Originally published at: HomePod mini 2 Adds Siri AI, S10 Chip, and Sound Glow - TidBITS
Apple has at long last updated its smallest smart speaker with the HomePod mini 2, which was first announced six years ago (see “Apple Introduces $99 HomePod mini,” 13 October 2020) and whose only change since then was new colors a year later (see “Apple Unveils Third-Generation AirPods, Tweaks HomePod mini and Apple Music,” 18 October 2021). Apple’s announcement leads with the addition of Siri AI, even though it isn’t available yet and will arrive only in “a future software update.”
Pre-orders are open now, and the HomePod mini 2 ships on 30 October 2026 for $149. The original HomePod mini sold for $99, and Apple raised it to $129 a few months ago as part of the wave of price increases it blamed on memory and storage costs (see “Apple Raises Prices for Many Products,” 26 June 2026). The additional price hike is hardly a surprise, but it does make the HomePod mini less of an impulse buy than it used to be, and it’s still more expensive than competing smart speakers from Google and Amazon. The full-sized second-generation HomePod remains available for sale for $349.
Apple also changed the HomePod mini 2’s colors, dropping orange and yellow, adding pink and green, and retaining white, blue, and midnight.
Siri AI Coming Soon to the HomePod mini
Even though Siri AI will not be available on the HomePod mini 2 initially, I suspect it will arrive soon enough, likely with OS 27.2. That will be the first notable update to OS 27, because iOS 27.1 will ship first for the iPhone Duo. I expect OS 27.2 in early to mid-November, and if so, it will be only a short wait after those who pre-ordered the HomePod mini 2 receive their units.
To use Siri AI on a HomePod mini 2, the owner of the home in the Home app must have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad, with Siri AI turned on and set to a supported language. The HomePod mini 2 can recognize up to six individual users by voice, but for Siri AI to tap into a user’s personal context, that person must also be using an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad. Everyone can take advantage of Siri AI’s world knowledge, natural conversations, and improved music discovery.
Siri AI will launch in English in the US, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and the UK, although not in the EU, due to regulations Apple disagrees with.
S10 Chip, Sound Glow, and Expanded Features
The main hardware change in the HomePod mini 2 is the chip. The original HomePod mini relied on the S5 from the 2019 Apple Watch Series 5; the HomePod mini 2 moves to the S10, which powers the Apple Watch Series 10 and Series 11. It also gets networking upgrades: Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 6, up from the original’s 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0. Thread and Ultra Wideband carry over.
The HomePod mini 2 keeps the original’s size, audio hardware (though it eliminates one microphone), and temperature and humidity sensor, so the most visible addition is Sound Glow: a backlit, tinted touch surface on top of the speaker that pulses in time with music, drawing its colors from the album artwork in Now Playing. It feels like a minimalist version of the visualizer long available in iTunes and Music from Window > Visualizer (see “FunBITS: Be a VJ with the iTunes Visualizer,” 12 June 2015). Controlling Sound Glow by voice requires an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, which seems an odd requirement for turning a light show on or off.
Beyond Siri AI, the HomePod mini 2 offers two new features, both shared with the second-generation HomePod, which is itself almost 4 years old (see “Second-Generation HomePod Supports Spatial Audio, Temperature/Humidity Monitoring, and Sound Recognition,” 18 January 2023). First, the HomePod mini 2 can be part of a four-speaker surround sound setup with the new Apple TV 4K, as long as the front and rear speakers are matching pairs. Second, the HomePod mini 2 can serve as a speaker for a Mac, singly or as a stereo pair, but only with Macs that support Wi-Fi 6E or later. That includes the MacBook Neo and any Apple silicon Mac with an M2 or later chip, except for the M2 MacBook Air and 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro.
The Mixed HomePod Household
Here’s my question. Many, perhaps most people who buy a HomePod mini 2 will already have at least one HomePod. Apple has never said anything about whether Siri AI will come to older models, but it seems unlikely. The original HomePod uses the A8 chip, the original HomePod mini an S5 chip, and the second-generation HomePod an S7 chip, all of which predate the earliest A-series (A17 Pro for the iPhone, A12 Bionic for the Apple TV) and S-series (S9) chips that are compatible with Siri AI.
As a result, you may end up with HomePods that respond to the same wake word but offer different capabilities. Which one answers depends on Apple’s arbitration. When multiple devices hear “Hey Siri,” they use Bluetooth to decide which one responds, based on which heard you best or which you used most recently, but a HomePod responds to most requests even when other devices are nearby. Apple is undoubtedly aware of this, but nothing Apple has published says if or how Siri AI will factor into the decision when a new HomePod mini 2 in the kitchen and an older HomePod in the living room both hear you.
The result could be a house where the same request produces different results depending on where you’re standing, and where nobody can predict which Siri will answer. We won’t know until the HomePod mini 2 arrives on 30 October 2026 and people start reporting how it integrates into a home with older HomePods.
Are you planning to add a HomePod mini 2 to an existing HomePod setup, or is the addition of Siri AI sufficiently compelling to get you to buy your first HomePod?