Your Apple HomePod has an underrated ‘hidden’ feature that seriously upgrades your automations

Rumours regarding a new Apple HomePod have been circulating since 2024. Despite recent sources claiming it could arrive this spring, I think it’s time to forget about the new HomePod and focus on the current ones and the surprising things you probably didn’t know they could do.

Apple’s range of smart speakers might not be as extensive as Amazon Echo, but they have many enticing features, especially for Apple users. While Apple’s HomePods are most commonly used for playing music or talking to Siri, they can also act as smart home hubs and trigger automations.

Automations are one of my favourite things about smart home devices, and I recently found an underrated ‘hidden’ feature on the Apple HomePod (2nd Gen) and Apple HomePod Mini that upgrades your automations – and that’s temperature sensors.

The HomePod (2nd Gen) and HomePod Mini both have temperature / humidity sensors built into them. Although they’re internal so you can’t actually see them, they’re located near the bottom of the device. The sensors work to measure the temperature and humidity of the room.

To use them, you can simply say “Hey Siri, what’s the temperature in this room?” and the HomePod will read it out to you. Other ways to check this is via the Apple Home app. All you have to do is tap the Climate icon and tap Temperature – if you have multiple HomePod speakers, you can see the temperature in every room they’re in.

So, you might be wondering why temperature sensors are handy in the grand scheme of things. But by using these temperature and humidity readings, you can create unique automations based on when your room hits or drops to a certain temperature.

For example, you can create an automation which turns on your smart thermostat when the temperature in a room gets too cold. Alternatively if things are getting too hot, you can set an automation which turns the thermostat off or one that turns a smart plug on that’s connected to a fan.

Similarly, if the HomePod recognises that the humidity in a room is getting too high, a smart plug connected to a dehumidifier can help extract moisture from the air. Smart home automations are all about making your life simpler after all, so you might as well use them to their full potential, and these examples are definitely ways you can do that.

How to set up automations using HomePod temperature sensors

To add automations, open the Apple Home app and tap Automation. Next, tap the ‘+’ icon and Add Automation. Scroll to ‘Events’ and select ‘A Sensor Detects Something’.

Select Temperature or Humidity Sensor and then choose a ‘trigger’. For both sensors, you can select triggers based on when temperatures / humidity rises above or drops below. From there, you can decide what you want your other smart home devices to do when these conditions are met.

Other things you can customise are time and people, so you can tweak the automation to only run at certain times of day, and when people are in the house.