What’s most surprising is that, having been unveiled and put on sale, the WiiM Ultra is actually even less than the cheapest option on that list. Can you imagine Apple ever asking what a reasonable price for its latest iPad Pro might be? Us neither. 

You get plenty of streamer for your money, too. The Mac Mini-esque aluminium chassis bears a 3.5in touchscreen, which can be used to just display things like artwork or to control playback and tweak settings, and a physical volume dial, adding a touch of the tactile to your digital music delivery.

There’s Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 inside, with two antennas for solid streaming from Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, AirPlay 2, and Chromecast, but it also has a pre-amp built-in, so you can use the wealth of ports round the back to connect other sources, from turntables to TVs. You get line-in and phono-in, optical and HDMI ARC, but there’s also a subwoofer socket, USB for adding storage, and a 3.5mm output that’s connected to a dedicated headphone amp. 

The WiiM Ultra uses an ES9038 Q2M SABRE DAC, which means hi-res files at up to 192kHz/24-bit are on the playback menu, with tech to automatically tweak the sound based on the sonic characteristics of the room you use it in. 

You get all of this for just £339 – a tenner less than the lowest price proposed by WiiM before launch. Bargain.

• Read more: Spotify Supremium explained – when will the long-awaited hi-res streaming upgrade appear?

While the shape of the Meridian Ellipse might not come as a surprise, then, its audio capabilities might. Despite only being about the size of a shoebox, Meridian has found space inside for a pair of 90mm wide-range drivers and a suitably oval-shaped subwoofer, each with a dedicated chunk of the 80W total amplification.

There’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth onboard, with support for AirPlay, Chromecast, Spotify and Tidal Connect, but unusually for a wireless speaker of this size there’s also plenty of ports positioned neatly on the back, including ethernet, USB-C (which enables playback of hi-res tunes at up to 24-bit/192kHz), 3.5mm and, with a little help from a dongle, digital optical. You also get a set of illuminated touch controls on the top, which allow you to stop, start and skip tracks, and adjust the volume, plus there’s a hidden NFC chip for easily pairing your phone.

It all runs on Meridian’s R2 platform, which includes the same signal enhancements found inside its £60,000 DSP9 active floorstanding speakers. If you buy a pair of those you can choose any colour of the rainbow (and pick between matt, satin and gloss finishes), but the Ellipse only comes in black.

Just make sure you don’t look at it from the top, because then you’ll realise it’s actually the shape of a purple Quality Street and Meridian will have to come up with a new name.

The Meridian Ellipse is available to buy now and will set you back a pretty hefty £1900.

• Read more: Best wireless speakers 2024 – music and radio via Wi-Fi

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• Existing Sky customer? Upgrade to Sky Multiscreen (or check out other deals)

Ferrari

Is there a more respected and romanticised name in the world of motoring than Ferrari? The Prancing Horse is revered across the globe for its luxury sports cars and highly decorated racing teams – but it hasn’t always been that way. 

Michael Mann’s imaginatively-named Ferrari tells the story of a troubled period in the company’s history, when its survival depended on a victory in the 1957 Mille Miglia – a dangerous endurance race from Brescia to Rome and back again. No prizes for guessing the ending, then, but this is also a tale of love, death, dedication and why you should avoid getting on the wrong side of Penelope Cruz.  

For a film about cars there’s perhaps not quite enough four-wheeled action, and it can be difficult to pick up some of the heavily accented dialogue at first, but when those elegant machines do grace the screen it’s impossible not to fall in love with them.

True Detective: Night Country

It’s 10 years since True Detective first combined a complex whodunnit with occult weirdness in such a compelling way that it earned a place in the TV hall of fame, but none of the subsequent anthologies have managed to match it. Despite being littered with references to the original series, True Detective: Night Country doesn’t reach the same heights either, but if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to combine The Thing with Fargo, here’s your chance. 

Set during the almost perma-darkness that falls in the depths of an Alaskan winter, Night Country investigates the disappearance of a group of scientists from a remote research station, with Jodie Foster and Kali Reis playing the uneasy pair of cops working a case that opens all kinds of old wounds for the remote town of Ennis and its people. There’s more reliance on classic horror tropes here than in previous instalments, and some key moments in the climactic sixth episode don’t quite stand up to interrogation, but the performances from its leads and the hugely atmospheric setting make it a very watchable addition to the franchise.

Asteroid City

The thing about Wes Anderson films is that while you pretty much know exactly what you’re getting before you press play – weaponised whimsy, symmetrical shots, deadpan dialogue, and an ensemble cast that includes at least one of Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, and Tilda Swinton – they’re so meticulously crafted that it’s hard to hold it against him. 

Set in a remote desert town during a junior stargazer convention, Asteroid City is actually a movie about the making of a documentary about a play, with narrative threads that weave between the lot. Even if you get lost among all that (and nobody will blame you if you do), the contrast between the pastel-coloured town and black-and-white scenes make for a brilliantly contrasting 4K experience.

