Apple’s HomePod Coming Soon To A Home Near You

Apple’s HomePod, its voice-activated speaker, could be launching soon now that the company has received approval from the Federal Communications Commission.

According to a report in BGR, Apple had to submit the HomePod to the FCC because it uses wireless technologies. Although the filing doesn’t include new details about the device, the fact that the documents were filed in September implies there haven’t been any big changes to the design since then. The delays in releasing the HomePod had more to do with software issues than hardware flaws, noted the report.

Apple had originally planned to launch the HomePod in December. In November, it announced it would roll it out sometime in the early part of 2018, without divulging details about the delay.

The HomePod is expected to be priced at $349, which is more expensive than competing speakers from the likes of Amazon. Amazon and its Alexa voice-activated speakers have been dominating the market, with its Echo line seeing huge demand during the holiday season.

Google’s Home Assistant is also a player in that market. This year’s CES, the annual technology conference held in early January, marked the first time Google had a booth to hawk its prowess in the voice-activated speaker market. Currently, Google Assistant is in 400 million devices worldwide, up from 100 million in July 2017. Experts have pointed out that Google does have certain advantages over Amazon, such as its in-depth knowledge of search and user behavior. Plus, Google has the advantage of a built-in audience, and Google Assistant is also built into the Android operating system, making it more mobile than Alexa.

While there are early leaders emerging in the smart speaker race, it’s not clear who will ultimately win. In June of 2017, the PYMNTS/Visa How We Will Pay study revealed that only about 15 percent of consumers owned a smart speaker device, giving them roughly the same market penetration as smartwatches, despite being in the game for twice as long. The How We Will Pay study also revealed that consumers who own smart speakers are exponentially more valuable: The data indicates they both shop more often and spend more via those devices – which likely explains the full-court press the world of smart speakers made at CES.