The HomePod’s best feature is its sound quality, but Apple also went above and beyond when it comes to controlling the volume of your music. Sure, you could just tell Siri to “raise the volume” or tap the buttons on top of the speaker, but for the best results try adjusting the HomePod’s volume on a scale of 1-100.
Apple offers a few different voice commands for doing just that. Try saying “Hey Siri, turn it to 40” or “Hey Siri, turn the volume to 65” or “Hey Siri, turn the volume to 35 percent.” This gives you more granular controls over the volume than Amazon’s Echo speakers, which work on a scale of 1-10. Google Home actually offers a 1-100 volume range as well, but only when you use the word “percent” in your voice command.
On Reddit, HomePod owners also warned that you should avoid trying to set the volume in the teens since Siri may mishear 17 as 70 or 18 as 80 and raise the volume to uncomfortable levels. The opposite could happen too, so numbers like 70 and 80 may be misheard as smaller amounts.
Beyond the 1-100 scale, there are a few other volume-related HomePod tricks worth knowing. You can say “Hey Siri, turn it up/down” for a 10% change, or say “Hey Siri, turn it up/down a lot” for 20%. You can also ask Siri to set the HomePod to “maximum volume,” which will prompt a warning before actually cranking up the speaker to its highest level.
Finally, if you want to control the volume of Siri’s voice (as opposed to the music) just say “Hey Siri, set your volume to 50%”—or any other number. That should come in handy if you want to listen to loud music but don’t need your HomePod to shout at you when you ask about the weather.