The reasons why some people love Wes Anderson films are the same as the ones that cause others to hate them. Chances are you already know which camp you fall into, and if it’s the latter, Asteroid City will do nothing to change your mind, but one thing’s for sure: you’ve never seen a Jeff Goldblum cameo quite like this one.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

As an exercise in cinematic one-upmanship, is there a better example than the Mission: Impossible series? Each new addition goes bigger, higher and faster – and Dead Reckoning is no different. 

It’s longer, too (just 11 minutes short of three hours if you watch all the credits), during which time Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt runs very fast, drives even faster, jumps off very high stuff, and puts a lot of very disposable baddies in hospital. It’s all in the name of a fairly ridiculous plot that centres on a self-replicating AI that’s powerful enough to allow whoever possesses a special two-part key to either destroy or control the whole world.

In a way, Mission: Impossible films are just like Wes Anderson ones, in the sense that you know exactly what you’re going to get before you watch one. But instead of Bill Murray being quirky, you get Tom Cruise saving the world – and when it’s this adrenaline-pumpingly enjoyable, who cares?

Sisu

If John Wick had been set in Lapland towards the end of the Second World War, it’d be a lot like Sisu – 90 blood-soaked minutes of very silly but highly entertaining Nazi-bashing.

Rather than following a Sami hitman called Juhani, the double-hard bar steward at the centre of Sisu is Aatami Korpi, who we first meet quietly digging for gold accompanied by his horse and dog. It’s not long before he runs into a bunch of German soldiers – and soon afterwards the massacre begins.

Bullets fly, blades pierce bone, and landmines get tossed like frisbees as more and more fascists become mincemeat at the hands of this near-silent but deadly prospector. If you like your violence bloody but cartoonish, Sisu is a 24-karat hit.  

Brian and Charles

Most films featuring robots are set in space or long into the distant future, but Brian and Charles live among the rolling hills of rural Wales. Brian is the reclusive inventor and Charles is his household Frankenstein, cobbled together using a washing machine, a mannequin’s head and various bits of scrap from Brian’s shed (aka his “infamous inventions pantry”).

At first Brian tries to keep Charles a secret, and the pair develop an unlikely bromance (or should that be robromance?) over playing darts and watching travel shows on the telly. But it’s not long before some of the other villagers discover the seven-foot, cabbage-eating android living up the road. 

The plot here is nothing special but the film has a uniquely British spirit and sense of humour that makes it so charming, a bit like if Shane Meadows made a live-action Wallace and Gromit film.

Nope

There’s no shortage of films about encounters with extraterrestrials – but none of them are quite like Jordan Peele’s Nope. Set on a ranch in the California desert, Daniel Kaluuya stars as OJ, a man who trains horses for Hollywood but soon finds himself attempting to tame something much more exotic. 

As with all films of this kind it’s best to discover Nope’s secrets alongside OJ, rather than finding out too much in advance, but this is a spectacular film that will make you suspicious of every single cloud in the sky. Oh, and you’ll never look at the PG Tips monkeys the same way again. 

The Last of Us

Tomb Raider, Silent Hill and Max Payne are all proof that good games don’t necessarily translate well to film, but The Last of Us always felt perfect for television. The story of Joel and Ellie’s journey across a post-apocalyptic America was so emotionally powerful and morally complex that, in the right hands, it had the potential to be a truly great series – and Craig Mazin, the man behind HBO’s harrowing Chernobyl, has definitely delivered.  

The show’s Cordyceps-ravaged world is instantly recognisable as the one from the game, full of flesh-hungry Infected and ruthless gangs of survivors, and while its nine episodes stay faithful to the main narrative arc of the game, it brilliantly fleshes out some of the more secondary characters and adds a few extra tasty plot nuggets for fans to sink their teeth into. The real triumph, though, is the portrayal of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and the way their relationship develops right up to that devastating ending.

Top Gun: Maverick

It’s been more than 35 years since Tom Cruise’s first Top Gun outing – not that you’d know it from the almost identical opening sequence to this long-awaited sequel (or its star’s seemingly ageless appearance).

The story is hardly a million miles away either, with Cruise’s Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell returning to prepare a squadron of hotshot recruits for a deadly new mission. But what has changed massively is the technology, with cameras placed inside real fighter jets with the actors. The result is some of the most breathtaking action sequences ever filmed – and not even a truly dreadful Lady Gaga song over the end credits can spoil it.

The Batman

Gotham City is hardly known for its delightful weather and friendly locals, but in Matt Reeves’ The Batman the sun never seems to rise and there’s yet another psychopathic killer on the loose. Making his debut as the Caped Crusader is Robert Pattinson, who mopes around in the dark like he’s just missed out on tickets for the My Chemical Romance reunion tour, while Paul Dano’s depiction of the Riddler is about as far away from Jim Carey’s as you can possibly imagine – all unhinged video messages and army surplus chic.

