Apple’s newest Homepod offers improvements on the previous version at a more affordable price. An array of five tweeters is combined with a four-inch woofer to render great sound, but it’s a 360-degree microphone system that listens to the acoustic dynamic of its surroundings to optimize how those speakers perform. The mics also enable whisper-quiet level queries to Siri even while music is blasting. Two Homepods can be set up as left and right stereo channels and then paired with AppleTV to create a home theater system that, from our testing, performed far better than most third-party soundbars. Behind the exterior mesh (which is made from fully recycled materials) are also temperature and humidity sensors that can be leveraged for more advanced home automation.
Homepod
$299
