Hi Everyone,
A while back we bought a little battery / HomePod holder thing off Amazon to make one of our HomePod minis into a patio HomePod. I was worried it would be junk, but it was actually not junk. Figured that an amazon review would just get lost, but sharing one here might help someone out!
Here is what we ordered: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0964H5Z6Q/
It has the amazing name of Mission Battery Base for HomePod Mini, which is a better name than the typical Amazon purchase. What it is is just a holder for the HomePod that has a small battery inside. On the back it has two USB C ports - one to plug in to the wall, and one to plug in the HomePod. Then you wrap the HomePod cord around the inside of the bottom, and cover with a plastic base held on by a magnet.
Overall, this isn’t winning any design awards. Especially since we have it paired with a yellow HomePod instead of the planned black or white ones. That said, it is PERFECT for our use.
We wanted one we could easily bring outside with us for dinner or sitting by the pool (which was also purchased on Amazon). We used to use bluetooth speakers, but once we bought one HomePod mini, we wanted to just have a portable one instead of a speaker. This fits the bill great. All we do is unplug it inside, and the battery keeps it running for a few hours. Easy to carry around and bring it with us. Then when we’re done plug it back in inside the house.
Some caveats.
- As soon as Apple makes one that has an internal battery we’re just throwing this in the trash. It’ll have more of the polish (i.e. the cord on this is cheap, looks ugly to have the two plugs, etc. )That said, who knows if they’ll ever make one.
- I’m not sure how long it really lasts. The longest we’ve had it playing was probably ~3-4 hours and it worked fine. If you’re looking for an all day solution this may or may not be it.
- Once we got it working the first time, we never touched the power button on the base again (it seemed to sometimes work and sometimes not when we tried turning it on/off, so just left it always on).
- Needs a wifi connection outside. For us not a problem, I mounted our old access point outside when we upgraded our main one to Wifi6, so we’ve got good signal everywhere in the back yard. But if you’ve got a hard time getting connection, might make more sense for a bluetooth speaker.
Hopefully that covers all of it, but if you’ve got questions happy to answer!
Bonus picture of the HomePod in its natural environment for the summer - poolside keeping the lifeguard sane.