At three hours long, The Batman might be a slog for some, but it rewards patience with some exhilarating set pieces. And for those bored of glossy superhero movies its grittier tone will be a welcome change; if its main protagonist didn’t spend so much time dressed as a bat it’d pass as a Fincher-esque serial-killer thriller.

The Northman

If you think Hamlet would be improved if it included more Vikings, wolf hats and farting, you should probably spend two-and-a-half hours with The Northman. Based on the same Old Norse tale that inspired Shakespeare, it tells the story of Alexander Skarsgård’s Amleth, the son of a king who’s on a mission to get revenge for his father’s brutal murder. The twist? His uncle is the killer and is now married to Amleth’s mum. And you thought your family was dysfunctional.

Fortunately, this quest is made somewhat easier by the fact that Amleth looks like he should be competing in Asgard’s Strongest Man. He hacks, stabs and bludgeons his way through villages and forests, over mountains and across seas, but what sets The Northman apart from other mythical blockbusters is how beautifully shot it is. Bashing heads has never looked so good.

Ambulance

Like a two-hour GTA mission that’s been edited together by a YouTuber after too many cans of Red Bull, Ambulance is never going to win any awards for subtlety or nuance, but that’s not what anybody watches Michael Bay movies for.

Most of the film takes place inside the titular emergency vehicle, as brothers Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) flee the scene of a Heat-esque bank robbery with a paramedic (Eiza González) and an injured cop in the back, while what seems like the entire LAPD (and some of the FBI) try to stop them.

Obviously it’s too long – all blockbusters are these days – and every fifth shot seems to have been filmed by a drone for no apparent reason, as if the director hired one for the day and needed to get his money’s worth, but if you’re looking for some brainless Friday night entertainment it very much ticks all the right boxes.

Gangs of London

With possibly the highest body count of any show on TV, series one of Gangs of London was a more-than-a-little-bit-ludicrous mixture of Eastenders and The Raid. Similarities to the latter were no coincidence – the series was conceived by that film’s creators, Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery, whose adrenaline-pumping, bullet-riddled set-pieces made the first series of Gangs of London so mindlessly watchable, even if it was a touch ‘Guy Ritchie by Waitrose’ at times.

The pair were less involved in this follow-up season – and it shows. While it still has plenty of blood-spattered moments – the shootout in a posh Paris nightclub and an assault on one of the big cheese’s mansions spring to mind – it can’t quite reach the thrilling heights of series one, spending a bit too much time being all serious and not enough cracking skulls. Oh, and the name’s still rubbish.

Gomorrah

Sky Italia’s Gomorrah returns for its fifth and final season – and those who’ve followed the lives of Gennaro, Ciro and co since the beginning will not be disappointed by how this story ends. 

Genny ended season four by going into hiding, but with Naples threatening to boil over and an old acquaintance apparently coming back from the dead, his self-imposed exile doesn’t last long.  

Gomorrah’s appeal has always lied in its twists and turns, unfiltered violence and outrageous interior design – and there’s plenty of all three on offer here.

Interstellar

Christopher Nolan’s films have never lacked scope, but Interstellar goes to places the others can’t reach.

Matthew McConaughey plays Coop, a widowed astronaut-turned-farmer who blasts off into outer space in search of a new planet for humanity to settle on after blight causes a global famine and Earth starts to die. Of course, it’s not as simple as flying to the nearest wet rock and setting up camp, so prepare yourself for wormholes, gravity equations, and extra dimensional communication, but with a surprisingly human core.

Jurassic Park

If you were to make a list of movie scenes worth remastering in 4K, the meme-tastic bit in Jurassic Park when Jeff Goldblum’s injured Ian Malcolm unbuttons his shirt and reclines on a table in an apparent attempt to seduce Richard Attenborough would easily make the top five.

Fortunately for everybody involved, the whole of Spielberg’s classic dino ‘em up has had its pixels buffed up, not just that one sequence, so one of the greatest blockbusters ever made is available in Ultra HD. In fact, its two immediate sequels are there too, but they’re rubbish.

Billions

Now into its third series (with all three available in Ultra HD), Billions is about a grumpy US Attorney (Paul Giamatti’s Chuck) and his nemesis: a charitable-but-devious hedge fund manager called Axe, played by Homeland’s Damian Lewis. 

But wait! Come back! It’s not all spreadsheets and interest rates. Yes, there’s a fair amount of baffling finance talk but it’s much funnier than you’d imagine, with the drama coming from the power struggle between these two big-bucks heavyweights. It’s classic cat ‘n’ mouse stuff, but on this occasion both animals are so rich they’re almost untouchable. Almost…

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• Existing Sky customer? Upgrade to Sky Multiscreen (or check out other deals)

• Buy Sky Stream direct from Sky

Sky UK’s announcement it was making its channels available over the internet will have been music to your ears. All you need is a dinky Sky Stream puck. It works in a similar fashion to an Amazon Fire TV stick or another streaming device: everything comes over Wi-Fi.

