Apple announced HomePod mini 2 on Tuesday, the second generation of its cheapest smart speaker. It gets the S10 chip, new colors, a top that lights up in time with your music, and support for Siri AI, the new version of the assistant, which arrives in a later software update. It costs $149 in the US, pre-orders opened today, and it hits stores Friday, October 30. That makes it the first of the three "Welcome home" devices to ship: the Apple TV 4K and the HomeView display follow on November 13.
The details
- S10 chip and computational audio: it analyzes music in real time to tune loudness, dynamic range, and acoustic performance. It still plays 360-degree sound on its own, as a stereo pair, or across rooms.
- Five colors: pink, green, blue, white, and midnight.
- Sound Glow: the top becomes a light panel that pulses with bass and treble and picks up colors from the album art that's playing. You can also choose a soundscape, like rain, with its own animation.
- Home theater: with the new Apple TV 4K, four HomePod mini 2 speakers (two pairs) form a surround setup for the first time, calibrating themselves to where each speaker sits.
- A speaker for your Mac: it can act as the default speaker for compatible Macs, in colors meant to match.
- Smart home: it controls accessories by voice and works as a hub so you can manage them from the Home app when you're away. It listens for smoke or carbon monoxide alarms and alerts your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, and with compatible doorbells and cameras it announces who's at the door.
- Siri AI, later: when it arrives, it will recognize up to six voices in the household and, with an Apple Intelligence iPhone or iPad, use your personal context, like finding a song someone texted you. People without one of those devices still get the more natural conversations and general-knowledge answers.
That last point comes with conditions: Siri AI arrives "via a future software update," with no date, in English, and only in the US, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and the UK.
Price and timing in Mexico
Apple's Mexico store already lists the "Nuevo HomePod mini 2" in all five colors at MX$2,999 each, with up to six interest-free payments or 18 payments of MX$166.61. As of this writing, the same page says "check availability later," so you can't pre-order there yet. Apple says pre-orders opened in the US and "more than 23 other countries and regions" without naming them. October 30 is the US date; Mexico doesn't have a confirmed one.
