When I first heard about the new $149 HomePod Mini 2 But Apple's Welcome Home Event Last month, I was disappointed. It's been six years since Apple launched its entry-level smart speaker, and what the second generation got was a chip bump, some colorful flashy stuff, and better AirPlay? For $50 more than the original, which started at $99, Apple didn't even upgrade the sound system. It was as if the company had called him.

Now that I've gotten my hands on a couple and set them up in my home office, I'm more than excited. The Mini 2 is much faster than the first-generation Mini, playing music in seconds and responding to smart home commands just as quickly. If you're tired of standing over your HomePod waiting for it to finally do what you ask, then it's just worth the upgrade.

Here are my three favorite features of the new Mini 2 after spending a few days with it, and my one big disappointment.

Siri is much faster and much less chatty.

The biggest upgrade is for the Mini 2. Sri A.Ibut it is not available yet. Apple says it's coming "later" in a software update. However, the basic smart voice assistant has definitely improved. Siri on the Mini 2 is much faster than on the first-generation Mini, regularly responding in less than three seconds. That's thanks to a new, faster processor (up from the S10, S5) and Wi-Fi 6E support (up from Wi-Fi 4).

When I asked Siri to play Taylor Swift, a song started playing within seconds. It correctly told me who won that year's World Series in less than two seconds, and turned off the lights or opened the shades in less than three seconds.

This is a huge 10 second improvement over what I often had to wait for Siri to do on the first generation mini. However, asking something difficult, like who will win the US midterm elections, still brings up the familiar offer to look up some web results on my iPhone. Like I said, Siri AI isn't here yet.

Another new behavior I'm really enjoying is that when I ask Siri to do a smart home action, like open the shades or turn on the lights, instead of "OK, Jen" or "One sec," followed by a verbal confirmation of the action I often got on the first-gen Mini, the Mini 2 just does and doesn't talk. It's not quiet for every process, but it's quiet enough to be a noticeable improvement.

This gem is beautiful in green color and looks great.

Green is divine. It's the prettiest little smart speaker I've ever seen — and I've tried them all.

Yes, Amazon's The purple color of the Echo Dot Max is fun.the The light green color of the Google Home speaker is beautiful.but Apple's dark green is seriously sophisticated. It's a color that fits so well in a variety of spaces around my house, and I'm so glad the company finally released a green option. It's a big improvement over the bland yellow and orange of the previous generation Minis and the best of the new colors.

I saw all the colors. In person at Apple's Welcome Home eventand while the pink is pretty, it's too light, and the blue is practically identical to the first generation blue, maybe a shade lighter. While a lot of people will be happy with black (unless you plan on dusting it regularly rather than white), green is my new go-to.

Two green HomePod Mini 2s look great on walnut. Testing out the Nanoleaf monitor stand.; My office seems to have been instantly upgraded. And while Apple hasn't updated the speakers in the Mini 2, it's still a very good speaker for its size, working well with Bad Bunny's bass and delivering clear mids and vocals. While $300 is a lot for computer speakers, two in my office as a stereo pair certainly delivered on room-filling sound.

You can disable the contact at the end

A few weeks ago I rolled my phone over on my nightstand and accidentally bumped the top of my HomePod Mini, playing music in the bedroom at 3am. My husband was not happy.

A new setting in the Home app now lets you lock the Mini's top controls. This goes for all HomePods, old and new, and it's a major quality-of-life upgrade. How often do you touch the top of your HomePod on purpose? I bet much less often than chance!

The other new trick for the top of the HomePod is Sound Glow. It displays an LED color that matches your song's album art (it's also backwards compatible with first-gen Mini and second-gen HomePod). It's neat, but only works with Apple Music and Podcasts and is so subtle that I don't think it adds much to my music listening experience.

Besides the speed improvements, the other new feature I was excited about is HomePod Mini 2's ability to become the default speaker for your Mac. Apple calls. "A Responsive and Consistent Airplay Connection." It creates a wireless point-to-point connection between the computer and the HomePod.

You can pair a single speaker or stereo with your Mac, and this feature also works with second-generation HomePods. (There may still be two or four HomePod Mini 2s. Part of the surround sound setup (The new Apple TV is using 4K.)

Frustratingly, I couldn't get the Mac speakers set up to work. I have the required hardware: a Mac that supports Wi-Fi 6E, running Public release of macOS 27.2 (a Mac Mini M4), and HomePods on HomePod Software 27.2. But the sound pane in my Mac's settings didn't offer an option to set HomePod as the default sound output via AirPlay.

The Mini appeared and connected like any other AirPlay speaker, with typical AirPlay-like flaws — occasional artifacting, drop-offs, and some lag with notification sounds — the Mac defaulting to its built-in speakers when the computer restarts, or whenever I activate Siri on the HomePod. I also tried with a stereo pair of minis, but they played over regular AirPlay as well.

According to one 9 to 5 Max on handWhen persistent AirPlay is enabled, the HomePod Mini should appear as the default system output device in System Information, and there should be an option to enable it under "Play sound effects through" in the Sound pane in System Settings, but it wasn't for me. I have seen Other reports of the same problem.

I tried a full reset after updating both HomePods to 27.2 out of the box (I was on HomePod software beta, but 27.2 is now in general release), and the feature still doesn't work. I reached out to Apple, but the company has yet to respond to my requests. I'll update this article if I hear back or find a solution.

I've only been testing the Mini 2 for two days, and the real test will come when its Siri AI gets an upgrade, with chip bumps and speed improvements making it a bigger upgrade than it initially seemed. Apple needs to work on the Mac pairing feature. It has a lot of potential, but based on my struggles here, it feels incomplete.

I plan to do a full review of the Siri AI once it launches, and of course compare it to Apple's big new smart home release: the upcoming. $299 Apple HomeView Smart display. It's also a home hub, but the screen gives it more functionality. At $149, though, the Mini 2 is now the cheapest way to get an Apple Home Hub with Thread and Meter. support