But how do you get it and how much does it cost? Also don’t forget to check out our Sky Stream review, too.

Sky Stream is essentially Sky Q without a dish and recordings

Sky Stream launched in October as a standalone product. The idea of Sky Q without a dish has been around for a while. Sky first talked about it coming to the UK in 2017. Instead of launching it, Sky opted to strengthen its Now TV service with Full HD instead. We thought that Sky Q without a dish would end up being called Sky X. It’s the name of the equivalent service in Austria, but that proved not to be the case. The concept is the same though: TV over your internet connection rather than a dish. You stream everything rather than recording it.

If you bought 2021’s Sky Glass, you’ll already be familiar with the software inside Sky Stream. Both use the latest version of Sky’s software platform, dubbed Entertainment OS. Sky Glass customers can also buy Stream boxes to add multiroom abilities to Glass.

Sky Stream puck price and packages

Sky Stream will set you back either £26 or £29 per month. The cost depends on if you sign up for an 18-month contract, or prefer a 31-day rolling contract. You can cancel the latter at any time. Both carry a setup fee (despite not actually needing an engineer to visit your house and install it). The fee is £20 for anyone taking out an 18-month contract, or £40 for those on 31-day contracts.

• Check out Sky Stream at Sky.com

The base package includes Sky Ultimate TV and Netflix Basic, with content delivered in HD. You’ll need to pay extra if you want Ultra HD at 60fps, which also comes bundled with Dolby Atmos audio. Provided the content supports it, of course. Sky Cinema and Sky Sports add-ons are also available.

You are also now able to buy Sky Stream from hundreds of Currys stores, too. That’s an exclusive deal until the end of 2023.

Sky Stream puck design and features

The Sky Stream puck looks a lot like a slightly thinner Apple TV. With no tuners or hard drive inside it’s significantly smaller than even the Sky Q Mini boxes. There’s not a lot to identify it, just a subtle Sky logo on top.

The remote you get is identical to the one that comes with Sky Glass. It is slightly different to the one for Sky Q. The layout has been tweaked, with a plus button to add stuff to your playlist instead of a record button. The button to activate voice control has also been moved front and centre. Stream will respond to the ‘Hello Sky’ command if lifting a finger is too much effort. The remote does remove the channel up and down buttons. This is a bit strange at first.

• Read more: The 29 best Sky Q tips and tricks

While the Sky Glass remote comes in five colours to match the TV colours, the Stream puck and remote are always black.

Sky Stream software

The Sky Stream puck uses exactly the same interface as Sky Glass, which is a redesign of what you get with Sky Q. Sky calls it Entertainment OS, but you’ll never come across this in use. Some modifications have been made from the original iteration of Glass. For example, a Continue watching rail of shows now replaces a Play now section which aggregated content, but this didn’t seem to resonate with users.

There’s still a guide to access live TV should you wish. But the focus is more on recommendations, which should get better the more you use it. Instead of recordings you get a Playlist, which is where you save all the stuff you want to watch. You can also jump into specific apps, such as Netflix, Disney+, BBC iPlayer et al. Sadly, for fans of indie cinema and the works of Vincent Cassel, Mubi is not supported on Sky devices.

It’s Playlist that’s the powerful bit. You can now create playlists for different members of the family, which you couldn’t originally. The Personalised Playlist feature allows up to five family members to record the shows only they want to watch. There’s also a cast and crew rail that enables you to see other TV shows and movies a star has appeared in.

Playlists act like a ’cloud DVR’ says Sky, meaning that anything you add to Playlist will effectively be recorded for you in the cloud rather than on your box. However, that’s not always the case, particularly for live sport where you need to wait for it to appear on catch-up./

Sky recommends a minimum download speed of 15Mbps to use Sky Stream, but if you’d rather cable it up to your router then you can do via Ethernet.

• Read more: Virgin Media Stream enables you to mix-and-match services at will

Yesterday, the UK’s premier sports broadcaster (not to be confused with Premier Sports, which is the UK’s pound-shop sports broadcaster) announced that it would be showing over 1000 live EFL Championship, League One and League Two games per season – that’s four times as many as before – with each club guaranteed to be shown at least 20 times.

Anyone who forks out a significant sum per month for their Sky Sports subscription will no doubt feel like that represents better value for money, but like the sheer number of games that is leading to so many players suffering injuries these days, I think the increased volume could have unwanted side effects.

Seagulls vs Hawks

I’ve had a season ticket to watch Brighton & Hove Albion, the club that I’ve supported since the 1990s and once nearly ceased to exist due to the greediness of its former owners, for nearly 15 years.  

