Apple Releases New 11.4 Software for the HomePod Enabling Stereo Support, Multi-Room Audio Through AirPlay 2

[sidewinder3000]

I’ve read a lot of things about BT 5, but multiple simultaneous device support isn’t one of them. Hope I’m wrong. Increased distance seems to be the most significant update. Apple sits on the BT SIG board, and is presumably where they came up with their own improvements in the form of the W1 chip. One would think if they wanted to remove the headphone jack, they would have made sure their implementation of BT would handle everything the jack could do (like split a signal and share it between multiple speakers/headphones). It’s clearly a priority for AirPlay. I guess we’ll see what happens with BT, but we’re going on two years now without the headphone jack.

The speed of BT is not really an issue with the way Apple keeps their video in sync with it. Basically they buffer the movie such that the video is delayed in relation to the audio to compensate for any lag with picture on the device. You can’t do that with a video game, because even a delay in milliseconds would be enough to wipe out in real time against the game or with other players.

This is what I read about multiple devices and Bluetooth: they’re adding a a new mesh network capability. Curious how that plays out with iPhones and AirPods, and if we could possibly get an Airplay2/like interface, or something that would allow multiple Airpods to pair with a phone. (Or an iPhone that transmits to Airpods, which then relays to another set or Airpods?)

 

[Keirasplace]

That is a great point. Seeing the great new interface for Airplay 2, I see no reason why they couldn’t implement something similar for Bluetooth. Could be a technological limitation of the current Bluetooth standard for AirPods, but my understanding is that the next Bluetooth standard will allow dozens of devices to be linked, so maybe that will be what’s needed.

I love my Airpods, but sharing in stereo, whether on a jog with my wife so we can hear the same music or with a friend on a plane so you can share a movie on my iPad, would be great.
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The improvements with two HomePods is really incredible, especially in stereo, but I had no idea that the blips in bloops of the Apple TV UI do not play through them. I can’t speak to gaming, and my guess is that perhaps the speed of it isn’t appropriate for Bluetooth? That’s beyond my knowledge technically. But I cannot imagine why the UI sounds don’t play through them. That is really weird.

In my fantasy world, there is someone at Apple that pours over the MacRumors forums, and takes copious notes on all of our concerns.

Original Bluetooth I think wasn't routable

 

[mpainesyd]

I just got a second HomePod. Since using the 2 as a stereo pair, I’ve noticed that there’s a huge delay when using Siri to play music compared with just using one HomePod.
Siri says “one moment”...”hmm”...”one moment”. And 30 seconds later the song plays. This never happened with one HomePod. Anyone have this problem?
My HomePods are updated and I have gigabit fios internet, so that’s not the problem.

I got similar responses and it seemed to be because my wifi was not handling all of the demands from Homepods, Apple TV and some Homekit devices. Try rebooting your wifi.