key specs
- Audio: full-range driver, two force-cancelling passive radiators, acoustic waveguide for 360-degree sound, computational audio for real-time tuning
- Chip: Apple S10
- Microphones: three-microphone design for far-field Siri
- Sensors: temperature and humidity
- Power: 20W power adapter in the box
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 6, Thread, Ultra Wideband chip
- Size and weight: 3.3 inches (84.3mm) high, 3.9 inches (97.9mm) wide, 335g
- Colors: pink, green, blue, white, midnight
- Other: backlit touch controls on top with Sound Glow; Sound Recognition for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms; stereo pairs, multiroom audio and surround sound with Apple TV 4K (4th generation); Mac speaker on Macs with Wi-Fi 6E or later; HomePod software 27.2
HomePod mini 2 costs $149 (about Php 9,400) in all five colors. That’s $50 more than the original’s $99 (about Php 6,200), the price Apple still charged when the midnight model arrived in July 2024. Pre-orders are now open in the US and more than 23 other countries and regions, and it reaches stores on Friday, October 30th.
