Great video, very impartial good to have both positives and negatives of both systems. I have SONOS products and am in the HomeKit camp, just wish apple would integrate allow further integration!
Really appreciate the feedback! I’m going through this decision process and really wanted to help people who are just trying to understand which speaker to buy have some guidance on where one or the other might be better. What else would you like to see for the Apple/Sonos integration piece? I’d love to hear what you’re thinking!
@@Homekitgeek Siri as a voice assistant would be great however unlikely. Would be really interested to see controls similar to what we see with the Apple TV and HomePod within the home app for the Sonos. At the moment the homekit integration feel tacked on rather than part of the system.
Yeah - I’m not sure I care about Siri as a voice assistant to be honest - I haven’t seen enough value to really use it to the full extent. Mostly for “remind me when” and “set an alarm” type stuff. Anything that requires a better understanding currently goes to Google or Alexa. I’m actually ok with the Sonos Homekit integration piece right now. I love the fact that I can use NFC tags to trigger music to play from my library using a homekit scene with a Sonos AP2 speaker as the target. It’s actually really slick but it did take some playing to discover how to make it work. :)
I hadn’t thought about this comparison. The “future-proof-iness” of Thread and U1 wins for me, though the IKEA speakers would be great as more of primary audio set.
Yeah this one is a bit of a struggle for me. Do I REALLY need Homepod mini’s in all the rooms or just a subset of rooms. Do I use them for music or just the smarthome side. I still don’t have an answer for myself yet but I figured sharing the thought process might be interesting for other people in the same boat. :)
I’m definitely tempted. But given that Siri’s not bilingual yet - I’m still going to have Echo/Google’s in the house. So do I REALLY need them everywhere now? Not sure.... Two Mini’s at either end of the house for Thread strength is more than enough for now. That might change in a year from now as they roll out more UWB features.
@@Homekitgeek Siri being bilingual would definitely help convince the wife. I did discover the other day that I can ask Alexa some basic questions in English and she’ll respond in Spanish.
Not sure about down there, but I can speak to Alexa here in both english and french and get an answer back in the same language. Or even do “How do I say XYZ in language_choice?” Questions. Pretty awesome actually when you have to help kids do grammar homework in a language which isn’t your maternal. :)
Thanks Jeff! I haven't tried the Harman Kardon products so no meaningful opinion based on anything else other than "I've listened to Harman Kardon amps and speakers in the past and they should good". :). Really appreciate the feedback and hopefully you found something useful!
Thanks for pointing that out Eric! This is something which I’m still digging into as I’ve seen conflicting information on this. The OG Homepod was constantly doing the real time tuning piece, but I’ve seen reports that the HomePod Mini does 360 degree audio, but not tuning in the same way that the full Homepod does. Just checked the Apple data sheet and it does say computational audio for real-time tuning which suggests its more Sonos like, but now I just don’t know. Really hoping that this becomes more clear as it’s annoying that I haven’t gotten a clear idea of how this works.
@@Homekitgeek You’re right, it’s unclear exactly how they are doing it but they mentioned tuning for loudness etc during the keynote. The OG auto tunes for the space every time the accelerometer is triggered. Either way, I have experienced a noticeable sound improvement over the last several days on the sound of my minis. I have 3 and 2 OGs in a stereo pair.
That’s great to hear! I’m still experimenting. Any chance you have the Symfonisk Bookshelf to compare? For my ears I’d still put the IKEA above the HomePod mini when it comes specifically to the listening to music use-case but curious if you’d make the same call?
@@Homekitgeek No, I only have a Sonos One which sounds better, but we replaced it with a HomePod Mini because we had been using it in the Kitchen and the Alexa experience is quite poor. Mostly I use the Sonos as an AirPlay speaker. I subscribe to Apple Music and CZcams Music. I find that AirPlay is just as easy as the Sonos app with essentially the same outcome. I had been looking at Symfonisk but stopped because I don’t trust the way Sonos has been behaving with the upgrade path.
Absolutely. HPM has Siri. I have a HPM in the same room in HomeKit as a Symfonisk bookshelf. If I say “Hey Siri - Play this in here “ whatever’s playing on the HPM will also be playing on the Symfonisk (this also works with any Airplay2 target you’ve added to HomeKit and placed in the same room. ).
thank you very much Chirs, this is exactly what I'm looking for
Hey Leon! Really glad it helped out!
at last someone Canadian talking about homekit. Just discovered the channel and will not regret
LOL Glad you found this! Hoping to due our country credit! “I’m sorry!” :)
Yessss been wondering this for months !
Hope this helped to push you in a direction!
Great Comparison! Wondering if I can use either of them as a TV output in a small living room!
Great video, very impartial good to have both positives and negatives of both systems. I have SONOS products and am in the HomeKit camp, just wish apple would integrate allow further integration!
