I was testing a HomePod as a conference speakerphone in a large open office environment - where we often have all hands - and it did extremely well - clearly picking up individuals that were quite far from the actual device and that were speaking at a normal volume.
I would love Apple to enable some sort of "Office Mode" for the HomePod similar to what they've done with the Apple TV (given the name doubt it will happen anytime soon) - maybe something they could work on with Cisco on? It performed better than the Jabra Speak 810 which is almost twice the cost. Has anyone else experienced this or used it in an office environment?
Cisco has the Webex Board (formerly SparkBoard). It has an array of 12 microphones on top and does audio processing to pick out who's talking, cancel the noise, and since it has an idea of where the participant is, the video part zooms into the speaker during a call.
Purchasing the low-end version of the WebEx Board and paying for just one year of the subscription would cost as much as 21 HomePods, if my back-of-the envelope math works out. Not exactly a HomePod competitor...
Amazon has Alexa for Business[1] which is a similar offering. It integrates with your conferencing platform (WebEx, Skype for Business, Exchange dial-in info) and you can use it as a conference phone and to control A/V in the room. It's pretty nifty and has some cool APIs for internal skills. The Echos have similar farfield microphones, so it should be around the same quality as the HomePod.
It's a mode where the Apple TV display instructions on how to connect with airplay and a pin code for authentication. It's really a handy feature in combination with Direct Wi-Fi, since it allows anyone in a conference room with a Mac or iDevice to present things.
We use it in meetings (though I prefer hooking up to by cable, since Airplay doesn't do 4k yet for 'screen sharing').
Is it better than a Chromecast? If I remember correctly, anyone with a Chrome browser (and apps with the feature added) can use the screen. Which gets around Apple only.
