The Bose SoundDock XT fixed my HomePod mini problem.
I work a weird schedule.
I work a normal 8am - 4pm shift for 2 weeks, and then I work 1am - 9am on the 3rd week, rinse and repeat. I have been doing this rotation for the last 10 years, so I have gotten used to it.
Kind of.
With a full house (wife and 3 kids), I have to balance my sleep into multiple naps when I work the graveyard shift. The rest of the family is awake, and they do a great job of staying quiet. They’re homeschooled, so they stay home during daytime hours except on certain days when they have in-person classes.
The problem isn’t them making noise, but the problem lies with my white noise stopping in the middle of my nap. I have my iPhone connected to my HomePod mini, and I play my favorite YouTube video as a form of white noise at a high volume. To protect my hearing and to double down on normal house chatter (because…kids), I also wear ear plugs.
More often than I would like, my YouTube video stops playing and I wake up due to some noise that would easily be masked by the HomePod. If this happens when I am sleeping at night like a regular human, it isn’t a big deal since I can just restart it and go back to bed. If it happens during the day or late in the evening when I have to wake up at midnight for work, it becomes a challenge to fall back asleep.
As much as I wanted the HomePod mini to be my permanent solution, I just can’t rely on it when working the graveyard shift.
I also use a Bluetooth Anker speaker as an alternative, but that has its own annoyances. If I permanently keep it plugged in and charged, it will fail in 2 years due to the battery conking out (I’m on my 2nd unit). Plus, I don’t want to fiddle with yet another device that needs to be charged.
With Anker, I get reliable audio but annoying charging. With the HomePod, I get reliable power but annoying AirPlay issues. I needed something that has the best of both, and I decided to get a Bose SoundDock XT.
This was released back in 2012, but still holds up well today. It has no wireless capabilities whatsoever and has to be physically plugged into the wall like the HomePod. It has very simple touch controls in the front for volume, and that’s it. You can plug in a lightning iPhone and it will charge while playing audio, but I ended up using the AUX jack in the back. With Apple’s USB-C to headphone jack adapter, I can plug in my iPhone from a distance and I am set. No more power, Bluetooth, or AirPlay issues to worry about.
As for my iPhone, I have it docked on a dome-shaped, MagSafe charging station by Anker.
My white noise is bass heavy, and this Bose system handles it just fine. You can fetch one of these on eBay for about $50-60, and with shipping it was $75.
I liked it so much that I bought another one for only $50 with shipping.
If you want old-school, high-quality sound with reliable connectivity, you can’t go wrong with one of these older Bose SoundDocks.