Review HomePod – great listening with many compromises

Wireless speaker HomeThe Pod is officially sold only in the American, English and Australian markets. Apple plans to expand to other major markets later this year. However, this expansion will most likely primarily concern Germany and France.anci.e. The aforementioned limitation does not mean that it is currently not possible HomeYou can also buy it in the Czech Republic or Slovakia. For example Alza offers speakers from English distribution, which work without any problems in our country after using a power adapter. And we will now look at one such model. The black one arrived at our editorial office HomeIn the following lines, Pod and I will share with you what living with the speaker has been like over the last two weeks.

Unboxing and first setup

If HomePod buy, the immediate first contact will be with the box. It will surprise you in particular with two parameters, namely weight and size. If you've never seen the speaker in person, the promotional images might make it look like a fairly large piece of hardware. The size of the box suggests that this may not actually be the case. What's even more surprising is how heavy the entire box is. Surprisingly for its size... Otherwise, there is nothing unusual about the box.

Unboxing is at Apple products usually delight and in the case of HomeIt's no different, although you won't see any major drama. After sliding the lid of the box, the upper part of the speaker smiles at you and that's it. When you take it out of the box, you'll find a rolled-up power cable underneath, which is pleasantly braided and gives a quality impression. At the very bottom of the box are instructions, some other paperwork, and the traditional sticker of a bitten apple.

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If you've ever connected to one of yours Apple product wireless headphones AirPods, you have a clear idea of ​​how it works with HomePodem. Just plug it into the socket (in this case using the supplied adapter for an English socket) and place your iPhone next to it. Almost immediately, a screen will appear with the option of connection and initial setup. Here, you fill in information about which room the speaker is in and what functions you want to enable in it - for example, access to SMS and personal notifications, voice control, etc. After a short setup, it is done and HomeThe pod is ready to use.

From now on, it functions as a separate unit and can be controlled in two or three ways. Either via the command "Hey Siri", or by tapping the top control panel, which starts or pauses music playback, or activates Siri after a long press. Apart from this control panel, which also has + and – signs for adjusting the volume, there are no other controls here. The last option is to control the speaker via your iPhone/iPad/Mac.

Sound: faithful reproduction

The most important factor in evaluating a speaker is how well it plays. There have been many reviews on the web in the last two months, in which the authors HomeThey praise it, and I am certainly not in a position to contradict their conclusions. Quite simply, HomeThe Pod plays great. However, this may not necessarily suit everyone. The main idea AppIt was to be HomePod able to reproduce the song being played as faithfully as possible. How did he make himself heard Tim Cook – ideally as the author himself intended. And that Applu succeeded. The sound performance is strictly neutral, very accurate and allows you to immerse yourself in the finest details of individual songs. It does not interfere with the excessive boost of the lower spectrum, which we are used to with most classic speakers, just as there is no distortion at really high volumes, which, by the way, it does not have HomePod the slightest problem. The vocals excel both in competition with the hard guitars and in the drum'n'bass arrangements of Pendulum's songs. You can do it just as well HomeAlong with a symphony orchestra playing famous film melodies.

During testing, I did not come across a genre that the speaker did not suit. Fans of "bass" genres may be dissatisfied, but a speaker with such a reference sound will never have extremely strong bass. Active systems that take care of dynamically adjusting the sound characteristics work wonders and HomeThe Pod will actually play basically everything you want it to. The spatial arrangement of the individual tweeters will then reliably fill the entire room where you are. HomeUnder built.

Smart features: lots of compromises

However, music production is not the only evaluation parameter that is important in this case. Especially when you label your product as a “smart” speaker. Inside HomeThe pod is located Siri, and so one would expect that everything your iPhone (iPad, Mac...), it can also handle HomeUnder – however, the opposite is true. Abilities Siri they are in HomeSubstantially limited, although with representatives Applu has said several times that the functionality will gradually increase. HomeFor example, Pod can't work with a calendar, so you can't dictate your appointments for next week to it or even see what you have planned for this week. With HomeYou also can't call Pod, although it can write SMS (in English, of course). You can't ask it for directions, as it doesn't have access to location data and maps. If we add to these shortcomings the fact that it actually only works with Apple products, officially supports only Apple Music (in terms of system integration), does not work as a classic Bluetooth speaker or does not recognize multiple users, we find that its functions are essentially very limited. Generally poor quality Siri (especially regarding the ability to maintain the context of the questions asked) does not help the overall assessment much.

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So who is it for? HomePod intended? First of all, for those who are "up to their ears" in Apple ecosystem. Owning an iPhone, iPad or Mac is a must, otherwise the speaker will not work. If you prefer Spotify over Apple Music, it makes no sense HomeI'll think about it. Furthermore, you must not have a problem with English, as it is currently the only way to communicate with the speaker (if we forget the limited manual control from other devices). From a user perspective, many compromises need to be made to make HomeIt made sense. From a musical perspective, it's not that complicated, because if you're looking for high-quality and, if possible, reference listening, a speaker from Applu offers it to you in full. HomeThe pod is also visually pleasing, as it looks very good and feels even better to the touch. The soft fabric is very pleasant and even from a distance you can see that this is a piece of quality and honest hardware.

In its current form on me HomePod it seems like some kind of betaversion of a product that will one day be very good. The foundation in the form of great music production is definitely here. I also have nothing to complain about in terms of workmanship and materials. However, the functions and capabilities as such are limited and there is huge room for improvement. The good news is that these problems will be solved in the vast majority of cases by a software update. So if music is your primary concern and the other functions are of secondary interest to you (and you also meet the conditions mentioned at the beginning of the previous paragraph), go for it, you will not regret it. If you are hesitating about purchasing it, there is nothing easier than waiting. Other functions will arrive in time, just as they will (hopefully) improve over time Siri.

• Apple HomeYou can buy the pod here