And it's well timed with HomeAssistant's new voice interaction developments. That and the news of how unprofitable Amazon and google home's offerings are.

aren’t they supposed to lose money? i though they were subsidized by the business specifically to collect data that can be used elsewhere.

The problem is most people only use them to set timers, start spoitfy and maybe turn on a light or two. They lack discoverability and so make poor shopping portals setting a hard cap on what other revenue sources can be found for them. This is why Amazon, Apple and Google have begun canceling or at the very least scaling back some of their smart home products.

Why don't people just use bluetooth conference mics and most any hardware?

Because it's messy, expensive and ugly.

I really want something like the homepod mini.

Cost maybe.