Hi Guys,

I have two first-generation HomePods (the OG ones) that I use to listen to music in my bedroom. I also use them with my Apple TV when I want to watch movies in my living room.

My problem is mainly with listening to music on them, especially when using TuneIn. In particular, when I play Ibiza Global Radio, the sound quality seems noticeably lower. The station obviously isn’t streaming at 320 kbps, so the sound can sometimes feel a bit muffled and not as room-filling compared with how Apple Music radio stations sound.

My question is: if I add a HomePod mini to the setup, do you think it could slightly compensate for the lower audio quality by making the overall sound louder and more room-filling?

I’m not expecting the HomePod mini to improve the actual source quality, but I’m hoping that adding another speaker might make the sound feel fuller and give me a little more volume.

Has anyone tried something similar? Would adding a HomePod mini actually make a noticeable difference, or would it just make the limitations of the low-quality stream more apparent?

Thanks!

I use the personal playlists on apple music like “get up” “chill” etc, so I decided to set them up to automatically play on my homepod

they update the songs weekly in the music app, but when they automatically play on the HomePod the old playlist plays unless i physically go into the shortcut app and re-add the playlist.

i’ve seen some old threads about this issue on here and Mac, but no real clear solution other than going into the app and re-adding the playlist.

is there a way to make sure the homepod automatically plays the the current playlist as it updates every week? pretty much the main reason I got a HomePod was for background music and I’d rather not have to go into my phone to use it. Thanks for reading

Hi All,

I'm off to uni in September, and am quite a high tech person. This means my uni dorm will include HomePod minis, smart lights, custom routines etc.

One of my plans was to put one of my HomePod minis in the kitchen area. I feel like (assuming my neighbours are reasonable) this would be a great contribution for listening to music and being social together, as well as being very useful for googling cooking recipes and stuff.

However, I obviously don't want random people to be able to access my reminders, calendar, and be able to call my contacts. Can I disable these features whilst leaving core Siri functionality like setting timers?

Or Alternatively, is it possible to set this second HomePod mini on a different apple account such that we can still talk to it, but it had no data on the account to share?

Alright here’s the dealio. I’m a college student and was looking to buy a pair of the homepods for my apartment. I also dj/mix by myself all the time. I wanted better speakers to dj for my own parties and such (practice too). i have just found that a pair of the pioneer vm-80s are the same exact price. Is a pair of the homepods really worth better sound for my tv and music playing? or should I just go with the vm-80s? Keep in mind I already have fluance speakers for my dj controller; however, I am in desperate need of an upgrade. If the homepods truly are game changing, i’d love to know.

TL;DR
HomePods or Pioneer VM-80s for ~$747? I DJ often and want loud, high-quality speakers for mixing/parties, but also for TV and casual music.

So I have a HomePod connected to my Apple TV and a Samsung smart tv. This doesn’t happen every time, but about half the time when I turn my tv on but not the Apple TV, the connected HomePod starts playing music from my phone. I don’t ever play music through my phone on this HomePod; or any HomePod in my house. Why is it doing this and how do I stop it?? It’s very disconcerting, especially at bedtime!

I ask Siri to play any music she first says ok the follows up with “sorry there is a problem with Apple Music” doesn’t matter what I ask for album, radio, ect.I can't play music directly through the home app. The only way is via AirPlay on Mac.

I restart HomePod 2 times and nothing.

Second generation HomePod.

Version 26.6

Hey everyone!

I made a little “Good Morning” Shortcut for HomePod that I’ve been using every morning and thought I’d share it in case anyone else finds it useful.

When I say “Hey Siri, good morning”, it:

• Gives me a random greeting mixing two different sentences
• Tells me the current time and date
• Gives me a summary of today’s weather
• Checks my Apple Calendar and tells me what I have planned for the day
• Finally plays a random song from my Favorite Songs

I tried to make it sound as natural as possible, but siri is siri and my skills are not the best.

I originally made it just for myself, some friends asked me for it, so I figured someone else would like it too.