Really appreciate the feedback! I’m going through this decision process and really wanted to help people who are just trying to understand which speaker to buy have some guidance on where one or the other might be better. What else would you like to see for the Apple/Sonos integration piece? I’d love to hear what you’re thinking!
@@Homekitgeek Siri as a voice assistant would be great however unlikely. Would be really interested to see controls similar to what we see with the Apple TV and HomePod within the home app for the Sonos. At the moment the homekit integration feel tacked on rather than part of the system.
Yeah - I’m not sure I care about Siri as a voice assistant to be honest - I haven’t seen enough value to really use it to the full extent. Mostly for “remind me when” and “set an alarm” type stuff. Anything that requires a better understanding currently goes to Google or Alexa. I’m actually ok with the Sonos Homekit integration piece right now. I love the fact that I can use NFC tags to trigger music to play from my library using a homekit scene with a Sonos AP2 speaker as the target. It’s actually really slick but it did take some playing to discover how to make it work. :)
I hadn’t thought about this comparison. The “future-proof-iness” of Thread and U1 wins for me, though the IKEA speakers would be great as more of primary audio set.
Yeah this one is a bit of a struggle for me. Do I REALLY need Homepod mini’s in all the rooms or just a subset of rooms. Do I use them for music or just the smarthome side. I still don’t have an answer for myself yet but I figured sharing the thought process might be interesting for other people in the same boat. :)
@@Homekitgeek I’m an every room advocate, generally. Not sure how I feel about them in a stereo pair yet.
I’m definitely tempted. But given that Siri’s not bilingual yet - I’m still going to have Echo/Google’s in the house. So do I REALLY need them everywhere now? Not sure.... Two Mini’s at either end of the house for Thread strength is more than enough for now. That might change in a year from now as they roll out more UWB features.
@@Homekitgeek Siri being bilingual would definitely help convince the wife. I did discover the other day that I can ask Alexa some basic questions in English and she’ll respond in Spanish.
Not sure about down there, but I can speak to Alexa here in both english and french and get an answer back in the same language. Or even do “How do I say XYZ in language_choice?” Questions. Pretty awesome actually when you have to help kids do grammar homework in a language which isn’t your maternal. :)
Thanks!
You’re welcome!
Hi Chris,
Amazing review video.
We are Apple users in my family and what’s your view on Harman Kardon Citation One?
Thanks
Jeff
Thanks Jeff! I haven't tried the Harman Kardon products so no meaningful opinion based on anything else other than "I've listened to Harman Kardon amps and speakers in the past and they should good". :). Really appreciate the feedback and hopefully you found something useful!
HomePod mini does auto tune the sound to the room. You dont need to use an app like Sonos.
Thanks for pointing that out Eric! This is something which I’m still digging into as I’ve seen conflicting information on this. The OG Homepod was constantly doing the real time tuning piece, but I’ve seen reports that the HomePod Mini does 360 degree audio, but not tuning in the same way that the full Homepod does. Just checked the Apple data sheet and it does say computational audio for real-time tuning which suggests its more Sonos like, but now I just don’t know. Really hoping that this becomes more clear as it’s annoying that I haven’t gotten a clear idea of how this works.
@@Homekitgeek You’re right, it’s unclear exactly how they are doing it but they mentioned tuning for loudness etc during the keynote. The OG auto tunes for the space every time the accelerometer is triggered. Either way, I have experienced a noticeable sound improvement over the last several days on the sound of my minis. I have 3 and 2 OGs in a stereo pair.
That’s great to hear! I’m still experimenting. Any chance you have the Symfonisk Bookshelf to compare? For my ears I’d still put the IKEA above the HomePod mini when it comes specifically to the listening to music use-case but curious if you’d make the same call?
@@Homekitgeek No, I only have a Sonos One which sounds better, but we replaced it with a HomePod Mini because we had been using it in the Kitchen and the Alexa experience is quite poor. Mostly I use the Sonos as an AirPlay speaker. I subscribe to Apple Music and CZcams Music. I find that AirPlay is just as easy as the Sonos app with essentially the same outcome. I had been looking at Symfonisk but stopped because I don’t trust the way Sonos has been behaving with the upgrade path.
And what about one of each? Can they work together?
Absolutely. HPM has Siri. I have a HPM in the same room in HomeKit as a Symfonisk bookshelf. If I say “Hey Siri - Play this in here “ whatever’s playing on the HPM will also be playing on the Symfonisk (this also works with any Airplay2 target you’ve added to HomeKit and placed in the same room. ).
@@Homekitgeek cool, I was afraid of hard sound differences that make a shitty experience, I will have one of each then. Thank you so much!
I’ve found it to be ok in general. But I’m fairly forgiving. It would probably drive an audiophile to drink. But it does work for sure!