Because the HomePod Mini is cheeper, and sounds better than any equivalently priced device? And it would be a more affordable way of getting better sound for most of the world who normally just use the TV’s built in speaker?
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Apple TV 4K: How to Stream Audio From Your TV's Inputs to HomePod (eARC)
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Yeah, I guess better than a cheap TV's speaker is... something -- but it's nowhere near in the same league as the HomePod.
I wonder if Apple discontinued the HomePod simply because of the pandemic and they needed chips and components for their other things that sold better vis-a-vis the chip shortage. Perhaps it was never their plan to discontinue the HomePod but keep selling it until it's successor was ready which might explain why new features are still coming to it.
I assume it was to get rid of old stock, which according to device into, HomePods sold right now are still all the initial stock from three years ago. But also as with everything Apple, it being discontinued created a newfound desire for it and these new features even more so. Used to be easy to get one below retail but now even used HomePods are going for higher than retail.
I have to admit, this feature is pretty cool and made me want to get a stereo pair myself but I figure with lossless Apple Music and this feature and everything happening, they’ll have new larger HomePods out in no time. Especially with this renewed desire for them.
I’d love to see the ability to add rear channels in a surround setup, a mix of larger and mini HomePods too.
Those in charge of Apple home devices have lost it. Their position, comments, features that only work on discontinued products, and defending one size shoe will fit every user, need a complete rethinking. The part in the movie about Steve Jobs and fonts comes to mind. Engineer, we do not need fonts. Steve clear out your desk, should apply today.
A few questions… I never used my two HomePods for ATV, but I do have a full Sonos Beam 5.1 setup which sounds great, but causes a lot of trouble with OTA broadcast audio (I live in Japan which is AAC).
How would two stereo OG homepods compare to a Sonos system? Is it worth checking out or is Sonos a lot better and worth the hassles?
How would two stereo OG homepods compare to a Sonos system? Is it worth checking out or is Sonos a lot better and worth the hassles?
yeah Apple still hasn't fixed their AirPlay latency which just limits so many of these features
You have to choose one OR the other :-(..
What would have been really smart would have been for Apple to understand that Homepods could be used as surround speakers in 3.1, 5.1, 7.1 etc configs, as that's how most home theatres are set up. The trouble with an ARC/eARC approach is that you cant do anything else but use Homepods as the main speakers and waste perfectly good existing investments in Home Theatre Speakers. Their will also probably be latency issues between video and sound with the current approach.
Eventually I think X.1 Receivers will stream AirPlay OUT to Speakers not just take AirPlay IN from an AirPlay source.
In the meantime Apple could devise a way that HomePod (whatever gen) be used as X.1 speakers if only theu had of included another connection port other than straight AirPlay. That one mistake cost Apple a lot of sales of HomePod.
You've gotta understand the A/V market with audiophiles and existing investment. Homepod as a stand-alone speaker has limited appeal.
For the PS5 - slightly variable it seems. Mostly fine but occasionally a touch behind.
For the Series X - Not great in bitstream. DD is almost OK but Atmos is really laggy. My experience so far is that Atmos is always laggy on Xbox (One X or SX - both are crap) though, so nothing really lost here. If you choose uncompressed 5.1/7.1, completely fine, just much worse sound quality.
The really annoying part so far is that both PS5 and XSX often cause that annoying loud broken decoding sound. I suspect the ATV/HomePods are not great at switching codec.
Is it possible to hook up other airplay speakers besides the homepod? It would be sweet to use my pair of Yamaha MusicCast 20 this way.
Hmm, not been able to get this working reliably.
First issue is that Apple TV won’t keep the Homepods saved as the default speaker. Anyway…
I have an LG tv so HDMI2 is the one for ARC and that’s setup now and detected by the ATV.
However, it keeps disabling whenever I switch to another source.
since enabling it, the XBOX has graphical corruption/distortion and sound won’t come through to the Homepods so I’m thinking something is disabling it.
I’m using high speed cables for this.
Any ideas as to what to check?
First issue is that Apple TV won’t keep the Homepods saved as the default speaker. Anyway…
I have an LG tv so HDMI2 is the one for ARC and that’s setup now and detected by the ATV.
However, it keeps disabling whenever I switch to another source.
since enabling it, the XBOX has graphical corruption/distortion and sound won’t come through to the Homepods so I’m thinking something is disabling it.
I’m using high speed cables for this.
Any ideas as to what to check?
My suspicion (on a technical level) is that the 1GB of RAM in HomePod is too constraining -- at least that's the only reason I can think of for why HomePod is such a poor HomeKit Hub compared to aTV (the aTV HD has 2GB).
So if you're hitting a wall along that dimension, something has to give. Presumably you
(a) design a new model (which may be as simple an upgrade as same sound hardware, just incorporating an A10? with 2GB? [you'd hope they'd use a faster chip and more RAM to be more future proof but...)
