broadcasts within your family via HomePod, iPhone and more

The Intercom feature stole the show during the announcement of the HomePod mini in October 2020. This allows you to broadcast to the right person or the entire house with almost all Apple devices. For example, you let them know that the food is ready or that you are going out for a while. Apple hasn’t released the feature yet and promises to come in 2020.

On which devices is Intercom available?

Although the position was announced for the HomePod mini it is not limited to this small speaker. AIn the October 13 presentation, the following devices were mentioned at Intercom:

• HomePod
• HomePod mini
• iPhone
• Apple Watch
• iPad
• CarPlay
• AirPods

Use the intercom for broadcasters within your family

To begin with, it is important that you use iCloud Family Sharing if you want messages to arrive on everyone’s device. If you don’t use that, you can probably only use HomePods. You can broadcast on all devices in the group or only for one specific room. It is not yet known whether you can broadcast in a specific number of rooms at the same time.

The easiest way to use Intercom is to say “Hey Siri, IntercomFollowed by your call. If you want to broadcast something in one specific room, you say: “Hey Siri, intercom to the living roomFollowed by what you want to broadcast. You can read more about Dutch assignments below.

When you make a call to everyone, everyone will receive a notification on his or her iPhone of Apple Watch. The message does not play automatically on those devices, as with Walkie Talkie on the Apple Watch. With Intercom, recipients must first open the notification. If they are in the car with CarPlay activated, they can also listen to what is being announced.

Is someone else calling out and want to answer? Then say: “Hey Siri, replyAnd say what you want to return. This voice message is then sent to the sender. That also works from all Intercom devices.

You can from your iPhone of iPad also in the Home app start a call. If your devices have been updated, you will find a new button with an audio wave at the top right of the Home tab. Speak your message after the tap. As soon as we can update our HomePods to iOS 14.2 we will update this article with all the explanations for settings.

When and for whom is it available?

Apple says Intercom will be available via a software update in 2020, but doesn’t say which one. We expect this to be iOS 14.3, but we are not sure. What we do know for sure is that your iPhone must be suitable for iOS 14. The same goes for iPad met iPadOS 14 in Apple Watch met watchOS 7.

It is still unclear in which languages ​​Intercom will work. We find the explanation on Apple’s HomePod in HomePod mini website, but because these speakers are not available in the Netherlands, there is no Dutch explanation available. Because Intercom also works with other devices, we hope that the function will still come to the Netherlands, albeit without the speakers.

Because you have a HomePod (mini) you must of course speak English (or another supported language) for these devices. All devices may need to be set to the same language. In that case, you are forced to say goodbye to the Dutch Siri (for the time being). More about Siri on the HomePod you can read in our separate tip.

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