Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini 2 hands-on: A look at the audio updates and Siri AI

Billy Steele for Engadget

Billy Steele for Engadget

Let's start with the Apple TV 4K. The main upgrades here are meant to bring Siri AI to the living room, primarily for content discovery. Thanks to the assistant's ability to pull in context from places like Messages, you can ask it to do things like "play the show Sam texted me about." The new Apple TV 4K has far field microphones built in, so the Siri experience is now hands-free, meaning you could shout at it from your couch. This worked well the demo area I was in, though I have to point out the environment was relatively quiet.

Siri AI can also answer questions about content, like whether Ted Lasso is a real person or if AFC Richmond is an actual football club. Thankfully, Siri's responses are tucked in the corner of the TV screen, so you can see them without the text blocking your movie or show. What's more, they're text only, and the assistant won't respond to you by speaking over the audio from whatever you're watching. I saw this in action a few different times, and I think it's a clean implementation of Siri on the Apple TV 4K. I really like that I won't have to hear competing sounds from Siri and a TV show, forcing me to try to decipher the info I asked for.

Another welcome upgrade for the Apple TV 4K is an overhauled remote. While it looks the same on the outside, a new feature inside will play a sound when you ask Siri for help finding it. I prefer this approach since it's much quicker to determine where something is if it's beeping than having to wave a phone around to see how close I'm getting to it. If you've ever played a sound to find your AirPods, that works the same way. I'm constantly looking for my Apple TV remote after one of my kids has stashed it somewhere, so this will all be handy at my house.

Billy Steele for Engadget

The HomePod mini 2 has also been updated for Siri AI. Right off the top, the speaker is now powered by the S10 chip, a big upgrade over the S5 that was in the 2020 model. This hardware will eventually enable Siri AI, but the next-gen — or now current-gen — assistant won't be on the HomePod mini 2 at launch. Apple says that feature is coming at a later date.

For now, the two big new features are Sound Glow and expanded surround sound functionality. Sound Glow mimics album artwork on the HomePod mini 2's back-lit touch panel. If you're listening to a soundscape, the lights will mirror things like rain drops and waves. This is a neat addition, but I wonder how often I'll actually see it since I don't tend to sit near or even look at my HomePod speakers. Next, you can now use up to four HomePod speakers with the new Apple TV 4K for home theater audio. Before, you could only use two as a stereo pair.

After hearing two different configurations at Apple's event, I'm convinced this is going to be an audio upgrade for those willing to buy four HomePods. I enjoyed the setup of two second-gen HomePods in the front and two HomePod mini 2 speakers in the back as it offered more bass and rumble during my demo. However, a quartet of HomePod mini 2 speakers holds its own, providing dimensional sound that enveloped the sofa I was sitting on. But again, this is all dependent upon you buying four HomePods and putting them all in your living room, which seems like a rare scenario.

Lastly, I got to hear a pair of HomePod mini 2 speakers being used for audio from an iMac. These new speakers can sync with any Mac over AirPlay to function as a set of desktop speakers. This setup provides an obvious upgrade over built-in iMac speakers, and the stereo pair offered solid directional sound for basic games like Angry Birds. At around $300 for two of the HomePod mini 2, this seems like a more plausible arrangement than the four-pack in the living room.