Apple discontinued the HomePod and was selling them “until supplies last”. Instead of getting rid of the HomePod I had in the kitchen, I did something completely different. I listened to Marco Arment praise HomePods on ATP here and then here, especially recommending a stereo pair. So I hunted down two white HomePods for my living room and hooked them up:
A stereo pair of HomePods sounds amazing!
Marco was right. The two HomePods sound great. Really great. I have one HomePod in the kitchen and it sounds good, but it pales in comparison to having a stereo pair in the living room. Boy it sounds fantastic.
Why get HomePods when they’re discontinued?
Long story short, because the HomePods are not really very smart, but they sound amazing. Apple over-engineered the heck out of them. And if you have a household full of Apple devices, anyone can just control them and put music through them.
I have three daughters, all of them have an iPad (iPad Mini 2, iPad Mini 4 and iPad 2018). Me and my wife have iPhones and one iPad Pro each. So instead of getting a Sonos system or something similar, we just got more HomePods and can play music easily throughout the house. And we have an Apple Music Family subscription.
This way we’ve got a stereo set of HomePods in the living room, one HomePod in the kitchen and a HomePod mini in my home office. We get to enjoy music everywhere in our house now!
Siri is dumb, but the music is great, and it just works!
Yes, Siri is not the best assistant on the planet, but it does work every now and then when we need it and the HomePods produce amazing music from just two speakers.
Do you have additional unboxing photos?
Yes, enjoy them - here are the HomePods almost unboxed:
And here are the HomePods still in the boxes:
Anyway, I don’t regret my decision. Buying probably the last two available HomePods on the planet was a really good idea and now I’ll get to enjoy amazing music in my living room for many years to come! Thanks Marco for convincing me to do it!