Which makes this jailbreak somewhat moot, for now at least. It makes more sense to buy an inexpensive Bluetooth speaker rather than risk bricking your $300 Homepod that has no data port
I'm so tempted to jump into the Apple ecosystem, but things like this make it really, really hard. If I buy a $300 speaker I shouldn't need a second, shittier speaker.
I have no great experience with Bluetooth Speakers, but the magic of the HomePod is that they use Airplay 2 which piggybacks on WiFi and has some advantages:
- AirPlay uses lossless compression to stream audio from source to speaker. All Bluetooth audio streaming uses lossy compression.
- AirPlay has the capability of playing across a much larger distance and with a solid connection between devices than Bluetooth.
- When using AirPlay you’re actually capable of controlling the volume of the Airplay speaker (not just the volume of the device which transfers to the Bluetooth device).
- Airplay can stream to multiple output devices. Bluetooth is one-to-one streaming.
- AirPlay caches multiple minutes of Audio (or Video). AFAIK Bluetooth does not cache.
A sibling comment talked about using a Sonos with Bluetooth, but having delay issues. There is no lag on AirPlay:
If you're thinking of buying a HomePod, I think it's fair to assume that you also have an iPhone.
So, what's the use case for Bluetooth here? Streaming from phone to HomePod via AirPlay is so superior to Bluetooth as to make it obsolete for such needs.
The only thing I can think of is if the kids in the house have Androids or something. Or do some game consoles stream to Bluetooth speakers?
Yes, once again then convenience of this tight integrations comes with the loss of freedom. I guess the goal is to increase subscriptions to Apple Music at the expense of losing fewer more "demanding" users.
I wonder if there would be a case for enforcing companies that use the word "speaker" in their products to allow customers to play whatever they want via bluetooth or jack input.
thebean11|5 years ago
ralfd|5 years ago
- AirPlay uses lossless compression to stream audio from source to speaker. All Bluetooth audio streaming uses lossy compression.
- AirPlay has the capability of playing across a much larger distance and with a solid connection between devices than Bluetooth.
- When using AirPlay you’re actually capable of controlling the volume of the Airplay speaker (not just the volume of the device which transfers to the Bluetooth device).
- Airplay can stream to multiple output devices. Bluetooth is one-to-one streaming.
- AirPlay caches multiple minutes of Audio (or Video). AFAIK Bluetooth does not cache.
A sibling comment talked about using a Sonos with Bluetooth, but having delay issues. There is no lag on AirPlay:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HomePod/comments/gt4g40/lag/
reaperducer|5 years ago
So, what's the use case for Bluetooth here? Streaming from phone to HomePod via AirPlay is so superior to Bluetooth as to make it obsolete for such needs.
The only thing I can think of is if the kids in the house have Androids or something. Or do some game consoles stream to Bluetooth speakers?
alfonsodev|5 years ago
I wonder if there would be a case for enforcing companies that use the word "speaker" in their products to allow customers to play whatever they want via bluetooth or jack input.