Apple Homepod Mini Availability

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#2634126 12-Jan-2021 11:16

Wow: https://www.noelleeming.co.nz/shop/audio/home-audio/multi-room/jbl-link-music-wi-fi-speaker/prod189213.html This is the one I have.....no battery btw. And I only paid $74. I wouldn't pay this much for it.

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mobiusnz

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Ultimate Geek

#2634131 12-Jan-2021 11:26

timbosan:

@mobiusnz - My HomePod minis are being sent from Sydney this week. Let me know if your still interested in feedback on them, or if you have any specific questions.

BTW where in NZ are you? You can PM me that if you want.

Yeah - I'll be keen to hear how you find them. I'm in Christchurch.

I'm not desperate to rush out and buy anything and for me I'm leaning more to the Homepod as we are a family of Iphones and Ipads so we're pretty ingrained in Apple music / Icloud. That JBL sounds like a cool device in many ways but I like the tight Apple integration of the Homepod.

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

mobiusnz

457 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2634148 12-Jan-2021 11:47

davidcole:

Wow: https://www.noelleeming.co.nz/shop/audio/home-audio/multi-room/jbl-link-music-wi-fi-speaker/prod189213.html This is the one I have.....no battery btw. And I only paid $74. I wouldn't pay this much for it.

Oh yeah - $99 on Harvey Norman at present - You do wonder if they negotiate their specials as you always find one will have one brands while the other has the competition and then 2 months later it swaps. It's like they secretly coordinate their specials to share the market.

Also its $74 on 1day

Pro's and cons. On the one hand not having a battery is good as realistically its likely to want to sit there plugged in all the time so having a battery is a downside if the battery wears out due to constant charging and no use. On the flip side the battery makes it slightly convenient.

Ahh. I hate this where I end up with competing products with pro's and con's to both. I might get the JBL and if it doesn't do whats needed it goes into the bedroom as a glorified music alarm clock and order an Apple Homepod mini. One pro for the Alexa is the ease of playing radio stations but I'm picking it won't be hard to link Tune-In or something to Siri or Google. At $74 I might go and buy that one from 1Day - I did a quick search and a shopping list is much the same with Google as with Apple. It just means going into Google Home on her phone for the list rather than Apple Reminders/Lists. Mainly she wants the ease of adding things to the list hands-free from the kitchen - The rest of the time doing it through google home on the phone is no biggie.

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

mobiusnz

457 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2634165 12-Jan-2021 12:06

Ok - Final note - I bit the bullet and for $80 including shipping got the JBL Link Music from 1day

https://1-day.co.nz/products/new-code-4969-474483937

For that price this thing

gets very good audio reviews at times meeting expectations of $300-400 sonos speaks at medium volume.
Has 802.11ac wifi so does 5ghz and 2.4 where most of these products only do 2.4. I have amazing wifi coverage but having 5ghz will be good for speed
Does Bluetooth aswell as wifi for guests to play music from phones etc
Does Airplay for hi quality wifi streaming from Iphones - Great so they can walk out of the room and take their phone and it wont stop
Does Chromecast for Android devices to do wifi streaming as above
Has Google Assistant which since December 2020 can link to Apple music so we can stream music without a device.

Hard to believe it packs that much in for $80!?! How can I go wrong - There will always be a use for it even if I do get a Homepod later.
About the only negative I could find is you can't pair them for stereo but for me if you are looking for better audio why are you buying an $80 speaker in the first place?

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

jonathan18

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#2634219 12-Jan-2021 12:33

I bought one of these JBL speakers in mid Dec for an Xmas present ($68 from HN at the time!), and I agree they offer a lot for the money when discounted to below $100 - at full price I’m not so sure! Other than the Airplay advantage, I think they’re an ideal alternative to a Nest Mini as the footprint isn’t that much more and the price isn’t way greater, but they offer acceptable sound for music (IMO, Minis and others of their ilk aren’t useful audio-wise for much more than spoken word).