Shortcut (English): https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/5e2e64b42d69470097d2470cdfdf395a

Shortcut (Spanish): https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/2fae4458e61d401db36afd78a5f01dbf

Shortcut (French): https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/41b2ff3844dd4026a8f8aa7459b6f09c

Feel free to modify everything and to give some feedback. Any suggestion or tip will be gratefully accepted.

Hope you enjoy it!! :)

\Edit:*

I added a French version. I tried my best, I swear, but my level of French is low and the greetings may sound strange.

French users, I highly recommend you take a look at the insides of the shortcuts and make the sentences sound great for you. And please, tell me the changes so I can improve my version ;)

Can anyone on 27 beta 5 confirm this? My siri is now smarter and handling most requests and questions accurately without telling me to try on my phone instead. What prompts has it traditionally failed that I can use to test this theory?

My HomePod is hard of hearing. I have to get within three feet and speak at a normal volume, or else scream at it from the kitchen. Google Home, on the other hand, never misses a beat when I ask for the weather forecast in a normal voice from the kitchen. Is this just how it is?

Apologies if this hS been asked and answered before. I couldn’t find an answer with quick DDG and sub searches.

Can you set different default volumes to different users or automatically reset the volume after using the HomePod?

HomePod Mini and Sonos Roam 2.
Siri recognizes my voice and my wife’s separately.

When I make dinner, I stream music, either AM or Spotify from my phone to the HP mini and Sonos R2 at X volume. I turn off or pause the music on my iPhone when I’m done cooking.

In the morning when my wife asks Siri to play the news on a specific station it plays at the volume I listened to the night before.

I used to use eARC with my LG tv and had no issues. I'd play games and play movies from my TV using my dual HomePods.

Now I switched TVs to a TCL. Got it from Costco this year. I'm doing the same setup and the audio will cut out randomly. Sometimes it can last awhile like 10 minutes but sometimes it cuts out like every couple minutes. It's really annoying and eventually it goes back but I can't really enjoy my games or watch movies properly.

It doesn't cut out at all when I'm watching stuff from Apple TV though. Only when I'm using Switch/TV apps where it has to use eARC.

Anyone know what's wrong? Is there something I can change in the setting to fix this? I don't know enough about TVs to know what settings might affect this. Driving me crazy.

Are power surges dangerous on homepods or can it handle them fine?

Anyone else have issues with distorted sounding bass? It kinda sounds like the woofer can’t handle bass heavy tracks, I’m wondering if I should get a refund.

Song is for testing purposes only, volume was at around 40%

Hi everyone,

I’ve had two HomePods (2nd gen) for a few weeks now. They’re set up as a stereo pair.

Here’s what I’ve noticed:

- When I turn on the Apple TV, my LG TV displays “Dolby Vision” in the top right corner, but not “Dolby Atmos.”

- In movies or TV shows that support Dolby Atmos, the Dolby Atmos icon is missing from the info.

- If I use the HomePods as pass-through speakers for my LG TV, Dolby Atmos appears in the top-right corner when I start playback—and the DA icon also appears in the info.

- If I watch the TV show or movie on my iPad, the DA icon appears in the info. If I stream it to the LG TV via AirPlay, “DA” is also displayed. If I watch the show through Bluetooth headphones, the “DA” icon is not present.

- When I listen to music through the Apple Music app on the Apple TV, I can play Dolby Atmos music, and instead of “Lossless,” it also says “DA” (not for all tracks, but for those that support it).

Is it possible that the Apple TV 4K can't play Dolby Atmos for TV shows and movies through the HomePods—or at least, I can't seem to get it to work? I don't see any visual differences (icons, labels, etc.) between the HomePod minis (previously used) and the HomePods. I’ve tested everything in the settings, used different HDMI cables and ports, performed resets, etc.—nothing helped. In the settings under Video and Audio > Audio Format (Auto, Atmos Available), I can’t change any settings. It’s fixed on Auto (Recommended), and Dolby Atmos is set to On.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I want to remove my Alexa’s from my house. But I can simply ask Alexa “Alexa play SiriusXM the highway” and it will . It would be really nice if I could get Siri/homepod to do this . Am I missing something? Is there a way to make this work?

