I laughed all the way through that one! Absolutely excellent, thanks Shane, I’ll remember it for my grandson! The reason for laughter was it should have been called “7 great things for old farts like Michael to do on a HomePod Mini”. I’ll be using what you said, though I don’t need to check the weather for school, and adding the following two: Hey Siri Who am I? and Hey Siri Where am I? Real dangerous to let us oldies loose with this stuff! 😘
Our weather in Texas can be crazy. This past November we had day time higher in the upper 80's and low 90's. Not only that, but you can have an 80* swing in temperatures in a day here in Texas. I have seen three different storm fronts during the same day, including a rain storm "northerner" in the morning and a dust storm from the West that afternoon and another front blow through that night from the South. I've seen morning temps in the eighties and having 14" of snow by lunch time with an overnight low in the 20*'s. The old saying "If you don't like the weather in Texas, wait a few hours and it will change" is so true. My morning routine has a shortcut run after I turn off my alarm which turns on my room lights, gives me the weather, and let's me know who my first client is that I will be meeting that day (and time) on my work calendar.
I have family sharing set up for my wife and I. One thing that’s really cool is in my address book you can assign relationships... so I can tell siri: “hey Siri, call my wife” or “my best friend” or “my boss” and when my wife does the same thing Siri knows it’s HER boss or friend or whatever. When I ask “What’s on my agenda for today” I get MY agenda, When Liz says the exact same thing, she gets HER agenda because Siri recognizes us by our voices.
@@JenniferEliseAtchiso Yes, that is pretty cool how it recognizes each person, when it works. My wife and I use it with no problem, but HomePod never recognizes my kids. They have their own Apple IDs and a HomePod mini in their rooms, but only have their iPADs, no phones yet. They can give general commands (lights, scenes, etc.) but SIRI doesn’t recognize their voices to do personalized stuff for them, most important being playing their playlists. Interested to see if Shane has this same issue and if/how he solved it. Apple support couldn’t help me after LITERALLY 3 hours of trying to fix it.
Great content, it’s refreshing to have a normal person just go through this and make it simple. I recommend you go more into the iPhone platform and do tutorials on all the features that iOS has to offer. That would be great 👍🏻
Great to see how you are using the HomePod Mini within your family.... it’s the first smart speaker I have used (I do not trust Google / Alexa), and am really impressed so far.
Totally agree with your comment about the next level of independence for our kids. This kind of technology help them to create responsibilities on their side. I don’t have HomePod minis in their rooms yet but I will do it as soon as Apple refresh the bigger HomePod in order to replace the HomePod mini that I have in the Living room to move that one to one of my kids room. I want the bigger HomePod but with all the new technology U1 chip, Tread and all that stuff to be at the same level of the minis. BTW... besides the intercom feature (from which I don’t have to scream to somebody) my favorite feature is the freedom to control my smart home and the music with the power of my voice.
Thanks for the comment Manuel. That sounds like a great plan. I'm also interested to see what they do with the big HomePods in the near future. And I agree, having the power to control homekit with voice makes these so nice. It's been a game changer having the minis in places like my bedroom or studio, where before I never put a big HomePod because it was too expensive! Siri voice control for the home is so much more seamless over the HomePods than having to use the phone or watch.
I have two of the original homepods o e downstairs and one upstairs. I just ordered minis for the bedrooms. Intercom feature is wonderful because my hubby and I always yell at each other from downstairs to upstairs it’s very funny because we sometimes we don’t understand what the other one is saying so we end up having to go upstairs or come downstairs anyway LOL
Did u create a separate Apple ID for your daughter? If not how does Siri know who she is? I’m in the early stages of getting setup. Your videos are helping a lot!
Thanks for watching and I'm glad the videos are helpful. Yes, I do have an Apple ID for my daughter since she uses an old iPad sometimes. But I actually haven't enabled "recognize my voice" for her on the HomePods (yet). I may experiment with that later. But for now, she doesn't need to use the HomePods for any "personal requests" so it's not been necessary. Personal requests...things like check my calendar, text someone, etc. would require "recognize my voice" to be turned on. But anyone can use the HomePod for basic things like turning on/off homekit accessories, settings alarms, playing music, etc.
Thank for this video. I was trying to figure out if this would be a good fit for my child. Kids want to play music but now day who buys CD's anymore or has a CD player. iPods and iPads distract them to do other things when you are trying to limit the amount of time they have on screens. So in short this video gave me the what I needed to know to go out and buy one for my child!!
Also, can you restrict family members with “specific” access to certain “rooms”? Example, my son, as a practical joker that he is, could control lighting in his bedroom, and maybe den, but could not be playing loud music in the master bedroom?
