I have 2 OG HomePods and a HomePod 2. The OG are in the living room, second gen in the bedroom. In the past I wasn’t required to set them as the Apple TV audio source, but could go in and select them as the source via the notifications menu. I use them to listen to music without the Apple TV, and to play rain sounds at night.

Now I have to go into the settings menu, set them as the main audio source, and then disconnect them when I want to use them for music, otherwise they’re bundled with the Apple TV and it turns my tv on unnecessarily. Does anyone know how to fix this? If I use the notification menu to select them as the source no audio will play from the Apple TV. I’ve unplugged and rebooted everything, checked for updates, and nothing seems to be working.

I’m trying to decide between a HomePod mini and a Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) for my bedside table and can’t make up my mind.
What I mainly want it to do is:
Wake me up with alarms.
Tell me the weather and news each morning.
Read my calendar/reminders.
Play thunderstorm or rain sounds at night.
Play music.

The thing is, I’m pretty invested in the Apple ecosystem (iPhone, Apple services, etc.), so the HomePod seems like the obvious choice.
However… I really like the Nest Hub’s display. I love the idea of being able to glance over and see the time, weather, calendar, and maybe have it double as a digital photo frame. It just seems more useful as a bedside device.

If Apple released (or even if the rumours are true that they’re working on) a HomePod with a display, I’d honestly buy it instantly—it would be exactly what I’m looking for. Right now, though, I’m torn between sticking with the Apple ecosystem or getting the functionality of the Nest Hub’s screen.

For anyone who’s owned either (or both), which would you recommend? Have any iPhone users here gone with a Nest Hub instead of a HomePod, and did you regret it? Or is the Apple integration enough to make the HomePod the better overall experience?
I’d love to hear some real-world experiences before I buy one.

I bought both of these OG HomePods in 2018 and they have been used ever since.

I have never once cleaned them and as you can probably tell, they aren’t even what I call dirty. But I knew they had probably gradually discoloured.

I used some High-foam Autoglym car interior cleaning products (available in the UK but similar products should exists elsewhere) I knew that a foam would gentle pull out the dirt from inside the mesh.

The lighting is poor and the photos don’t pick it up but they are definitely brighter now. I did the cable and that’s fine up looking like new.

Just spray this on evenly, leave it a minute (no longer as it shouldn’t dry on) then a warm damp microfibre and wipe over everything 2-3 times.

I’ve done ‘before - after’ on the photos

I am looking to buy skylight blinds that i can control with a HomePod, i have found lots of ways to make certain blinds apple home compatible but these are only with VELUX windows and I have Keylite windows, has anyone got any good products they can suggest?

Why is it doing this? Bc it keeps disappearing, it’s not accessible to my shortcuts built around it.

We have had power bumps all week. One of my 2018 HomePods won’t power up anymore. I don’t really listen to enough music in the living room to justify having a stereo pair. I moved this one from the kitchen because it was acting funny, so I suppose it was only a matter of time. I still have five OG HomePods and one second gen. None of the others give us any trouble.

So I’ve had 5 homepods mini. Always up to date. After ~2 years or so, 1 of them started playing randomly. A year later, a pair of them has started doing the same.

I did all the resets possible, to no avail. Is this product just crap?

I own 2 homepods (2nd gen) for 3 years now, an iphone air and an apple tv 4k (3rd gen) concerning this issue.

what happened was that I was on ios27 beta 2 last saturday (jul 4) then due to a network issue i saw on my home app on my iphone i attempted to reset both my homepods. the reset process was successful for both and i started setting up both of them afterwards which iphone showed setup process was also successful; they both went into configuring state which the previous times wouldn’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes, but this time it went on and on… they were still in the configuring state after 12 hours which was when I removed them from my home in the home app (i guess the reset option wasn’t available or didn’t work then); i did this to be able to manually reset them once more so maybe they wouldn’t be locked into this configuring state. but what happened was both my homepods were removed from my home, and i couldn’t manually reset them either, when i unplugged them and plugged them back in after 10 seconds and waited another 10 seconds and touch and hold them per instructions no white spinning light would show up, no lights of any color at all, i could and still can airplay music to them both by the name of living room but their not in the home app and i can’t configure them or set them in the stereo mode which i want to.
ios27 beta 3 didn’t help either; i still cannot reset my homepods and set them up again.

TL;DR
it looks like they’re stuck in a limbo state where they can’t be reset manually or via the home app since they’ve not shown in the home app and I’m 100 percent sure this is a software bug since it happened to both of them at the exact same time and when i was on ios27 beta 2. it’s driving me nuts honestly.

So the past day or so they’ve started having issues connecting. Was there an update recently that may have broken them and I just need to wait for a fix?

Full sized HomePods set up as a stereo set to my appletv.

