The Art of Getting the Most Out of Your HomePod Mini: Tips and Tricks

As you start exploring the features of your new HomePod mini, it's essential to understand that this speaker is not just for playing music. With its advanced Siri capabilities, you can use it to control your home, set reminders, and even make hands-free phone calls. However, one of the most exciting aspects of the HomePod mini is its ability to be used by multiple people in the same household.

Many people might think that Siri is just a voice assistant, but it has evolved significantly over time. With the introduction of "Siri for Everyone," you can now have multiple users set up their own personalized experience on the HomePod mini. This feature allows everyone in the house to use Siri independently, without having to share the same account or settings.

To take advantage of this feature, make sure to enable "Siri for Everyone" in your Home app. Once enabled, each user can set up their own preferences and settings, including music playlists, reminders, and even the ability to control other smart devices in the home. This is particularly useful if you live with others who have different musical tastes or prefer to use specific apps like Spotify.

One of the most significant benefits of having multiple users on a single HomePod mini is the ability to share content across devices. For example, if you're using your iPhone to listen to music and want to transfer it to your HomePod mini, Siri makes it incredibly easy to do so. Simply tap on the notification, and voilà! Your music will start playing on your HomePod mini.

However, some users might be under the impression that Spotify is not compatible with the HomePod mini due to voice control limitations. This is actually not true. While you can't use Siri to control Spotify directly, you can still airplay your music from Spotify to the HomePod mini using the AirPlay feature on your iPhone or iPad. To do this, simply start playing your music in Spotify and select "AirPlay" to send it to your HomePod mini.

If you're a heavy user of music streaming services like Spotify, you might want to consider transferring your entire library to Apple Music. With apps like SongShift, you can easily move all your playlists, songs, and even albums from Spotify to Apple Music. This will give you access to the full Apple ecosystem and potentially save you money on subscription fees.

In addition to these features, there are a few more tips and tricks to get the most out of your HomePod mini. One of the most useful features is the ability to control music playback with single taps or double/triple taps on the screen. For example, a single tap can start or stop playing music, while a double tap skips forward and a triple tap goes back.

Finally, if you're planning to set up your HomePod mini in a stereo pair, make sure both devices are in the same room and create a "Room" in the Home app. This will allow you to enjoy seamless stereo sound and even control other smart devices in the same room using Siri. If you're hooking up your HomePod mini to an Apple TV, make sure it's also in the same room, as this is required for optimal syncing.