When the Seagulls have had their kick-off time moved to be on TV, or they’re playing away somewhere that I can’t bring myself to pay a fortune to get to on an overcrowded train, I’ll go to watch non-league Whitehawk FC instead – a 15-minute walk from my front door and home to the legendary 10-sausage meal (just £7 with chips and a drink).

I suspect I’m not alone in that. In fact, I know I’m not, because there are often people sampling the cuisine at the Enclosed Ground (above) who I recognise from Brighton’s American Express Stadium just a few miles away. There are also often kids running around at those Whitehawk games wearing the shirts of Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and other clubs that the Seagulls lost fans to during the years spent in the wilderness thanks to those aforementioned nefarious owners. 

Would all of those people be there supporting the Hawks (or one of the other lower-league teams across the country) if they could just stay at home and watch a higher-level game on Sky Q, Sky Glass or Sky Stream? I’m sure some would, but a drop-off would be inevitable. 

Going dark

Fortunately, the ‘3pm blackout’ exists, which prevents games being shown live on TV when Whitehawk and other lower-league teams like them are playing, but on the first weekend of the new EFL season, which starts in August, Sky will show every Championship game live to launch Sky Sports+, taking advantage of the fact that the Premier League will still be on its summer break.  

My concern is that this huge increase in televised games will give people the idea that it should become the norm, and in the face of pressure from both Premier League clubs, who will be able to charge Sky, TNT Sports et al more to show their product, and the broadcasters, who will be able to charge fans more to watch it, local clubs like Whitehawk won’t be able to attract the number of people they need to stay alive (and keep selling all those sausages).

Despite what Disney’s Welcome to Wrexham (don’t get me started on that ‘fairytale’), or any of the countless seasons of All or Nothing on Prime Video would like you to think, football isn’t a TV show, it’s a sport. It’s a sport that exists way beyond the 20 teams of the Premier League, or even the 92 in the EFL, with thousands of clubs that mean a lot to the communities they represent already struggling to keep their heads above water. 

When Brighton are playing in Burnley on a Monday night I’m incredibly grateful that Sky exists, but if we’re not careful it might not always be possible to say the same about those little clubs down the road.

• Read more: How to watch the Premier League, wherever you are

As some of the best wireless speakers go, you won’t find a better-sounding one than Apple’s HomePod. The smart home side of things might be a little undercooked but give it some music to play and it really sings. Just as well considering it costs the same as three-and-a-half Amazon Echos.

Since the HomePod went on sale, Apple has incrementally updated it to make it even more capable. But getting the most out of it can be a bit daunting. If there’s no proper screen and everything’s controlled using your voice, how do you know exactly what it can and can’t do?

Well never fear, because I have spent several months with the HomePod, learning how to get the very best out of its abilities, and now I can to guide you through all the sneaky tricks of HomePod ownership. With these expert tips you’ll have it justifying its lofty price tag in no time.

1. Seek out the settings

2. Bypass Siri

Got a sore throat? Siri struggling to understand your request for Gwreiddiau Dwfn/Mawrth Oer Ar y Blaned Neifion by Super Furry Animals? Well it turns out you don’t have to rely on Apple’s AI assistant to control your HomePod. As long as your phone is connected to the same Wi-Fi network, firing up the Music app and hitting the AirPlay logo at the bottom of the Now Playing screen will bring up a bubble with your HomePod inside it. Pressing this will allow you to go back and use the standard Apple Music interface to find and play a song. It’s a bit clunky but it’s definitely easier than learning Welsh.

3. Keep things to yourself

Kids love talking to Siri but their taste in music is dreadful. That can mess with Apple Music’s carefully curated playlists and recommendations. You don’t want to tell Siri: “Play some music I like,” only to be serenaded by Elsa from Frozen for the 4000th time, do you? If you open the HomePod settings in your phone’s Home app and turn off ‘Use Listening History’, when it comes to putting together your personalised playlists Apple Music will stop paying attention to what your HomePod plays and just use your phone’s listening history instead. That way you won’t get nursery rhymes served up among your Springsteen b-sides.

4. Tell swearing to **** off

Snoop Dogg might sound like a character from a kids’ TV show but a lot of his music is far from being suitable for pre-watershed ears, so giving your kids free rein over your AI DJ might not be the best idea. That is unless you’ve turned off explicit content in the HomePod’s main settings menu via the Home app, thereby protecting their delicate ears from inadvertently hearing all about what the Doggfather has planned for his lady friends that evening.

5. Make it a HomePodcast

It’s not just music that sounds great on the HomePod. It also gives you on-demand access to any podcast that’s available through iTunes, and without having to download anything either. Just ask Siri for the podcast you want to hear, although it can be difficult to get it to play anything other than the most recent episode. Once you’ve got the latest episode of your favourite one playing, you can easily skip ahead by just telling Siri to fast-forward 10, 20, 30 seconds, or however long is necessary to get past all the mattress and razor ads.

