A few months ago, I wrote a piece lamenting the slow and sad demise of the original HomePod. This week marks four years since the original HomePod was released, and the fate of Apple’s smart home efforts are just unclear as they were then. Here’s what we know about what the future holds…
The current state of HomePod
Fast forward to 2021 and the HomePod was discontinued, with Apple refocusing its efforts on the smaller and more affordable HomePod mini. As it stands today, the HomePod mini is still the only smart speaker that Apple sells, which means the “mini” adjective isn’t really doing much work.
The HomePod mini has proven to be a popular product, with sales data indicating that it has helped boost the overall smart speaker industry as well as Apple’s own share of that market.
What’s next for HomePod?
Bloomberg reported last year that Apple is continuing its internal efforts to ramp up its smart home product offerings. The company is apparently considering multiple different products in this category, the most interesting of which sounds like a new version of the Apple TV that also integrates a smart speaker and camera hardware.
Combining the Apple TV, HomePod, and camera hardware into one product would be an incredibly enticing product for those in the Apple ecosystem. Bloomberg says that the device would support standard tvOS capabilities, smart home functions, and FaceTime calls using the integrated camera.
Apple has also reportedly even “explored connecting the iPad to the speaker with a robotic arm that can move to follow a user around a room.
Unfortunately, we still don’t know much about when Apple could release these new smart speaker products. It’s also possible that development gets scrapped altogether. I would hope, however, that Apple sees the value in being a player in the smart home industry and that it stays committed to not only developing new products, but also maintaining and iterating on its existing HomePod mini.
Outside of hardware, there are some big changes coming to the smart home industry over the next year. Namely, this includes the Matter smart home standard. Matter is a new consortium of tech companies, including Apple, committed to making smart home devices that are interoperable between ecosystems.
Matter, if everything goes according to plan, could be a major boon for HomeKit accessory adoption. It would be a pity for Apple not to offer a versatile lineup of smart speaker options to tap into and expand upon this ecosystem. And I don’t just mean offering HomePod mini in different colors (but that’s pretty cool, too).