Overall, the HomePod mini is a versatile speaker that can be used in a variety of ways, from playing music to controlling smart devices and making hands-free calls. By enabling Siri for Everyone, sharing content across devices, using AirPlay to control Spotify, transferring your library to Apple Music, and utilizing the screen controls, you'll be able to get the most out of this incredible device.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey it's chris you know i kind of have a feeling you might be looking for a video about the homepod mini that isn't just comparing it to an amazon speaker or google speaker but instead might actually help you think through how the homepod mini or homepod minis could fit into your life and how it could be useful for you and to you and this is that video so today i'm gonna let you know how i view and look at the homepod mini in the bigger macro picture of things as well as how i personally plan on using them which might give you some ideas and then i'm also going to talk about some specific places and uses where the homepod mini might be able to fit into your life just to give you some ideas about how this might be useful to you because i feel like for me when i heard about it when i saw the announcement i was like that's cool but where do i put it how do i use it and so i want to just help you think through those scenarios and then along the way i'm just going to give you some straightforward tips too by the way i actually bought these two they're not review units or anything like that i actually plan on using these and i pre-ordered these on the first day that i could and it only let me put two in the cart if i could i would have gotten four so let's do a quick unboxing here's my first look at these and you know wow it's smaller than i would have thought right off the bat i think when you see photos and videos online it doesn't really help you understand just how small these actually are so however small it looks just in real life it feels a little bit smaller so for instance here's an apple for context or i guess i should say here are two apples and here is the original homepod right in the middle just for some context it is much bigger in fact if you stack these two together they almost kind of equal the height of the original hey it's kind of like a little snowman actually papa shot mini basketball home pop mini see the size difference this is what we're dealing with alright well let me tell you how i view the homepod mini and then how i'm going to use it now this might surprise you but i don't view this as a speaker that's primarily going to be used for music now that's just me everybody's different but i didn't look at this and say that's going to be my new main speaker for listening to music no for me this is purely going to be supplemental and it's going to let me bring more speakers to more places in my home so for me this isn't an alternative to the larger home pod that i've had for a long time now because for me i use and love the original homepod so much i use it daily and it sounds incredible i'm not looking to replace it and actually this original homepod it lives in my living room and i've got it paired up with my lg oled tv and i talked more about that in that home theater setup on the podcast so that's something you should go check out if you missed it but needless to say i haven't gone and dropped 299 dollars to put one in my office another 299 dollars to put one in my bedroom another 299 dollars to stick one in my kitchen or another 299 dollars to put one downstairs those are all places i would love to have a home pod but i didn't want to spend that kind of money just to have a home pot in every room if i had done that put a homepod in those four places on top of the one that i have that would be an extra twelve hundred dollars instead i can spend four hundred dollars and get four homepod minis for a third of the cost and then my smart house will be more connected to my smartphone and my digital life and my household will be more connected to each other using fun new features like intercom so intercom lets your homepods and other apple devices function like gateways to different areas in the house and even works with carplay so what that means is there's not going to be any more yelling across the house which is pretty cool now here's the thing even if i had 1200 to spend and i wanted to buy four new home pods the mini is actually just a better physical fit for a lot of places around my house like for instance a side table or my nightstand where space might really actually be at a premium and a mini is just going to take up less space than the original by the way i know this isn't the purpose of this video but having listened to this for the first time with some andy mineo some herman miller i gotta say the sound is impressive for the size and that's all i'm gonna say about it alright so let's talk about some actual scenarios and spaces and ways that these might be useful in your actual life i'm gonna think through it with you i think one of the best uses for these is gonna be at your desk whether it's just as a digital assistant there kind of staying out of the way but providing you access to your calendar by voice for instance or whether you end up stereo pairing these and using them as your actual wireless computer speakers either for your mac or your ipad it would work great in either instance look i've got some really expensive professional studio monitors and they don't work well with bluetooth they just don't they sound amazing uh they're very accurate but i have to actually plug them in physically to my mac to get them to be in sync with audio but i would absolutely love to have a pair of home pod minis as my computer speakers not only do they look amazing but they stay out of the way as well now the speakers on apple's devices are getting pretty amazing the 16-inch macbook pro oh wow does it sound good but you know what having something like this like spatially spread out it just adds something to your atmosphere to your ambiance at your desk if you've got a minimalist vibe going on too like it's just the aesthetic it's great i think another obvious place to stick one of these is on your nightstand right next to your bed why well for me i've got some hue lights in the bedroom and i like to be able to control those with my voice not have to reach for the phone you know i got my apple watch off already if i'm going to bed it's the easiest most straightforward thing to do is to just use my voice to control the lights but why not have one of these hooked up as your alarm right i know some people like to use an app that lets them wake up to a podcast and if you've got one of these anywhere in your bedroom i don't care if it's in the bathroom or your enormous closet or just out on your nightstand then it's really easy to check in with siri ask about the weather and know how you need to dress for the day oh and yes if you wanted to listen to some music in your bedroom then it's going to be great for that too i mean i like to read at night it's nice to have a little background noise some ambiance some classical music or something and also you know if you're one of those people that like to listen to waves crashing or forest sounds when you're sleeping hello this is perfect for all of these things there are so many instances when you don't actually need the huge sound of the original home pod and so hopefully that's starting to become clear now don't get weird on me but one great place to place these could be in your bathroom now i'm talking about next to the sink right what i like to do in the mornings is listen to a podcast while i'm getting ready so you know when you're flossing and brushing and doing the hair all of that stuff that's kind of monotonous well listening to a podcast is a great way to not only stay informed or learn a little bit but just make that morning routine a little bit more enjoyable and look maybe you live in a mansion you got plenty of space if so congratulations but a lot of people don't have a lot of space right in their main bathroom area on the counter there and it's just cluttered already so to be able to put something small