Apple has announced the HomePod Mini 2 — priced at $149 in the US, Rs 14,990 in India (per Apple’s India website, confirmed by MacRumors and The Verge), and £139 in the UK, with preorders opening today, October 13, and shipping starting October 30. It replaces the original HomePod Mini, which is now discontinued after six years on sale. The new model adds the S10 chip, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth LE 6.0, but keeps the same speaker drivers and acoustic architecture as its predecessor. So no, the sound hasn’t been upgraded. Just how it connects, calibrates, and lights up. And what it will do, eventually: run Siri AI. But not yet. That feature arrives in a future software update, requiring an iPhone 15 Pro or newer running Apple Intelligence. It’ll work in English across nine markets: the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, India, and, . Not yet the EU. Voice recognition will identify up to six users for personalized responses, pulling from calendar, Messages, and other synced data. But that personal layer only activates when paired with a compatible iPhone. Anyone can ask for weather, play music, or control smart home devices, just not access your private context. Without the upgrade. The ‘Sound Glow’ visual feature is live from day one. A ring of LEDs on top pulses and shifts color in real time, pulling palette cues from album artwork or ambient soundscapes like rain or ocean. It’s subtle in daylight, but visible. Audio functionality expands in three concrete ways: it can now serve as your Mac’s default speaker via AirPlay (on Wi-Fi 6E+ Macs only), pair with the new Apple TV 4K ($299) for stereo or surround sound, and scale up to four units for full 4.0 surround when matched with that same Apple TV. Two Minis can also pair with two second-gen full-sized HomePods for hybrid setups. All calibration is automatic, no manual mic placement or room measurement needed. Colors are pink, green, blue (a new shade), white, and midnight. Matching current iMac hues. Midnight replaces black, per The Verge’s reporting. This isn’t a mobile launch. It’s a smart speaker refresh, one that leans hard on ecosystem lock-in (no Siri AI without a recent iPhone), defers key features, and raises the price $20 over the original. But it’s the first HomePod Mini update since 2020, and the first Apple speaker built from the ground up for Apple Intelligence. Siri AI rollout begins with iOS 18.4 and tvOS 18.4, expected this winter.