The HomePod and HomePod mini have gained a feature that can help save lives and you should definitely consider enabling it ASAP. It's a feature that was promised in January 2023 when the HomePod 2 was announced and it's finally available for all of Apple's smart speakers.

That feature is one that will detect when the HomePod hears an alarm sounding, like a smoke alarm for example. It'll then alert you so that you know exactly what is going on even if you aren't at home at the time.

Alarm-sensing HomePod and iPhone alerts

The feature is simple in the way it will work, although we're sure that's doing the underlying technology a disservice. TechCrunch reports that the feature is going live starting today with the alarm-sensing HomePod generating alerts that are then sent to a user's iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. All of that's set up via the Home app, which brings us to the next feature.

TechCrunch says that anyone who has a connected smart camera will also see a video of their home so that they can see exactly what's happening. This being Apple, all of this happens in an end-to-end encrypted manner so you can be pretty sure that everything is safe and sound.

This of course isn't the only technology of its kind with Google and others already offering something similar. But it's the first time that Apple has had something of this ilk and it's surely a feature that has the potential to save lives.

The obvious use cases here are for things like smoke alarms and carbon dioxide sensors, both of which are the kind of things that you definitely want to be warned of should they kick in.

One advantage here is that you don't need to replace your existing smoke or carbon dioxide detectors for this to work, the HomePod simply listens out for the alarm and alerts you if it hears it.