6. Double up

Sure, it’s an expensive way to get stereo sound, but if you sleep on a bed of money, the release of AirPlay 2 means you can now pair up two HomePods.

As long as you have two in close proximity to each other and both are connected to the Home app on your iThing, it’ll ask if you want to create a stereo pair. And it’s worth it, because two most certainly sounds even better than one.

7. Go multiroom

If you’d rather keep your multiple HomePods separate, iOS 12 means they can now be used as a proper Sonos-style multiroom system.

Each HomePod you setup has a room name allocated to it, so all you need to do is say: “Hey Siri, move this song to the kitchen” or “Play this song everywhere” and you can have music wherever you go. You can also have different songs playing in different rooms and control the volume independently.

8. Make a wall of sound

The A8 chip inside the HomePod is there to make sure it sounds as good as possible, no matter where you put it. It uses the built-in microphones to listen to itself and adjust the audio accordingly, but we’ve found that putting it near a wall means that it bounces ambient sounds off, while pushing the main elements, such as lead vocals, out into the centre of the room, giving a fuller, wider sound.

9. Under the covers

If you ask Siri for Yesterday, it’ll quite reasonably play The Beatles. But what if you wanted Guy Garvey’s Yesterday? Or Toni Braxton’s? Just tell Siri to “play a different version” and the HomePod will pick a different song with the same title. If you don’t know the name of the song you want to hear you can also try describing it. Asking for the “Kendrick Lamar song featuring Rihanna,” for example, will get you Loyalty. Pretty impressive.

10. Soothe the move from Spotify

To get the best out of your HomePod you’re going to need an Apple Music subscription. If you’re a former Spotify user, starting anew is going to take some getting used to, but there are ways to make the move as smooth as possible. For starters, you can transfer your playlists using an app such as Houdini (£2.99) or Songshift (£free).

The latter also has a £3.99 Pro version that keeps all your playlists synced across services. Apple Music doesn’t have a direct equivalent of Discover Weekly but there is a Best of the Week playlist, which is more like Spotify’s Release Radar. Still, it might just contain your new favourite band.

11. Or don’t leave at all

In our review of the HomePod we criticised its lack of support for anything but Apple Music – but there is an emergency workaround.

Open the Spotify app on your phone, play a song and hit the bit that says Devices Available at the bottom of the screen. Scroll down to where it says More Devices and use that menu to select the HomePod. You can do the same with any app that supports AirPlay.

Once this is done and you’ve got it singing from Spotify’s song sheet you can use Siri to play, pause, skip tracks and change the volume, you just can’t make specific song requests like you can when using Apple Music.

12. Mash up your genres

Sometimes you don’t know what you want to listen to but you know exactly the situation you need to soundtrack. When that happens your HomePod can help you out. Got a deadline to hit? Ask for some “ambient electronic music for working”. Got the new boss coming round for dinner but don’t think he’ll be into your Cannibal Corpse back catalogue? Just ask for a “chill dinner party” playlist (and be prepared for an onslaught of musical beige). Experiment with mixing up genres and activities to see what you get, although heavy metal for meditating might be pushing it.

13. Teach Siri your tastes

Ask Siri to play some music you like and it’ll use your listening history to put together a setlist of tunes by bands or artists you’ve listened to before, or from genres you told it you liked when you initially set up your Apple Music account. You can help it get a better grip on your tastes just by saying: “Hey Siri, I like this,” when it plays something you’re into, or “Hey Siri, I don’t like this band,” if it ever plays U2.

14. Do you know the one that goes…

Know the words but not the name of the song? Just ask Siri to “Play the song that goes…”, recite the lyrics and the HomePod will dig through its lyric books looking for the tune you’re after.

Its hit rate is impressively high, correctly identifying everything from This Charming Man to Katy Perry’s Firework, although “Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld” played The Future by the man himself rather than Nirvana’s Pennyroyal Tea. Oh, and don’t try singing the words instead, failure to recognise your warbling is only likely to offend.

15. Let your friends DJ

Remember that dinner party we mentioned earlier? Well everyone’s having a good time and you’ve even given your guests the Wi-Fi password. That’s some commitment because it also means they can have a say in what music gets played, if they have an Apple Music subscription. All they have to do is open up the HomePod controls in Control Center, press on the album art and choose ‘add songs to queue’ in Apple Music, and it’ll add them to your HomePod’s terrifyingly democratic playlist.

16. Mic up your Mac

The HomePod is easily good enough to be your main music system, even if it does lack any multiroom skills, so you’ll probably want to channel all your audio through it, including anything stored on your Mac. To do this, you simply need to set up your Mac so that it uses the HomePod as the main audio output device. In System Preferences, choose the Sound menu, select Output from the options at the top and simply select the HomePod from the list, not forgetting that it’ll be listed as whatever you named it during setup. Now every noise your Mac makes will come through the HomePod.