Edit - GA devices are easy as for playing radio stations, so don’t worry about that. For ones most frequently used it’s worth setting up a routine in Google Home, eg we only have to say ‘radio’ for any of the GA devices to start playing RNZ National.

Shopping lists - just use Google Home to link the account to a chosen list app; I think it works with about three different apps (we use Google Keep). Once that’s set up, you just use the list app, not GH, to access the list.

JPNZ

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#2634225 12-Jan-2021 12:52

jonathan18:

Shopping lists - just use Google Home to link the account to a chosen list app; I think it works with about three different apps (we use Google Keep). Once that’s set up, you just use the list app, not GH, to access the list.

Excatly what I do with my nest mini (use keep) works very well and just jump into keep on my phone at the supermarket. Agree with the audio from nest mini's hence I setup a HK Onyx mini as my default speaker for my bedroom nest mini.

Panasonic 65GZ1000, Onkyo RZ730, Atmos 5.1.2, AppleTV 4K, Nest Mini's, PS5, PS3, MacbookPro, iPad Pro, Apple watch SE2, iPhone 15+

mobiusnz

457 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2635683 14-Jan-2021 20:46

ok, received my JBL Link Music from 1 day today and have it all setup. Music with airplay sounds pretty good, little bit heavy on low frequency but that’s probably positioning as it’s on a shelf with a bit of a chamber behind it effectively, I’ll look at position or equaliser settings.

nice and responsive to ok google and the basics are great.

My two big disappointments are:

no Apple Music. Although google launched it it’s a limited region feature so can’t get it. Can’t see anywhere to set a region, changed language to UK but that made no difference. I’m picking it knows where it is and there is no way to change it. So I’m stuck with Spotify free at present or playing via airplay from the phone, not the end of the world as at least it’s wifi so if the phone walks around the house it won’t stop playing.

no radio. I’m picking tune-in radio etc are also music services and the only music services I’m offered are Spotify or YouTube music so again I suspect it’s a regional issue which is a real pain. One of the things I was looking forward to is getting rid of the old stereo the we occasionally listen to the radio on. Guess it’s airplay from phone or iPad for that too. Fine for me but my wife isn’t great with tech so voice prompts would be easier.

it’s a real shame when they limit regional features when there isn’t really reason to. Fair enough that they don’t offer support etc but hey, use at own risk would be fine.

still a fantastic device for the price. Just to get a reasonable quality airplay wifi speaker for $80 is amazing value. Adding chrome cast and google assistant is brilliant.

overall it stops me rushing and buying a HomePod not but may still at some point. I’m sure we’ll occaisionally struggle with “Alexa” in the lounge and “ok google” in the dining room but due to the way my tech brain works I’m finding it pretty natural so far.

for anyone thinking of a UE Boom type device for the house I’d go one of these every day. No worrying about battery health if you don’t intend to take it anywhere and wifi airplay / chrome cast is better quality and range means you can wander around the house without Bluetooth dropping out. Nothing worse than when the person playing music forgets and walks out of the room with their phone and the music stops.

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

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GSManiac

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Ultimate Geek

#2635685 14-Jan-2021 20:49

Bit misleading as the 1day website states you can use Apple Music.

mobiusnz

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Ultimate Geek

#2635687 14-Jan-2021 20:54

GSManiac:

Bit misleading as the 1day website states you can use Apple Music.

youre right. Just looked again. I initially thought they might have meant with airplay but once I re-read it they definitely imply that you can use google assistant to request Apple Music.

I haven’t had time for an in depth look at regional options etc to get the service but a quick google found nothing and I couldn’t find anything about a region.

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

mobiusnz

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Ultimate Geek

#2635688 14-Jan-2021 20:58

Ok. Turns out I was wrong. If I say “ok google play radio station more fm” it works. I guess tunein radio is automatically enabled. I suspect I just didn’t specify the word radio stupidly and then expected to have to add the service somehow.

so radio works so for me it’s just Apple Music.

