Incredibly, your Apple HomePod may now be worth more than its $299 MSRP

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

I thought it was weird that Apple kept selling the original $299 HomePod after it was discontinued. It is starting to make sense that some people are willing to pay more for a smart speaker than Apple charges.

We took a look at eBay sales numbers after spotting 9to5Mac editor-in-chief Chance Miller's joke, and we found that the average price of an Apple HomePod was $375 this past week. That is 25 percent more than Apple charged.

Some HomePods are worth more than others, and a used speaker with no box might only net you $220 before eBay fees, but we've seen a few factory sealed non-refurbished HomePods sell for over $500. Some sellers claim that they got Apple to replace their old HomePods with brand-new units so they could flip them.

The average sale price this past week was more than $350. That is still $50 more than they cost brand-new.

eBay screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

It's subtle, but you can see in the eBay chart that the value of a HomePod has appreciated since it was discontinued. It's rare for gadgets like these, save for situations like the one we've recently seen with consoles and GPUs.

Why the device? That is a good question. It's a piece of Apple history, and you need two of them for stereo, and it's very good. The smart home is one of the few places in the world where Apple's virtual assistant can excel. She thinks people are realizing that it is the only other option.

That is a working theory at the moment.

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