17. Brush up on your trivia

Guy Berryman could hit you over the head with a sign that says “I PLAY BASS FOR COLDPLAY” and you probably still wouldn’t recognise him – but that doesn’t mean Siri’s clueless too. You can ask names of band members, album titles, songwriters and sometimes even who plays which instrument on certain songs, although that’s reliant on Wikipedia having the relevant information. It knows that Sting co-wrote Money for Nothing, for example, but not that he sings backing vocals on it. A rookie error.

18. Note to self…

If you chose to enable Personal Requests when you set up your HomePod you’ll be able to access notes and reminders via Siri, so you can just make a note to self when necessary, a bit like Alan Partridge and his ideas for TV shows. It also allows you to send texts and WhatsApp messages using only your voice, and if you want, you can turn it into the world’s most over-engineered speakerphone by selecting the HomePod from the audio options when you’re making a call. Handy for when someone calls to sing you happy birthday.

19. Take a rain check

Siri has been available on iPhones since the 4S but, as anyone with an Amazon Echo will attest, voice assistants become much more useful when you don’t have to take your phone out of your pocket before you can ask them anything. Siri on the HomePod does everything it does on your phone, but asking whether you’re going to need an umbrella that day as you make your morning coffee, or what seven feet is in metres as you sit and work out the measurements for the new shed, makes using it’s AI expertise more natural than ever before.

20. “Siri, phone home”

Your HomePod has always been able to send texts and WhatsApp messages but now it can make and receive calls too. When your phone rings, just say: “Hey Siri, answer that call” and it’ll route the audio through the HomePod, using its built-in microphones to relay your side of the convo. If you want to make one, just tell Siri to “Call Ainsley” or whoever you want to speak to.

Got nobody to talk to? Say “Play my voicemails” and Siri will play any new ones. If there aren’t any, you can listen to oldies instead, but you’d have to be really bored to do that.

21. Where did I leave my phone?

Apple’s Find My iPhone can be a lifesaver if your blower goes missing but if you just put it down at home and can’t remember where you left it, you can use your HomePod to help you find it.

Just say “Hey Siri, find my iPhone” and the HomePod will send an SOS call to your mislaid mobile, which will emit a distress signal to help you work out which sofa cushion it’s fallen behind. The real question is: why didn’t you just look there in the first place?

22. Multiply your timers

If you thought Amazon’s Echo was the most extravagant kitchen timer available, the HomePod can now cope with multiple countdowns, so using a £320 speaker to tell you when your oven chips are done surely has to take that honour.

There doesn’t seem to be a limit, so even the most bountiful banquet can be prepared using the HomePod to keep track of cooking times. Just try to remember which one’s for the sausage rolls and which is for the mini samosas, OK?

23. Take a Shortcut to Siri

The HomePod is excellent when it comes to playing music, but compared to other smart speakers its IQ rating is a few points lower.

Support for Siri shortcuts might help to change that slightly, meaning you can use your phone to record particular phrases that’ll trigger very specific actions every time you utter them to Apple’s voice assistant. You’re basically teaching an old dog new tricks, but being able to activate them via your HomePod should make using them second nature.

24. Set the Scenes

The HomePod is compatible with any device that supports Apple’s HomeKit, becoming the hub that’s used to control everything. Using the + button in the top corner of the Home app’s main screen, you can create what are called Scenes, which are essentially specific setups for multiple HomeKit-compatible devices: turning on the lights, heating and coffee machine first thing in the morning, for example. And she’ll be a bit more cheery than the average London commuter. Once you’ve set the Scene you can activate it simply by saying, for example, “good morning” to your HomePod.

25. Supercharge your Apple TV

26. Move your music

If you’ve got multiple HomePods, you can ask Siri to shift your music from one Apple speaker to another. Saying something like “Hey Siri, move the music to the lounge speaker” will stop playing it in the room you’re in, while you glide into the next room while your music effortlessly continues playing. You can also transfer music from your iPhone to your HomePod by going to Settings, General, AirPlay & Handoff, and toggle Transfer to HomePod. Then it’s just a case of playing something on your phone, and holding it near the top of your HomePod to transfer it over.

27. Safety alerts

If you’ve got multiple HomePods, you can ask Siri to shift your music from one Apple speaker to another. Saying something like “Hey Siri, move the music to the lounge speaker” will stop playing it in the room you’re in, and pick it up exactly where it left off in your destination of choice.

Considering it’s very possible to drive an F1 car into a wall at 200mph and authentically feel all the unpleasant sensations that go with it that’s not necessarily very appealing, but perhaps it’s more about the driving position, which has been endorsed by Max Verstappen himself, or the tubular carbon steel frame, which you can clamp a powerful direct drive steering wheel to without the whole thing disintegrating when you misjudge a corner and spin off into the gravel. There’s also a flex-free pedal plate so you can be confident enough in your acceleration and braking to avoid such unscheduled detours in the first place.

