Clearly not high-end stuff, but I got one for my daughter a few years ago.
Now they are discontinued (despite new features the Homepod Mini does not possess) I’ve bought another to get a stereo pair.
Setup is a pain in the posterior involving 2 factor authentication but testing a single HomePod in another room it’s pretty impressive sonically for the price.
Clearly most customers don’t care about audio quality just price, and it was too high for a proprietary speaker without Bluetooth or aux in. What a real shame.
In case you missed the thread, the designer of the Homepod left Apple a while ago and started a new innovative speaker company that focuses on high end speakers:
I have one on my desk. The bass is really something (for the size). It probably goes lower than most bookshelf speakers. It’s clean and undistorted bass too. I find the unit a little too laid back in the treble. Ridiculous value when you factor in footprint, price, performance etc.
I’ve got 4 HomePod’s dotted around the house - kitchen, living room, office & bedroom. Didn’t know it had been discontinued though.
They’re fine for background use while I’m doing things around the house as you can sync them too. Controlling the volume with the Apple Watch is neat - just a shame you have to AirPlay everything to it other than Apple Music which I’ve never signed up to.
Sadly they have been discontinued in favour of the Mini version. Always tricky to know whether or not to try to snag a few of the remaining ones in stores, they are sold out online at Apple.
I don’t know how much better the mini version will do. I think the closed system really holds it back. My sister bought the folks an Alexa mini speaker and just being able to tell it to play 5 Live or 6 Music makes the Apple look a bit stupid. Can’t fault the HomePod’s sound quality for what it is though.