that's still very functional sounds good connects you with your smart home and with your digital life that could be an excellent place for a homepod mini now one of the most obvious places to stick a homepod is in the kitchen or kitchen and or living room depends if you have an open concept house or whatever but a kitchen is a place where you're spending a lot of time every day and these function as excellent hubs for your smart home there's a reason why samsung decided to make that smart refrigerator because people often park in their kitchen or dining area at several important times throughout the day which brings us to home kit automations or automatic actions that you can have homekit take for you just basically think of it as siri doing stuff for you automatically when certain events occur so a specific time of day could trigger an automation or a specific location could trigger an automation when you pull up in your car to a specific place or you might have a sensor that detects something and then that triggers an automation or it could just be when a certain accessory is controlled maybe that's a smart lock for instance if you take the time to set up some scenes and automations in your home app then you can control those using your homepod mini and the kitchen just so happens to be a great hub to place your smart home hub the small size really is a big feature well here's an idea why not stereo pair these with your tv i know what you're thinking wait wait wait wait wait why wouldn't i set up my actual big home pod or home pods with my tv why would i ever pair these i hear what you're saying this has a much bigger sound than this obviously it's a bigger speaker that makes sense but i'm willing to bet that for a lot of tvs out there two homepod minis are gonna sound better than the built-in speakers on your tv not every tv but a lot of tvs these days are super super thin they don't have a lot of space to put great speakers in maybe your tv is aging a little bit and it's kind of got those rattly speakers you know what i'm talking about and you've got an apple tv 4k you can plug a couple of these in and hook them up and really really upgrade your sound so i think there legitimately is some middle of the road to be explored between two of these at 299 a piece and two of these at 99 a piece so yeah two home pod minis are not going to provide the best sound experience that money can buy that's obvious but i think it's equally obvious hopefully by this point that there are times when that's okay there are places and spaces within our homes where you don't need the best and where these are still going to be an upgrade over something like your default speakers on any number of devices look for my main tv i'm not going to use these somebody could i've got a tv downstairs i've got a tv in my bedroom i do have my main tv so there are lots of tvs and there are places for these to melt into my setup and be useful i will mention though that two original home pods paired up are going to have a better sound for your tv not just because they're bigger but because they can handle 5.1 and 7.1 input whereas this is basically gonna give you if you pair it with another one the equivalent of a 2.1 surround sound system so the homepod mini has a usbc cord that comes with it and it doesn't have a built-in rechargeable battery so not a portable speaker right well mostly right but there is a hack if you have a portable power bank you can plug this usbc in and power your homepod mini and take it with you you're going on a picnic all right staying socially distant from everybody but you want to bring your favorite music some andy mineo or what have you you can do it it's not what this was made for to be a portable speaker although that would have been really cool but technically it doesn't mean you're just stuck at home with it a lot of people out there are sitting there thinking that siri is just super unusual they kind of given up thinking that they can really use it for anything more than asking about the weather or the traffic etc etc siri has improved a lot recently i'm not saying it's the best assistant out there it is a lot more private but i'm absolutely loving the siri for everyone feature i remember when the first homepod came out and i would try to set up some personal things with my calendar or reminders and really tailor the experience for me i was using it for me well other people in the house would start playing you know their favorite music and that would come in i'm not going to say and taint my musical recommendations uh it would tweak my musical recommendations that siri would make and so it's important for siri to be able to be used by different people in your house and it's been able to do that for a while now so if you didn't realize that if you want to you can turn on siri for everyone and everyone in the house can have it be as useful to them as possible so look you really need to pay attention to the features here and actually think about would they be useful to you and where and how would they be useful for instance it's a really great handout feature that lets me transfer music i've been listening to on my iphone to the homepod by just coming up and tapping it you see that notification and you see it go as you can see it works incredibly well now here's a tip you might hear a lot of people out there talking about oh you can't use spotify with the homepod mini but that's actually not true what they mean is that you can't control spotify using siri and your voice but what you can do is use airplay so start your music on your iphone and just airplay it to either a single homepod mini or a stereo pair but if you're a spotify user and you've put a lot of time years into curating your favorites and collection and playlists and that is preventing you from getting deeper into the apple ecosystem and you want to don't forget about apps like songshift which are going to let you move your entire library your playlist all the stuff that's keeping you tethered over into apple music and then if you want to you can get signed up for the apple one bundle which will let you save some money if you want to have your apple tv plus subscription your apple music subscription your apple news plus subscription the upcoming apple fitness subscription all the apple services apple arcade all in one bundle i switched from spotify a long time ago because of their privacy policy updates that i didn't like and i've been super happy personally ever since listening to my music in apple music i think a good tip for people is just to understand how to control your music your content using tabs on the actual screen here instead of just using your voice or your phone so don't forget a single tap will start or stop your music so single tap to play or pause a double tap is gonna skip forward while a triple tap is going to go backwards i think there's a lot of people out there who only knew about the play and pause and never bothered to triple or double tap and it's useful just one final tip if you're gonna set this up in a stereo pair i did talk about this on the podcast i'll just briefly mention it here you have to make sure that your home pods are in the same room you have to create a room in apple's home app and make sure that you place both of your home pods in that room within the app in order to be able to stereo pair them and if you're going to hook them up to your apple tv then the apple tv also needs to be in that same room in the apple tv app to get everything syncing up and working right all right so that's it for this video these are great i am definitely gonna love checking these out in more depth and detail so there's probably gonna be an actual review coming down the road so make sure you're subscribed go and check out all the great home pod car play ipad mac content iphone air pods this channel is all about apple stuff and there's a lot to explore so make sure you go check out the archive check us out um at daily tech spell daily tkk on instagram and twitter we have a podcast it's called the after party and that's linked up down below too it comes out every friday so yeah let's get connected i'll catch you guys in the next video later\n"