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

jonathan18

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#2635701 14-Jan-2021 21:19

Have you watched a few videos of someone going over the features/how to use a GA-enabled device, or looked over one of the long 'cheat sheet' lists of GA commands? If not, I'd suggest doing so. The list is long, comprehensive, and ever-growing - even on a non-screen device like the JBL you've bought

Re radio, I'd mentioned that earlier that it's really easy to use - given it does not actually need an active account you need to log into there's no need to set them up in an app or in GH. Note my earlier suggestion about using routines to simplify access to regularly-used features like specific radio stations - they do really make it easier/faster/convenient (especially grouped routines like at waketime or bedtime).

Sounds annoying about Apple Music; I don't use it so can't comment on whether it is possible to get GH/GA support for it working in NZ, but there have previously been a number of features limited to o/s markets that even something as simple as switching language to a supported market (eg, American English) could unlock. (Now Google sells actively in the NZ market this shouldn't be such an issue.) Could be worth investigating this further, including asking here on GZ as to what others have found.

davidcole

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#2635706 14-Jan-2021 21:30

Can probably also say play zm on iheart (or the nzme station).

id expect Apple Music you’d drive via Siri and airplay over google music? Maybe need to set you hey Siri

davidcole

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#2635707 14-Jan-2021 21:30

Can probably also say play zm on iheart (or the nzme station).

id expect Apple Music you’d drive via Siri and airplay over google music? Maybe need to set you hey Siri

davidcole

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#2635708 14-Jan-2021 21:30

Can probably also say play zm on iheart (or the nzme station).

id expect Apple Music you’d drive via Siri and airplay over google music? Maybe need to set you hey Siri

mobiusnz

457 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2635797 15-Jan-2021 09:41

jonathan18:

Have you watched a few videos of someone going over the features/how to use a GA-enabled device, or looked over one of the long 'cheat sheet' lists of GA commands? If not, I'd suggest doing so. The list is long, comprehensive, and ever-growing - even on a non-screen device like the JBL you've bought

Re radio, I'd mentioned that earlier that it's really easy to use - given it does not actually need an active account you need to log into there's no need to set them up in an app or in GH. Note my earlier suggestion about using routines to simplify access to regularly-used features like specific radio stations - they do really make it easier/faster/convenient (especially grouped routines like at waketime or bedtime).

Sounds annoying about Apple Music; I don't use it so can't comment on whether it is possible to get GH/GA support for it working in NZ, but there have previously been a number of features limited to o/s markets that even something as simple as switching language to a supported market (eg, American English) could unlock. (Now Google sells actively in the NZ market this shouldn't be such an issue.) Could be worth investigating this further, including asking here on GZ as to what others have found.

I haven't yet - Literally got it on arrival home last night, plugged it in and had a quick play and reported back initial findings.

I'll have a look at a cheat sheet as watching videos does my head in as most people waffle so much that even on double speed it takes 5 minutes to learn what a quick written sentence will tell me :)

I need to experiment more with the timers too as I did "start a 2 minute potato timer" and then "start a 90 second egg timer" and the egg timer finished without specifically announcing it was the "egg" timer and then when I asked there were no more timers. Not sure if its because I said something like "stop timer" to shut it up and it stopped all timers or if one timer replaced the other. Alexa handles named timers really well - Again, I'll experiment more as I'm pretty sure it was me - Again my wife being terrible with technology thinks nothing of shouting to the kids while I'm giving instructions to siri, alexa, google so is very good at tipping over the apple cart. Its hilarious watching her having a conversation with Siri on her phone adding a calendar appointment, it took a long time for her to embrace it and she loves it now but doesn't really get the concept of keep the instructions clear and concise.

Initially I'm very happy with the speaker and at under $100 its incredibly good value for money.

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

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