Are you wondering what the best place for a HomePod mini is? I’ve done a little informal research and put the device in a few different places in my bedroom to find out where it works best for me. All in all I tried 3 different places and I’ll summarize the information below.
Before I go into detail on the three different locations I put the smart speaker, let me tell you about the bedroom and what is in it, so you can compare your space to the one I was using for testing.
The Snoring Room
I have a guest bedroom that we call the snoring room. I’m a bigger guy and tend to snore sometimes when allergies are bad. When this happens my wife kicks me out of the primary bedroom so she can sleep. I go up the stairs and into a guest room literally on the other side of the house where I can’t be heard.
The Snoring Room has a window, with a curtain, closet and ceiling fan. There is a Full size bed, a vintage wooden nightstand table, and a marble top dresser. It’s a pretty simple room, that gets very dark, and is great for deep sleep or a light nap. That’s why it is called the snoring room. If you are looking for a place to get some zzz’s this is the room for you.
When I go to sleep I like to have some white noise. I used to use an Amazon Echo dot to listen to some waves crashing sounds, but I switched from Alexa to Siri, and I needed a new smart speaker. That’s when I got the HomePod mini.
You can read more about why I chose the HomePod mini here. I have different sections on why I chose it, and how I ordered it, and much more.
Testing a HomePod mini conditions
For the testing I picked a location and left it there for a day without changing anything. Then after a full night’s sleep, I would make a change (either moving it, or adding a stand, or relocating it) and leave it there for another full 24 hour cycle.
I would listen to ambient wave sounds at night, and in the morning I like to wake up to NPR radio. During the day I would play music ranging from Rock to Jazz to HipHop, to Electronica.
I felt like this was a good range to test styles of music (from white noise, to talk, to music) and different volumes to see what worked best.
To keep everything exactly the same – I set up an scene I called “Good Night”. Once I was under the covers I would tell Siri “Good Night” and the ambient music would play at about 20% volume until I told her to turn it off.
Testing Location #1
The first place I put my white HomePod mini was on the bedside table. Apple recommends that you should put your HomePod mini in a place 6 inches (15 cm) from anything else. I suppose this is for the best sound to come from it, but it also may need this space for the WiFi and other signals to come out.
My bedside table has a lamp, and a small plant on it for decoration. If I were to put it in the ideal location with nothing around it for 6 inches it would be pretty much in the middle of the small table and not look so good.
So I used my 3-D printer to make a little stand and placed it in the exact location you see in the photo above. If you are like me you hate seeing wires, so I routed it directly behind the device and along the back of the table using more 3-D printed wire clips to keep everything neat and out of sight.
This first location was right next to my head – I could literally reach out and touch the HomePod mini to control the volume without having to use voice commands.
Testing Location #2
The second place I decided to test out the HomePod mini was on the top of a vintage dresser I have. It is on the other side of the bedroom from the bed. Although the dresser is wooden, the top of it is made out of marble. I only mention this because some audiophiles say there is a big difference between stone and wood for acoustics. I wanted to see if this difference was noticeable.
At this spot, it was far away – I couldn’t get to it without getting out of bed, and since it was on the other side of the room I couldn’t see it either.
Testing Location #3
For the third place I was going to test the Apple HomePod mini I had to get a little bit creative. I didn’t have any more table surfaces to place it on, and I wasn’t about to put it in the bed with me. So instead I decided to place it in the corner of the room on the floor. This was on the carpet, and down low. I didn’t take any photos of the HomePod sitting on the floor.
HomePod 3D printed stand
You may have noticed a little white tripod stand that I have in some of the photos. For the testing I used the stand and then would take it away for another testing cycle to see if it made a difference. This stand was based on one that I saw on instagram from the German Company Balolo. They have a beautiful wooden HomePod mini stand that I hope to get one day.
My design came from Thingiverse, and took about 90 minutes to print using PLA on my Ender printer.
Where should you Place a HomePod?
After all the different testing locations, I determined that putting the HomePod mini on a tripod stand the marble top dresser in my bedroom was the best. It was able to be placed 6 inches away from anything else for the sound to come out beautifully, and since it was on the other side of the bedroom the little light that comes on when Siri is responding (or it is playing music) didn’t distract me while I was trying to sleep or read in bed. The sound was clear and bright, and the bass wasn’t too boom-ey. Listening to Podcasts or news sounded natural, like the person was speaking to me in a normal voice just across the room.
When the HomePod mini was on my night stand it was a bit too close to me (and I didn’t have the required 6 inch clearance) and even though I played with the volume, it never was “just right”. Also when the device was next to my head I was distracted by the little light on the unit as it would play and glow.
When I put the unit on the floor, it did fill the room with great sound, but just didn’t look right. Overall it was probably the best place acoustically (and it didn’t distract me with the indicator light), but it seemed out of place and not finished just sitting there all by itself.
When I install some floating shelves one day In this room I will try out putting the HomePod mini on them to see if that works better. I have a feeling it will, and can’t wait to try.
Wrapping everything up
Overall I found the best place for my use of a HomePod mini in a bedroom was on the dresser. It was still in the room, and sounded absolutely great. It wasn’t too close to the bed when I was sleeping so it wasn’t too loud, and I didn’t really notice the glowing top part when I was trying to go to sleep.