(b) don't let knowledge of that new model slip out UNTIL all the old models are sold. And they aren't yet all sold -- I still saw some in Best Buy when I was there three days ago, and you can still order them on Apple.com
Limited testing here, but the latency through eARC for me has actually been perfect. Somehow the audio sync is even better when playing from external devices than from the ATV itself (I cannot figure out why, haha… yep I tried with and without the wireless audio sync setting calibrated). I’m really impressed with this feature and it is a game changer for my living room. Makes me want to get one of those picture frame TVs.
Great new feature.
But could someone please clarify something for me? I currently have an eARC enabled sound bar connected via the ARC HDMI input on my TV. So for this to work, I’ll have to plug my Apple TV into the same ARC HDMI input? This essentially makes my Apple TV act as the sound bar (via wireless audio to HomePod)?
Edit: I answered my own question. Yes, Apple TV 4K must be plugged in directly to the ARC HDMI port. Works great!
But could someone please clarify something for me? I currently have an eARC enabled sound bar connected via the ARC HDMI input on my TV. So for this to work, I’ll have to plug my Apple TV into the same ARC HDMI input? This essentially makes my Apple TV act as the sound bar (via wireless audio to HomePod)?
Edit: I answered my own question. Yes, Apple TV 4K must be plugged in directly to the ARC HDMI port. Works great!
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Exactly. You'd effectively be taking your soundbar out of the equation entirely. When playing something directly from the Apple TV, it sends its audio straight out to the HomePod(s), and when you switch to another device, the audio gets sent from the TV to the Apple via ARC/eARC, which in turn sends it out to the HomePod(s).
Other than connecting to the right port on your TV, the only thing you need to do on the Apple TV is make sure your HomePod is your Default Audio Output and that the "Play Television Audio" option is toggled on in that same section.
Thanks! Just tried my Nintendo Switch and works great! There is a slight latency but I that’s to be expected.
However I also have the Philips Hue Sync Box for matching LED lighting and currently, my ATV is connected to that. I tried plugging the Sync Box directly to the ARC input on my TV but it wouldn’t work, probably because the Sync Box doesn’t support eARC. And if I connect the Apple TV directly to the ARC input on my TV, I lose the LED lighting from the Hue Sync Box. So I may just have to stick with my sound bar for the moment…
Yeah, sadly that's going to get messy, as you're right that the sync box doesn't pass ARC back through. About the only way I can think of to deal with this would be to manually change the connection to the sync box when you're streaming from the Apple TV, as it doesn't need eARC in that mode since it plays directly to your HomePod(s). However, you'd have to take the sync box out of the loop when you plan on using any other device that's connected to the TV, such as your Nintendo Switch.
I suppose in theory if you could find an HDMI splitter that supports eARC, that could work too — use a 1->2 splitter and connect the Hue Sync box to the non-ARC port, and the TV ARC port to the splitter's ARC port. You'd have to test it to find out, and you'd probably still have to switch the TV to the ARC HDMI input when using the Apple TV in order to avoid whatever confusion might ensure from playing something to the TV AND getting an ARC signal back from it at the same time.
Yeah this was over a year ago. The price for trying to early adopt HomePods into my home theater system. They just weren't meant for it at the time. We had just moved and the wife was getting a little tired of speaker wires running all over the place so I figured why not try out the HomePods. Tempted to try it again in another room, but perfectly satisfied with the Vizio soundbar and surround setup I replaced the HomePods with.
Seems like the experience is much better now. But i was doing this almost two years ago and let it go on for months. I never would've made it until the new TV OS came out last fall. One of the HomePods probably would've gotten tossed through a window before that.
Yup, I felt much of the same pain, except that I never pulled out my AV receiver and wired speakers — I pretty much realized the HomePods weren't going to solve the problem, so I abandoned the idea and stuck with my legacy setup.
However, in anticipation of the new Apple TV 4K, I retired that system — and the rat's nest of wires that went along with it — even while I was still on my Apple TV HD and waiting for the new one to arrive. The Apple TV HD doesn't support surround audio of course, nor does it even do let you use the HomePod as a default output, but even in that configuration it worked surprisingly well — as long as I was willing to switch to the HomePod manually each time I restarted. However, with the Apple TV 4K, it works like a dream... I'm actually thinking of wall-mounting my TV now that I have such a clean, simple, and most wireless configuration.
That’s definitely an interesting idea with the HDMI splitter and I may consider trying that. I’m just afraid at that point I would just be adding more complication to the chain and I’ll be back to where I am now with my sound bar and the amount of cables I’m dealing with.
It would be nice if the next version of Sync Box could at least include one eARC port…
This is my dream too of course. Having that super clean setup that you have achieved!
God damn it. I might have to upgrade my 4K AppleTV after all now so I can free up my studio monitors for my actual studio and not have them be $3000 Nintendo Switch speakers