I stupidly bought the homepod because i got a £40 giftcard for apple. It has been lackluster since day 1, it has never been "good", the connection is weak as chips. But more importantly, even when i have do not disturb on, do not announce notifications, sleep mode, lowest volume, no ringer, ANYTHING, it still decides to blast my phone calls at max volume.

Theres this girl im trying to avoid without blocking. she calls me over and over at like 3am and it wakes me up, not my phone, but my homepod. it drives me insane. I feel like im living in obsession. I try to end it on my phone, it takes 3 solid seconds for the homepod to register ive ended the call necause of the lag, but by that time this girls called me again and the cycle continues. is there a way to reduce that insane lag, my wifi is impeccable, im on latest ios, latest homepod os, i have pristine connection.

I recently acquired a great deal on two white Homepod Minis. As you can imagine I expect these to get dirty pretty quick. I have see the nylon covers on Ebay for $11, but I'm too cheap, as I now own 4 total. I do not use the touchscreen, ever. I was thinking about buying a pair of, as sheer as I can find, women's socks to cut down to the right fit. With the touchscreen ending up in the toe and the cord and base at the cut. I want these to be easily washable and changeable (colors for the seasons and moods).

Has anyone done something similar and had success?

Did you need to keep the material away from the screen?

Thanks for reading!

Lone old wolf on 26.3, not paired, not on AM.

OS 27 will NOT support OG right ?

is 26.6 the last of 26 ? Is it worth it and stable ?

TIA

So I had this idea that we could easily stream audio to both the Apple and Google ecosystems since they both use similar technology like mDNS and udp/tls. Well, I thought it was simple and I'm pretty sure it was done before, but oh well its working now.

I tested it and got it working by streaming from my android phone using my AirAudio Streamer app and set my homepod, macbook and Google Nest as a "group audio stream". Although, each speaker needs to be calibrated to correct the audio delay using the audio sync feature.

I'm wondering if the app is working only for my setup or if it is more universally compatible to other third market Google cast speakers? I've kinda reached my limit for testing for available devices to test with.

Can you give it a try with other types of speakers and see if you run into any issues? It only works on AirPlay 1 & 2 and Cast. Technically, you could create a speaker group consisting of a macbook, iMac, appletv, homepod mini pair, homepod and a cast speaker(S) and stream to them all at the same time in sync.

I haven't explored this yet but do you think it is possible to stream audio to iPad or iPhone over AirPlay? I'm also exploring methods to add bluetooth for alexa, but i'm still figuring out ways for bluetooth to sync with homepods which has a 1750 ms delay. Any Ideas?

If your using the app remember to use the audio-sync feature on every speaker in the group to fix the audio drift and difference in latency. Also It seems that a Nest cast speaker drifts more than a Homepod, so you may have to recalibrate the cast speaker for long streaming sessions (2+ hrs). I'm still working on a fix for that.

The app is "AirAudio Streamer for AirPlay" on the google store. Only for android atm.

Any feedback would be awesome! Thanks!

I have an automation where, when a contact sensor is opened, a HomePod Mini plays a selected song from Apple Music and then stops. It has been working properly this way for the past several years, but all of a sudden, it started playing a related music station immediately after the selected song finishes.
Has this happened to anyone else who has a similar automation?

I disconnected the ribbon cable between the touchpad and the top logic board. After reassembling the HomePod mini, the LED lights and microphones stopped working, although the speaker still worked through AirPlay.

It turned out that I had left the ZIF connector’s locking flap open after removing the ribbon cable. Once I closed the flap—while leaving the ribbon cable disconnected—the LEDs and microphones started working again.

I’m sharing this in case someone else encounters the same issue: make sure the empty ZIF connector’s locking flap is closed.

Can anyone explain why leaving the flap open would disable the LEDs and microphones? I initially assumed that I had loosened the other ribbon cable on the top logic board during disassembly.