Despite Apple being late, Siri Smart Speaker or the Apple HomePod was going to be one of the most strategic launches for Apple internally as well as against colossal competition from Amazon/Google combine!
Completes the Ecosystem – With HomePod coming to the fold, Homekit completes the set.
A modern day typical Smart Home system exists in 2 forms.
Form 1: A static device which sits on your desk/table in your home waiting to hear commands from you and execute them with utmost eagerness.
Form 2: A mobile device which stays with you 24X7 and assists you in managing your home on the move.
This is how major competitors look as of date.
More on this at https://aimldl.io/2017/03/20/forms-hold-true-to-functions/
What I and many more like me had expected of HomePod was an amazingly smart, super secured, beautiful table top device that truly justifies Apple Premium!
How instead it has come out is an at parity device with Google/Amazon, fewer or at par capabilities, slightly better form factor (that’s still debatable, after all beauty lies in the eye of the beholder!), and almost 3X pricing when put against Echo or Home.
The future of these devices as I see it- I think these devices will be foot-in-the-door for customers 5 years from now and might be extremely subsidized or be doled for free, yes free!
The kind of service integration that Amazon is doing with Echo – Uber, Spotify, Uber, Audible, npr to name a few and the smart products which getting into integration – Philips Hue, Smarthings, WeMo etc., these devices/smart speakers will become a channel to push rest of the products and services into the Customer’s home.
Google Home is moving at rapid pace with these integrations. Apple Homekit is slow with service integration but has relevant assortment of smart home products.
The cost of these smart devices will be footed by the products/services who wish to be tried and adopted by the customers.
So why are we paying now? Simple – novelty of the concept and the perennial curse of the being the early adopter.
Technically speaking these devices have very little BOM cost. They essentially consist of a Transmitter (Tx), Receiver (Rx), speaker, and microphone. All the intelligence resides in the cloud – which is a highly secured shared service. These devices essentially become a conduit for cloud communication.
How is HomePod trying to differentiate?
Other than subsuming all the features of Homekit and Siri, HomePod has extremely high quality speakers, or that is what Apple claims. It’s a device for the audiophiles!
So much so, that the value proposition and technical specifications section on the HomePod page has complete sets devoted to Audio Specs.
https://www.apple.com/homepod/
I broadly see HomePod customers in following Target Segments and they obviously will be critical to the success of HomePod.
So Is HomePod gonna be failed product? By iPhone standards yes. By iPod Standards, a resounding yes. But it will stay in the product lineup for foreseeable future with an attachment ratio of less than 10% with Apple phones.
The Smart home game has just begun and registering presence is extremely important. HomePod has announced its arrival the Apple way – Grandly, magnanimously, exclusively, and anticipatedly.
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