Can you come up with a safety video? How to a alert you at night or away that maybe your stove is still on and you can turn it off. Carbon monoxide alert while you are away or durning the night. Motion that a kid is on a trampoline, play set or back yard? I think smart home can do a lot for our home safety that we never thought. I don’t have the resources the moment to experiment with it.I love your videos and have recommended them to other smart home dads I know! Thanks
Great information. I have a daughter about the same age and as with your daughter she has no cellphone or watch. So my question is: how did you make HomePod to recognize her voice? Mine keeps telling my daughter that she does not recognize who’s talking and never plays what she wants. I need to ask HomePod mini to play something for her. And it mixes my personalized music recommendation.
Hey Felipe, that's a great question. I have not encountered this problem. I can tell you how mine is setup, and maybe it'll help. I have an Apple ID set up for my daughter, because she uses an old iPad sometimes. So I have added that profile to my homekit home. She has access to "control accessories remotely" but she does not have "recognize my voice" turned on, like my wife and my profiles. You may also want to look under the "default account" option in the HomePod's settings and make sure your main Apple ID is selected (that's how mine is set up). Good luck.
Hey Shane. I have a suggestion/request for a podcast subject - family accounts and restrictions. Here are sampling’s of things I don’t understand (started watching your channel in preparation of a home we are building, but no experience with HomeKit) - 1. When you got your HomePod for your 10 year old, did you set it with her Apple account you created with your Apple Family sharing? Otherwise, Will all your HomePods and HomeKit devices be tied to YOUR Apple account. 2. So do you share your Apple Music with everyone in your family? So everyone may have their own Playlists? 3. So in some way Siri learns everyone’s independent voice for commands on personal info (like their own calendar events), so they can go to any HomePod in the house and request Siri’s personal help? I think you see where I’m going with this line of questions
Stumbled upon your page via Twitter - interesting take on the uses. Good stuff. I’ll be watching more of your content. Now if you launch a video on “how to successfully convince your wife to buy one for every room” you’ll be a RU-vid sensation overnight!
Haha, thanks! This is the closest one for that so far! I've got some ideas for this in future content. I feel your pain... getting the wife onboard can be the biggest hurdle most of the time! It took a while, but I finally wore mine down.
This is the first place I put one and it was purely for selfish reasons. There used to be an echo dot in there but my husband always used it to play music while hanging out with the kids and the echo doesn’t do automatic profile recognition for Apple Music. It was ... ruining my Apple Music suggestions lol. We also play rain sounds at night for the baby.
The answer...yes! It sounds great for such a small speaker. I do discuss all that more in my review here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yBYroqHMED8.html
lol now the wife is another story. That would require a video of it's own...shoot maybe a whole series! Not sure how or when it happened. I probably just wore my wife down over time. I will say, give her something that she can control without having to get out of bed. Whatever that may be...lights, ceiling, fan, locks, etc...somthing that she'd usually have to get up for. That seemed to work for me. Good luck! And thanks for the support. Enjoy that new HomePod mini!
@@minthos4045 ha.. ikr. The video Shane did about using wall switches with Siri that can also be used as a normal switch are my next purchase. I think that will work along with Shane’s previous comments about ceiling fans etc.
This was useful. I was wondering if there is a way to use a HomePod as a baby sound monitor. I have a newborn and want to listen or get a notification when it detects sound. is this possible?
Yo Shane. Good episode! Loving the intercom feature on the homepods, my kids get a real kick out of it. Have you seen the IKEA smart blinds? They’re pretty ace and HomeKit compatible too! Also. Here in UK LIDL, a supermarket chain, have released a very inexpensive smart home lights range. (Not sure if they’re compatible with HomeKit)
Hey thanks for watching! Yea intercom is awesome! And yes I've seen the Ikea blinds. I think they are a great solution for many people. I tried them out for a short time but decided to go with something different that worked better for my setup. I may talk about that one of these days on the channel. I love that there are more and more affordable products for homekit these days!
My biggest question is does it help kids brush their teeth. This is our most-used Google home feature aside from ambient noise, and I would like to know before I switch (but I’ll still probably switch gradually, because I’m fed up with Google’s flip flop on free things that now cost money. 😡)
The HomePod minis are all setup under my main account, using the home app. You can invite them to your HomeKit home, and turn on "recognize my voice" if you need them to be able to make personal requests (calendars, texting, etc). Otherwise, anyone can use them for basic things like mentioned in this video (get the weather, set alarms, control lights, etc).
