Buying HomePod or BT speakers?

Hi 5480,

it’s up to what best suits your needs and what needs are most important to you.

-Is Bluetooth important?

-Is portability important?

-Are you fairly well into the Apple ecosystem?

Homepod Mini can do all the audio scenarios you describe above but it will be via Airplay. Homepod Mini doesn’t do Bluetooth pairing for audio listening. It’s Airplay only (unless you have an Apple Music subscription, that’ll play natively on Homepod Mini).

Homepod Mini isn’t portable.

You mentioned you have an IPad and Mac, do you also have an iPhone? If so you’re well into the ecosystem. If you plan to putting the speaker in one or a couple specific spots in your home, Imho Homepod Mini is a solid choice.

However, if you need portability and/or need Bluetooth, if you need a speaker that gets vextra loud with some noted thump in the bass, a Bluetooth speaker is imho a better choice (if you want very loud and thump bass, youll want to buy a higher end Bluetooth speaker)

Advantage of Bluetooth, it is much more common than Airplay (though Airplay is getting more widespread outside Apple devices). Airplay advantage, significantly more bandwidth, longer distances.

I have no experience with those other models so I can’t comment how they sound compared to each other or what their feature benefits are. Imho the HomePod Mini for its size gives good sound. The feature value add with HomePod Mini is Siri, that it is a HomeKit hub, it adds right to your Home App and from there is easily stereo paired if adding a second Mini, and it runs an OS that typically is updated with all other Apple OS. If you get Apple Music it’s all native on the Mini controlled with Siri.

I hope that helps…