Why Yandex Station Max remains a useful smart speaker in Russia. Happy with her

From time to time I get questions about what kind of smart speaker should I buy in Russia. To make the music sound chic, so that the functions work well, and so that it is useful in the household, so to speak.

And there is always one correct answer, and it has not changed for three years for sure. This answer is Yandex Station Max, period.

Tell me, why not HomePod, especially the new, second generation? Everything is simple, but for those who used the wallpaper, it is quite obvious.

Why is Yandex Station Max the best smart speaker in Russia?

Great sound. The Max station is loud, powerful, with a lot of sensitive bass, a good midrange and decent high frequencies. Through it, it is pleasant to listen to music of almost any genre. The total power of 65 W allows you to create a mood even in large rooms, at least 100 square meters per day.

If the “default” bass is not to your liking, the sound can be adjusted using the built-in equalizer. As for me, you don’t need to touch anything in it. Even during our beta test of the upgraded version of Station Max, Yandex finalized the sound, and since then I have not had any complaints.

You can find a regular speaker that sounds better than Station Max. find smart a column with such a sound – no. Perhaps a full-sized HomePod, but there is one feature with it …

Alice in Yandex Stations are sharpened in Russian. would have been found, some stupid plus for the speakers, right? But here is an example of the benefits in practice. I can ask Alice to do the same thing with dozens of activator phrase formats. For example, “turn on the air conditioner colder” – and it will work. There are boundaries, of course, but within reason, Alice correctly recognizes the command in free form.

With Siri, this trick will not work. God forbid I blurt out an extra word, asking her to turn off the light in her. 10 seconds will dictate to me that it was not possible to determine, not recognize, not check, “I did not find the condo in your Apple Music library” and so on.

Alice also understands much better when you request a Russian-language track than Siri in the same HomePod. It can be seen that it is adapted to the Russian accent, and you can not strain your pronunciation. I know that right now in the comments they are going to run after CEFR C2 English level experts with speech that Siri understands 100 times out of 100. Broken English will be enough for Alice, and that’s cool.

Smart home via Yandex Station is convenient. I am with both hands for Apple Home, but it is impossible not to wait for a simple fact: in Russia, it has become more difficult to survive before the appearance of devices with them. There is Aqara, there is … the remains of Philips Hue? A couple more little things on top, and that’s all you can count on without resorting to AliExpress or “gray” imports.

In the meantime, my Present Station was present in the presence of the smart home. All sensors, lamps, household appliances are “registered” through it and work without problems around the clock. I prefer to give commands to her, and she has never let me down. Plus, finding something new in this ecosystem is very easy, there is a choice between choices and producers. And it’s great that Zigbee was added to the new Max Station and turned into a good hub, albeit via the Internet. This was only in the “regular” Station 2nd generation, which to this day I have questions about.

Unlike the Apple Home, which to this day has an inexplicable allergy to saving data.

There is a remote control included. Do not like to communicate with the speaker, do you want to poke buttons in the old fashioned way? No problem, take the remote control and change tracks, adjust the volume, pick up Alice. As a rule, navigation in TV mode is characterized by an increase in height. We use it to quickly skip tracks without activating the voice assistant.

There are smart TV features. Max was the only Station currently produced where an HDMI connector and the ability to connect speakers to a TV were found. I’ll be honest: I used it two and a half times, I still don’t see any point. It’s better to buy a new Apple TV. Yes, and modern TVs are transmitted for all TV functions are found in this column. But there is a chip, for someone it may remain a plus.

Much more can be noted. For example, the presence display – it shows the time, temperature by target request, equalizer or just animation, the game is in progress. Or the fact that the sensitivity of the microphones at the Stations of the victims is simple, you can really communicate with it in a whisper with another border. Let’s not forget that Alice herself is full of cool, useful features – from skills and automation to any phrase to a child mode and even whisper answers.

Yandex Station Max is the best smart speaker in Russia today. Yes, the cost of other stations is very high and they ask for the same amount for HomePod. But she’s really her money costsand the benefits that it brings to us personally in the office and to me at home more than cover both the price and slightly calculated results, such as a confirmed design.

Now Station Max with Zigbee support is sold for 27,990 rubles. By promo code ALICE5 you will receive a discount of 1400 rubles. You can find an old model on the “secondary” without a Zigbee module inside, but this one is only suitable if you do not plan to use Yandex Smart Home in future.

PS If you really want to put HomePod at home, it is better to take HomePod mini for 11 thousand rubles (our review). suitable for a small room. At the same time, feel the full extent of the mind and speech quality of Siri. I did just that, and after a couple of days of exploitation, I did not regret that I did not invest in a stereo pair of new full-sized HomePods.