There are also various adjustments you can make to ensure drivers of various statures fit as snugly as possible inside the Playseat Formula Intelligence F1 Edition, although you’ll need to add the steering wheel and pedals yourself.

The full F1 branding might be a bit much for the average living room, but if you’re willing to spend the equivalent of a second-hand Citroen DS3 on a racing seat for your PS5, Xbox or gaming PC, chances are you’ve already converted the spare room to a dedicated sim shrine anyway.

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This delightfully retro iPhone accessory fondles all the right nostalgia glands without alerting Nintendo’s lawyers. It’s not hard to spot the inspiration, though, even if it is a mishmash of the Game Boy Advance SP’s form factor and the original handheld’s famous green screen.

There’s a cable winder in the base, so once you’ve added the MagSafe charger (at this price it should come as no surprise that there isn’t one included) you can keep things nice and tidy, and the ‘screen’ is positioned at 30º, so it’s perfectly poised for making and taking FaceTime calls, or watching retro gaming videos on YouTube. Unfortunately the buttons don’t work, so you can’t pick it up and actually play any on Delta, and it doesn’t snap shut when you’re not using it.

Enable Standby mode on your iPhone and it also just makes the perfect desk or bedside charger for any millennial with a penchant for old-school games, which describes pretty much the entire Stuff team.

The Elago MagSafe MS W5 Charging Stand is usually available from Amazon, although it’s out of stock at the time of writing, but US buyers can still pick one up from Elago’s website.

• Read more: Best MagSafe accessories 2024 – magnetic add-ons for your iPhone

At just 1.7mm thick – that’s about the same as a strand of spaghetti – the Octo Finissimo Ultra shaves 0.05mm off the previous thinnest model. That might not seem like much, but when you’re dealing with such slim margins, a tenth of a millimetre can be record-breakingly significant.

With so little space to play with, pretty much all of the watch’s 170 components are arranged on one layer, assembled directly on a tough tungsten carbide main plate, with the ratchet wheel visible in the top-left, alongside separate dials for hours, minutes, and seconds. And to make sure it doesn’t crumple like tin foil when you take it off, the lugs, bezel, 40mm case and bracelet (which, at 1.5mm, is actually even thinner) are all made of titanium.

It’s such a fiddly job, each one takes about a week to put together, which, considering the asking price is a whopping €600,000, works out at about €3571.42 per hour (or much more if you assume they’re not working 24/7). Some of your cash also goes towards building the box that each one comes in, which automatically winds and adjusts the watch at the touch of a button.

Bulgari has also managed to secure chronometer certification for the Octo Finissimo Ultra (that’s what the COSC bit stands for: Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres), which means it’s passed a series of tests to make sure it remains accurate.

The battle to hold the record for the world’s thinnest mechanical watch has been raging for a decade now, with Bulgari and Piaget trading blows for most of that time, although Richard Mille had held the title since 2022 with its 1.75mm Calibre RMUP-01 Ferrari.

Only time will tell what the response to the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra will be, but only 20 of them have been made, so owning one isn’t just a case of finding the cash. There’s also an equally rare Octo Finissimo Ultra Platinum that has blue hour and minute dials, but at a relatively chunky 1.8mm, it’s pretty 2022.

• Read more: Best new watches at Watches and Wonders 2024

Whether it’s dodging phone-hypnotised pedestrians, running the gauntlet of Deliveroo scooters, or going off-road to avoid any altercations with enraged Uber drivers, this is a dependable daily rider that’s just as happy when the Tarmac turns to dirt. 

Housed within the carbon frame is a Bosch SX motor that produces 55Nm of torque, so whether you need help getting off the line quickly at some busy traffic lights, or making it up a muddy hill in the rain, there’s plenty of power behind the pedals. Rock Shox Rudy Ultimate XPLR suspension also means it can cope with riding over holes of the pot and rabbit variety equally well. 

The 400Wh battery has a range of up to 100km, although you can add a 250Wh range extender if you’ve got a particularly epic commute, and the built-in lights will stay on for two hours after you’ve used up all the power in the tank. 

Canyon has mounted a Lupine Nano SL headlight on the handlebars, with a reworked housing that keeps the cables neat and tidy. There are also controls to change the beam setting. The two red lights at the back sit within the contours of the seat stays, so they remain visible even when you’ve got panniers onboard, but are also easily replaceable.

The CF Trail (£7649/€7999) isn’t the only bike in Canyon’s Grizl:ON range either. There’s also the CF 9 (£6699/€6999), which at 15.3kg is the lightest of the bunch; the CF Daily (£5249/€5499), which comes with mudguards and a rear rack; and the entry level CF 7, which at £4799/€4999 is the most affordable one. 

All have carbon fibre frames, are available in five sizes, and can be bought right now.

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