Apple’s long-awaited smart home overhaul is finally here, and it includes a second-generation HomePod Mini with a new chip, twice as much RAM, and better wireless connectivity. At $149, the HomePod Mini 2 isn’t cheap. It’s more expensive than the original HomePod Mini and the new Google Home Speaker, which both cost $99. As someone who owns three HomePod Mini speakers already, it makes little sense for me to splurge for HomePod Mini 2 replacements.
I’m not even tempted to make the upgrade, because a new HomePod 27.2 update brings HomePod Mini 2 features to the original HomePod Mini, free of charge. I admit, I was surprised to see Apple give my six-year-old smart speaker features that it could’ve held back to make the HomePod Mini 2 more enticing. If you have original HomePod Mini speakers around your home, it’s time to update their software — you don’t need to buy new speakers to get the latest features.
Sound Glow puts the HomePod Mini’s lights to good use
Every HomePod Mini has 19 LEDs, but Apple didn’t make the most of them
The HomePod Mini is a 360-degree speaker with a touch-sensitive surface. Taps control playback and volume, while a press-and-hold triggers Siri. Underneath that touch-sensitive surface, there are 19 individual RGB LEDs that light up the top of the HomePod Mini in various colors. Up until the HomePod Mini 2’s announcement, Apple smart speakers historically underutilized these LEDs. Most notably, they were used to create the multicolor glow displayed when Siri was activated.
The other uses for these lights were hardly exciting. A static white light is displayed when an original HomePod Mini is playing audio, while a continuous green light shows up when a phone call is transferred to a HomePod Mini. Other white, red, and orange lights are used to indicate a HomePod Mini’s status. It’s odd that the HomePod Mini’s lights were practically ignored for six years, especially considering the popularity of music visualizers.
A music visualizer doesn’t have any practical benefit, but it is a fan-favorite feature. It turns audio signals into colors and animations, syncing in real time with the music that’s currently playing. Music visualizers take the song’s loudness and beats into consideration, creating a visual effect that matches the audio. The HomePod Mini, with multicolor LEDs, always made sense as a music visualizer — but Apple didn’t add the feature until the HomePod Mini 2’s release.
Apple is calling it “Sound Glow” on the HomePod Mini 2, and it’s a much better use of the speaker’s LEDs than a static white light. You can see how it looks in Apple’s demo video below, shared in the HomePod Mini 2’s press release:
The HomePod Mini 2 doesn’t have hardware upgrades that enable Sound Glow, it’s entirely software-based. That’s why I wanted to see Sound Glow come to the original HomePod Mini speakers, and Apple delivered.
Update your iPhone to iOS 27.2, open the Apple Home app, and open the device settings page for your HomePod Mini. You’ll see a HomePod 27.2 update available, and it only takes a few minutes to download and install. When your HomePod Mini comes back online, it’ll have access to Sound Glow.
However, you have to manually enable the Sound Glow toggle in the device settings page for every HomePod Mini you own. I did it for my aging HomePod Mini speakers, and the music listening experience suddenly feels brand new.
Say goodbye to static HomePod Mini glow
It now matches the album artwork color of the song currently playing
I’ve been using Sound Glow on my three HomePod Mini speakers for a few days now, and it’s certainly an upgrade over the static white “Now Playing” light. Whether the effect is convincing or not might depend on your HomePod Mini speaker’s color. I tested it on blue and space gray speakers, and Sound Glow looked more vibrant and engaging on the space gray HomePod Mini stereo pair. That’s because only the space gray colorway has a black plastic cover; the other colors use white plastic on the top.
It’s a small difference, but I saw Sound Glow appear more colorful on the space gray speakers as a result. Regardless of which color HomePod Mini speaker you own, the feature works best in the dark. In a well-lit room, Sound Glow is expectedly less noticeable. Shut off the lights, and Sound Glow not only lights up the top of the HomePod Mini speaker, but also the wall behind it.
Sound Glow doesn’t show random colors on the top display when music is playing — they’re specific to the song’s album artwork. In the photo above, you’ll see a frame of the dueling blue and yellow hues that make up Doja Cat’s album “Vie.” This is a nice touch, and puts Sound Glow a cut above generic music visualizers that lack this level of personalization.
The album artwork isn’t the only thing affecting Sound Glow. It moves and pulses in sync with the music, with colors moving on beat and reacting to the audio’s bass and treble notes. When white noise like rain or ocean sounds are played through a HomePod Mini, Sound Glow takes on an animated form that’s designed to be soothing.
Sound Glow isn’t the only HomePod 27.2 upgrade
Lock Controls are here, but other features require newer hardware
I didn’t buy a HomePod Mini in the speaker’s early days expecting many software updates, let alone one as big as HomePod 27.2. Aside from Sound Glow, which Apple could’ve easily made a HomePod Mini 2 exclusive, my six-year-old HomePod Mini also got Lock Controls. This feature arrives in the form of a simple toggle that disables touch controls on the top of the HomePod Mini. It could be useful for households with kids or pets, but it might also be a fix for HomePod Mini users affected by the “ghost touch” problem.
There are a few HomePod Mini 2 features that make me and my trio of original HomePod Mini speakers, like Mac speaker output and quad-speaker surround sound support. However, they’re not enticing enough to convince me to upgrade. HomePod 27.2 added just enough to keep my smart speakers in use, and every HomePod Mini user should install it.