Great overview. Thanks! Question - do you know how kids can be recognized by Siri if they don’t have a phone? I’ve built a few shortcuts to run on the HomePod Mini but they only work for recognized voices.
That is a good question. I don't think it's possible. I think you must have an iOS device, using the child's Apple ID, to configure the shortcuts for them.
Gives daughter Homepod mini for testing purposes, but everyone knows Shane lost that Homepod Mini forever lol Did you pick up the Logitech Circle Doorbell yet?
Lol...yep..that HomePod is gone! And yes, I got the Logitech doorbell. I've been testing it out. I've gotten a lot of questions on instagram and RU-vid about it, so I'll make a video soon and try to answer everyone's questions.
That's a tough call. It probably depends on how you plan to use them. If you want to permanently pair to a tv, I might go with the original since you can use it as a "default" tv speaker. A pair of minis can get about as loud, but I think the sound is still a little more "full" from the original. But the minis have some benefits too, like thread support, size, cost, etc. and of course they still sound great. I do compare the stereo pair and the original a little bit in this video here if you want more: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yBYroqHMED8.html
Great content. I have a question though, do you have to to anything special so Siri will recognize your daughters voice on the HomePod? I have set an Apple ID for mine but it won’t allow me add her to the family in the home app.
Thanks for watching! No, I haven't done anything special. I don't think I have "recognize my voice" turned on for her, which she shouldn't need since she isn't asking siri for any personal requests. She does have an Apple ID though and has access to the homekit home. You should be able to send a request to her Apple ID from the home app, and then you'll have to accept the request on one of her Apple devices.
I am really disappointed that Apple has removed the allow/disallow Explict content feature from the specific devices. It came without any announcement that I saw too which is poor. Now has to be set per AppleID, but struggling to get my kids IDs into Home as they do t have any other apple devices at present. Any ideas?
I am looking for an answer for this same question. Hoping Shane will see this and answer. I’ve spent FAR more time on the phone with apple support than I’d like to admit and basically they told me that the child needs to have some sort of Apple device (can be an old iPhone, iPad, etc) with WiFi connectivity (doesn’t need to be a phone) in order to truly customize it for the child 😐
You must be careful not messing around the settings of your daughter HomePod xD Imagine if you change the tone of the alarm and then she wake up with a music that she didn’t setup because you changed it accidentally xD But yeah all the stuff is labeled so I imagine that for changing settings of someone else, you must really do it on purpose But yeah HomeKit with HomePod mini must really be cool And at least it’s all secure so only you can see what’s going on in your house (camera, sensors etc)
You can make calls from the HomePod, but I believe this only works via personal requests. So if the child has a phone close by...or maybe even an iPad or iPod capable of FaceTime calls, but I haven't tried that. You'd have to have the child's Apple ID added to your home in the Home app with "personal requests" and "recognize my voice" turned on for her.
Great video! Did you originally setup her HomePod under your AppleID so it flowed into "your" Home within the "Home" app? I ask because my 11yo daughter received a HomePod Mini for Christmas. She took the liberty of setting it up by itself - but I can't see it in "Home". We are using "Family Sharing" where I am the Family Organizer and her AppleID is a member of the Family - so she can request more time when she runs out of ScreenTime or to buy an App... I assumed if she set it up on her Apple ID, it would flow into the Family account where I could control it. I'm wondering if I need to do the initial setup under my AppleID, even though the device will be in her room. (?). Any advice?
Thanks Patrick! Well, first of all, Kudos for having an 11yo that's capable of setting up a HomePod by herself! That's awesome. And to answer your question, yes, I set up the HomePod using my phone and Apple ID. A couple of different things are at play in your comment. Family sharing (which I also use to manage my kids' Apple accounts) and HomeKit aka the Home app. They don't really have much to do with each other. I'm not sure if you use the home app already or have any smart home stuff setup, so forgive me if this info is too basic. But every iPhone has the home app installed and she may have setup the HomePod in her "home." She can share, or invite you to, her "home." The way I do it is I create my main homekit home in the home app called Whatley Home. I then invite the other members of my household to have access. Once they accept, they have the ability to control any of the smart home accessories in my Whatley Home. Hope that helps.
How do you remove a hub in the HomeKit app easily. My current television is a HomeKit enabled and my Apple TV Gen4 is the other hub inside of HomeKit app. Currently I gotta turn on the Apple TV to get to television on even if I turn on the cable box remote, it’ll still turn on the Apple TV box.
