Here’s What’s New With Apple’s HomePod, and How Much It’ll Cost You

Apple lifted the lid on its new Mac Mini and MacBook Pro devices this week, but that’s not all it has in the tank. Apple has also revealed its new HomePod smart speaker, and it comes with next-level sound and a refined design.

What’s new with Apple’s 2023 HomePod?

Apple claims its 2nd generation HomePod builds on the classic design, with white and midnight colour options made with 100% recycled mesh fabric and a colour-matched woven power cable.

As for the audio, the new HomePod features a custom-engineered high-excursion woofer, a motor that drives the diaphragm 20mm, a built-in bass-EQ mic and a beamforming array of five tweeters. It also uses an S7 chip to offer even more advanced computational audio.

The new HomePod uses room sensing technology to recognise sound reflections and adapts its sound in real-time.

The HomePods can also pair with each other to create a studio pair for a surround-sound home theatre experience.

The new HomePod also uses Ultra-Wideband technology that allows any iPhone to easily pair with the smart speaker just by bringing it close. The speaker also fits right into the Apple ecosystem and works seamlessly with the Apple TV 4K.

Another pretty neat feature is that the HomePod can use sound recognition to listen for smoke alarms and send an alert to a user’s iPhone if a sound is identified. Pretty useful if you’re not home and an alarm goes off.

It also has temperature recognition that can sense the internal room temperature and activate linked devices like blinds or turn on your air conditioning when a certain temperature is reached.

The HomePod is compatible with iPhone SE (2nd gen and later), iPhone 8 (and later), iPad Pro, iPad (5th gen and later), iPad Air (3rd gen and later) or iPad mini (5th gen and later). Devices need to be running Apple’s OS 16.3 or later.

Apple HomePod 2nd Generation Pricing and Availability

Now the important stuff, when can you get the new HomePod, and how much will it cost you?

The HomePod (2nd Gen) is available for $479. It’s available for order as of January 19 and will arrive in stores on February 3.