IT之家 On October 15, tech media CNET posted a blog post yesterday (October 14) stating that due to hardware limitations, Apple has confirmed that the first HomePod mini smart speaker will not support Siri AI, while the successor model, the HomePod mini 2, will support Siri AI.
In terms of reasons, according to a statement obtained by this media, Apple said that due to the limited chip and memory configuration of the first-generation HomePod mini, it cannot meet the computing power required for Siri AI to run local large language models.
According to a blog post cited by IT Home, Apple stated in a statement that Siri AI is currently available for the HomePod mini 2 and Apple TV 4K (second generation and later models).
For a long time, due to its compact design and high cost-performance ratio, the first HomePod mini had a very large market share, and many users used it to build smart homes. The first model can still be used as an ordinary Bluetooth speaker and a basic smart home hub, but if users want to experience the new Siri with smarter context understanding capabilities, they may have to purchase the second-generation product with a built-in high-performance chip in the future.