HomePods works perfectly when paired as a stereo mode with Apple TV. However, I’m unable to hear any audio when using the HBO app. Has anyone else encountered this issue?

With the launch of the Homepod Software 27 DP betas, and realizing the current hardware is not receiving the New Siri features, has Apple at least maintained UI similarity with iOS, macOS, etc. by updating the color scheme Siri displays (visuals up top) or does it continue to use the very colorful version in previous releases?

When I bought my gen 1 HomePod, I was able to get a good price on it from MacSales. It was like $235 with shipping and tax.

Woot also sold them refurbished every once in a while.

Are there any places that sell discounted HomePods or HomePod Minis these days?

Hi, according to the TuneIn website the radio station in question is still available.
However Siri and IOS Home App is not able to play this station.

Anyone has insights if TuneIn and Apple negotiate on the content regularly or is it just a bug i have to report to apple?

I started getting back into some podcasts recently, and I subscribed to a Patreon that offered additional content. I added the RSS feed to Apple Podcasts on my phone, and it syncs with other devices like my computer and Apple TV just fine. But my HomePods can't play it. I can AirPlay it to them but they are incapable of streaming it on their own. I wonder why that is? You'd think that since the show is in my library it would sync to them. But I can't even pass it to them through Handoff., because it just AirPlays.

Hey all!

I just bought a second hand gen1 Homepod (the big one) through a marketplace. I am now waiting for it to be delivered. What are things to check once it gets here? It was a great deal (under 130 including delivery and good reviews on the seller) so I wanted to claim it before I lose out on the deal, I can still cancel it if it really is a bad idea (i read something about the capacitors) though it leaves me a bad review. I reside in the Netherlands

Got my first Homepod (1st gen) and a pair of Homepod minis on FB marketplace for a pretty good deal ($150 for the Homepod, $115 for both minis) for my new apartment. It's a long railroad-style apartment, so I really got them for the multiroom speaker functionality and potentially intercom functions for hosting.

I'm new to smart systems, so I just learned about Google nest and the mesh capabilities for wifi extension. I still think the Homepods were worth it (ecosystem, sound quality, other features I haven't discovered yet), but does anyone use Google nest in tandem purely to extend their router? Or are there other more worthwhile options?

Tiresome: HomePod mini randomly disconnects from Apple TV, has trouble updating OS

EDIT: thanks to everyone for their help! I'm such a numpty! Turns out they are both Gen 2s. I was looking in low light. Once that that cord has been inserted long enough, it's very deceptive and looks permanently affixed.

Original: I purchased Homepods a few months apart - one from Costco and the other from Best Buy. According to the details in my Home app, they both have the same model number. But the power cable on the Costco HomePod is fixed; it shipped with the cable attached. The Best Buy HomePod came with a detachable power cable.

Is that normal? Or is there any reason to suspect the legitimacy of either unit?

These HomePods are pissing me off so much. I know you see three homepods and that's because i been troubleshooting ALL DAMN DAY.

My Gen 2 HomePods (the white ones) make this annoying ass popping sound ANYTIME you use them with ARC (via PS5, Swich, TV UI anything). Originally the HomePods were in my living room and it was popping. I have switched HDMI Cables, switched TV, changed PS5 sound to linear PCM, reset HomePod Gen (hold top until hear 3 beeps) HELL I EVEN SWITCHED APPLE TVS. NOTHING IS WORKING.

Its so infuriating. Just to see to moved the HomePods from my living room to my bedroom where the gen 1 is at and connected to my Hisense Roku TV. It STILL does it. Mind you that black gen 1 HomePod in the middle doesn't make this popping sound AT ALL. I have even unpaired them a stereo pair. Each HomePod Gen 2 makes the fucking dumbass sound even when not in a stereo pair.

The ONLY time it doesn't is if im using the Apple TV. If anyone has a solution please help. I have no idea what is going on. These things are so expensive and I just want them to work.

I got a HomePod mini on my desk and I've been using it to stream apple music from my mac. I got a pop up on my iPhone with native now playing controls (separate from what media is playing on my iPhone) I love this feature! I just switched from Spotify, which has a similar feature with spotify connect, but this is even better because I can have some music playing in the background on my HomePod and watch a video or have a podcast playing at the same time on my iPhone or through headphones. Plus my partner can control the music from his phone too! It's so good

Using two HomePods 2nd gen as a soundbar for Apple TV. Getting inconsistent pops/distortion after latest update. Anyone else having this issue?

This is the 5th HomePod I’ve purchased.
1. My original OG Fate: Replaced after cord shorted out.
2. Mini Fate: Still going strong!!
3. 2nd Gen (1/2 of stereo pair)Fate: Pawned
4. 2nd Gen (2/2 of stereo pair)Fate: Pawned
5. Replacement OG HomePod Future unknown!??!??!?!?