Last week, at Apple's 'Awe Dropping' event, we were treated to the latest products joining the Apple family, such as the iPhone Air and the new AirPods Pro 3. While everyone was awed at the thinnest iPhone ever being revealed, I noticed the omission of a certain smart home product — one we all thought would be unveiled but wasn't. You guessed it: I'm talking about the HomePod 3.
The HomePod 3 — the natural successor to the HomePod 2 — was a no-show at the iPhone 17 event, but the current model will be getting new features.
So, what do you do now, if you've been meaning to upgrade from the second-gen model and the third-gen isn't even close to being launched? Why not get the Denon Home 150 instead?
Okay, it isn't a first-party product, so Apple purists are going to wonder why I'm recommending a third-party speaker — but the tradeoff is super sound quality, excellent smart home and multi-room integration, and for a lower price. In fact, I created a multi-room system in less than 10 minutes using two Denon speakers, and it sounded phenomenal. So forget the HomePod 3 — here's why you need the Denon Home 150 instead.
All the right connectivity smarts
What are the best smart speakers good at? Reminding you of daily tasks, fuelling your productivity, and everything in between. The Denon Home 150 excels at all of it, thanks to voice assistant support, which includes Siri (as long as you have a HomePod in the vicinity) and Alexa. It's really the only smart speaker you need if you use both Apple's and Amazon's voice assistants.
But that's not all. The best music streaming services are also integrated, including Spotify, Apple Music, Qobuz, etc. There's Bluetooth connectivity too, and you can stream music wirelessly (hi-res streaming at that). If you're old school, there's a 3.5mm aux port as well as a USB-A port to play music stored on a thumb drive.
Still with me? Good, because we ain't done yet. The Home 150 can also be paired with another HEOS-compatible speaker — like the Denon Home 350 — to create a multi-room system. You can then use the Home 150 synchronized with the Home 350 (as an example) or create a left and right channel for stereo sound. Extremely cool and very easy to do!
Small speaker, big sound
Now that we've covered the connectivity side of things, let's talk about sound quality. Smart speakers can, of course, be used to listen to music, like regular speakers. While the Apple HomePod 2 sounds good and I have no doubt the HomePod 3 will do too (when it eventually comes out), I believe the Denon Home 150 is in a league of its own.
There's really no second-guessing whether you should buy it if you really want hi-res wireless streaming. As someone who reviews audio gear for a living, I was blown away by the Home 150's sound — I wasn't expecting much from such a small speaker. It's fitted with one 1-inch tweeter and one 3.5-inch woofer as well as two class D amplifiers. It also features a DTS Neural:X upmixer, which helps produce immersive, lifelike, three-dimensional sound — stand anywhere in the room and you'll hear the same sound.
Regardless of what I listened to, the Home 150 left me with a pain in my neck because I was headbanging so much. Lows, mids and highs are extremely well-tuned to provide a balanced sound, but I could still appreciate the rich, deep (and funky) bassline in Twenty One Pilots' 'Center Mass' and 'Tally.'
I don't say this lightly, but the Home 150's sound profile is very close to the pricier Home 350. You can read all about the audio quality in our in-depth Home 150 review and Home 350 review.
You NEED a multi-room system
You might think you don't need a multi-room speaker system. I did too — until I tried the Denon Home 150 (and the Denon Home 350). Having a whole-home audio system solves a lot of problems. My partner and I can listen to the same songs even if we're working in different rooms of our apartment. We can ask each speaker to do different tasks. For instance, she could ask one speaker to set a timer while I could ask mine to do a complicated calculation.
You can continue holding out hope for the Apple HomePod 3 to be revealed at some point in the future, but I think you should get yourself a Home 150 while you wait. It can be easily and quickly integrated into your existing Apple ecosystem — especially if you have a HomePod or HomePod Mini — and it makes music sound beautiful.
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