Not sure what you are asking. A homekit television cannot act as a HomeKit hub. If your problem is that your TV turns on with the Apple TV and visa versa, then it sounds like you have HDMI-CEC enabled on the TV and Apple TV. If you don't want that, you just need to find that setting on the Apple TV or television and turn it off.
Hey Shane can you shed some light on Homepod Minis wifi connectivity issues. I want to use it as main homekit hub. if it's really problematic it wont be good for automation and i might end up cancelling my order. Thanks in advance
While I was watching this video in my office I heard you mention that HomePod knows where it is and you do not have to call out the room (ie lights off). Is there a setting for that? I went to turn on my [office] wall light by just saying wall light and she turned on lights in the basement. Then I tried, "turn on the lights" and every light in my house went on.
So that will be based on the room that you put the HomePod in inside the home app. For example, if the HomePod is in the “office” if you say hey Siri, turn out the lights, it should turn out all lights in the office. Hope that makes sense.
After buying the HomePod mini I really want to buy another one but was considering buy the original HomePod or do you think Apple will bring a newer version of the large HomePod in the new year?
Can't say for sure, but I would expect them to update the original at some point. I would assume, if nothing else, they will want to update it with the U1 chip and give it support for thread, like the mini.
I’m convinced they will release new hardware this coming new year. Not sure how much better they can make the sound, but thread and U1 will be nice upgrades.
How does Siri work without someone having a iPhone or account? Can you just say hey Siri and they do things like control lights and other devices but not have access to personal things like appointments etc ?
yes, that's exactly right. You don't need an account to do basic things with HomePod. My daughter does actually have an iCloud account (for an old iPad she sometimes uses), but I don't have "personal requests" or "recognize my voice" turned on for her on the HomePods.
I am selfish so I put the HomePod Mini in my own bedroom. I use mine too for sleep and have made a playlist with over 6 hours of soft favorite songs. I put a sleep timer on one hour and tell Siri put shuffle on. Will take long time before the playlist become repetitive.
Anyone know how to use the update me feature in shortcuts? Would love to add this. Currently have it on my phone with 30 shortcut steps to get the same result.
@@ShaneCreates ahh alright man Love your videos btw used your video to create my nfc wake up routine while back, so homepod mini would help with the update feature :)
Two days ago used Intercom and asked my son to lower TV volume but he didn’t notice cause it was loud. Since both were on the same room I throughout Siri could understand that the voice message should be louder than normal. After that I tried to find if there is a way to control the Intercom volume and I didn’t find. Do you know if it’s possible?
So I believe the HomePod will play back the intercom messages at whatever volume the HomePod is currently set to. So if the volume is real low, the intercom message won't be very loud. I agree that this is not ideal. I'm hoping that Apple will make some updates and changes to improve little things like this (still a new feature, so I expect it to improve even more). It would be nice to be able to set a custom volume for intercom messages or something like that. I'd recommend sending feedback to Apple as a feature request/update.
Sounds like an issue with your homekit hub. Are you using the mini as your main HomeKit Hub? First step in troubleshooting something like this for me would be to reset my homekit hubs.
Yes I would since now they have the cheaper SE watches that can also be used without pairing to an iphone. I think it’s a great option for kids that still don’t have phones, as long as you can trust them not to break or ruin it.
Reason #8 -- Use it as a paperweight. IMO, Apple has done too little too late in the smart speaker space. The HomePod didn't provide enough smart features when compared to the Echo. The functionality and lack of features didn't justify the price. But now they release the Mini and hope people will switch to their smart speaker ecosystem? No thanks, Apple. I let my two sons decide what smart tech they wanted in their bedrooms. They went with Echo Spot's for home assistant's, and Sonos Play 5's for music. Our home has ubiquitous Sonos and Echo throughout, so I feel they made the right choice. I wish Apple had done more sooner, but it is what it is. They missed the boat as far as I'm concerned. TBH, the HomePod or Mini can't compare to Sonos' sound quality, and it certainly doesn't even come close to the same features as an Echo. And since Echo can be set up to play music through Sonos when you issue an "Alexa play music" command, the integration between Echo and Sonos is completely seamless.
I’d love you to hear my stereo HomePods. They’ll blow you away with sound quality. Especially when listening to Dolby Atmos using the Apple TV. My HomePods around my house sound fantastic and respond to my every command, setting timers, playing music, and changing lighting etc. You’ve got a pretty cool setup for sure though. Apple put too much emphasis and R&D on the sound quality of the original HomePod and it drove the price up and put people off. Not many people are into incredible sound, as long as the speaker sounds “good enough”. Couple that with other assistants performing better and you have a recipe for HomePods not selling too well. I absolutely love mine though!
