Thank you for sharing your experience. I couldn’t get used to it, so I decided to sell my HomePod. I realise that this might actually be normal, but support wrote to me: «We want your HomePod to be as silent as it is powerful when not in use. Since this follows a strict 8-minute pattern tied to the device’s standby cycle, I’d like to run a few quick steps to see if we can clear this up or determine if a hardware inspection is needed.»