Blink and you may have missed it, but Google gave us a peek at what sure looks like a new smart speaker during its Made by Google event on Wednesday. A "leaked" product is one that's been mistakenly revealed, whereas the speaker we saw during Google's Pixel event got a clear supporting role, with F1 driver Lando Norris cheerfully chatting with the device. Google meant for us to notice the new and unannounced smart speaker. So, what do we know about this little gray (or porcelain?) That may sound obvious, but so often with rumored or "leaked" new products, we're in the land of pure conjecture.

Apple's HomePod smart speaker will be discontinued according to a statement the company provided to TechCrunch this evening. Existing users will receive software updates and support through Apple Care according to the company. On the U.S. website, the space gray color is listed as "Sold Out" but there are still models available in white. However, this move will not signal the end of the HomePod product line. Apple's HomePod Mini will continue to be sold. HomePod mini has been a hit since its debut last fall, offering customers amazing sound, an intelligent assistant, and smart home control all for just $99.

The HomePod didn't get much (read: any) airtime at Apple's iPhone 11 event earlier this week, but that's not to say Apple has forgotten about it entirely. In fact, the HomePod is set to get a raft of new features before the year is out – even if some of them should have been present in the first place. Kicking off the feature-add this month is the introduction of radio station playback. From September 30, you'll be able to ask Siri to play one of around 100,000 global radio stations, and the smart helper will track it down using TuneIn, iHeartRadio and Radio.com. A little later in the year, a few more extras will be coming to the HomePod.

Apple is finally launching HomePod in China, but the timing is tricky as the premium device will have to wrestle with local competitors and a slowing economy. The firm said over the weekend that its smart speaker will be available in Mainland China and Hong Kong starting January 18, adding to a list of countries where it has entered including US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico and Spain. The Amazon Echo competitor, which launched in mid-2017, is already available to Chinese buyers through third-party channels like "daigou", or shopping agents who bring overseas products into China. What separates the new model is that it supports Mandarin, the official language on Mainland China and Cantonese, which is spoken in Hong Kong and China's most populated province Guangdong. Previously, Chinese-speaking users had to converse with HomePod in English until a system update in December that added Siri support for the two Chinese dialects.

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Ed Baig gives a look at the new Apple Watch Series 4. One key new feature: fall detection. The changes in the consumer marketplace this year have been largely driven by new tech products. Our world has been shaped in large part by just a handful of revolutionary consumer products and the companies behind them. Such milestones include the first modern automobile, first sold by Mercedes in 1901, and the first smartphone, introduced to the market by IBM in 1994. While the impact new products have on the world rarely rises to the significance of the first personal automobile, each year brings a new lineup of consumer products, some of them the first of their kind, to the market – and 2018 is no exception.

Amazon may have defined the smart speaker category with the Echo and its successors, but many competitors have the company beat in one specific way: audio quality. Amazon says the No. 1 activity for Echo users is playing music, but anyone who has used an Echo knows that the sound quality is nothing to write home about. Amazon must have recognized this, because improved speakers in the new Echo Dot and Echo Plus were a major talking point when they were announced in September. Reading between the lines, it seems safe to say that Amazon believes its Echo speakers can be the centerpiece of a respectable home-audio setup. How else would you explain the new $129 Echo Sub, a device that does nothing aside from wirelessly pair with another Echo device to bring the bass?

Google's big, premium Apple HomePod rival the Home Max is finally being released in the UK today, bringing Google Assistant to the high-end smart speaker market. Announced in October 2017 and on sale in the US since November, the Home Max joins Google's smaller Home and smallest Home Mini smart speakers as the big one. Google Assistant sorts voice commands, controls and questions exactly the same as Google's smaller smart speaker offerings, but the way it sounds couldn't be more different. The Home Max is relatively large box speaker, by smart speaker standards, with a white or black smooth plastic body and grey or charcoal coloured fabric front. In white and grey it's simple fabric front and rounded corners make the Home Max look a bit bland up next to a Sonos Play:5 or an Apple HomePod, but it might be easier to blend in with soft home furnishings.

I think most folks are best off with an Amazon Echo Dot or a Google Home Mini to start. Pick the Google product if you're on Android and are already used to the Google Assistant since it'll feel familiar. Both products, however, offer affordable ways to see what the whole "smart home assistant" experience is like. The Echo Dot and Home Mini offer almost all of the same functions as more expensive Echo and Google Homes (the exception is Amazon Echo products with touchscreens, which have more visual data). If you're invested in the Apple ecosystem, like Siri, and put a high value on audio quality, then the HomePod is a good choice.

The most exciting thing about smart speakers is that they are all so utterly imperfect. Each of the mainstream examples – Amazon's Echos, the Google Home, Sonos's wide range and the new Apple HomePod – packs within it stunning technology that would have been unimaginable just a couple of years ago. But they're also full of downsides, making choosing one a matter of deciding what you want, not simply settling on the best. Deciding is a matter of picking which things you want – and which things you definitely don't. Some sound good, but are terrible at talking back to you.