Incredibly, the Apple HomePod could now be worth $299 more than its MSRP

I thought it was really strange when Apple Keep selling original HomePod worth $299 months later Stop. But now, it makes sense – not only are some people still willing to pay a premium for a somewhat smart speaker, they are willing to pay it. More than Apple charges for it.

We took a look at the eBay sales numbers after finding out 9to5Mac Chief Editor Chance Miller TweetAnd, we quickly discover it’s no joke: On average, an Apple HomePod fetched $375 in the past week. That’s 25 percent more than Apple’s fee.

Of course, some HomePods are worth more than others — a used speaker without a box may only earn you $220 before eBay fees, but we’ve seen some factory-sealed, unrefurbished HomePods selling for more than $500. In fact, some vendors even bragged that they had Apple replace old HomePods with brand-new units so they could flip them.

When I filtered out the expensive sealed fund outliers, the average selling price was more like $350 last week. That’s still $50 more than what it cost brand new!

eBay screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

It’s subtle, but you can see in the eBay chart above the value of the HomePod she has It has been appreciated over the past year since its discontinuation. This is practically unheard of for gadgets like this, except for speculative cases As we’ve seen recently with consoles and GPUs.

Why HomePod? This is a good question. It may be part of Apple’s history; You need two of them for stereo or more for whole home audio; And unlike its more expensive successor HomePod MiniIt’s a very good voice. My colleague Jane Tuohy also explained That the smart home is one of the few places where Siri really excels. She thinks people realize it’s the only other option besides the HomePod Mini that looks worse.

So this is a working theory for now.