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Apple Watch 4 Doesn’t Support AirPlay

CharlesMP

CharlesMP

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 13, 2015
6
0
I was surprised and disappointed to learn that the Apple Watch Series 4 doesn’t support AirPlay!

You can use the watch to remotely control a iPhone and connect to AirPlay via the phone, but when playing music directly from the watch it only supports Bluetooth and not AirPlay.

Any idea why this is?
 
techno-Zen said:
No idea, but does anyone know if you can cast to HomePod? With the iPhone being off?
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I don’t have a HomePod so I can’t try this myself, but I am curious to know the answer. I assume you can’t because I see a few posts from people saying they couldn’t connect to the HomePod directly with WatchOS 4. So Unless that has changed in Watch OS 5 I guess the answer is no.
 
The Watch has never been able to use AirPlay-proper. The AirPlay icon just lets you pick a Bluetooth headset to send audio to.

I’m not sure about the HomePod. Recently I noticed one of my four HomePods did appear in the ‘now playing’ list of devices, but only one with no immediately obvious reason why it was there. You can definitely control it via your Watch if your paired iPhone is set to control it already.
 
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I was also bummed when I found this! Unfortunately Apple has restricted this ability, it was very much present in my original Apple Watch running watchOS 2.
 
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Sadly no - no HomePod support :( - that needs to change in the future - love using the AW with my older Bluetooth speakers.
 
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You can AirPlay from iPhone to HomePod and use the Now Playing complication on the Watch to control playback and even turn the Digital Crown to control volume. I do it all the time around the house.
 
tromboneaholic said:
You can AirPlay from iPhone to HomePod and use the Now Playing complication on the Watch to control playback and even turn the Digital Crown to control volume. I do it all the time around the house.
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Yes, the watch can be used as a remote control for a phone, but the Apple Watch doesn’t have AirPlay support itself for playing content on the watch or from watch apps.
 
tromboneaholic said:
Agreed. I was just pointing out my workaround.

Just out of curiosity, to what device are you wanting to AirPlay from the Watch?
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I use a Neet AirStream for connecting to my Hi-Fi setup with AirPlay. It has generally worked well for me and the quality sounds good to my ears. So that would be the main device.

I also have two small wireless Samsung docks in other rooms. These two support bluetooth in addition to AirPlay but using Bluetooth instead of AirPlay results in the signal cutting out when I walk out of range whereas AirPlay works everywhere at home since I can connect to WiFi from all the rooms.

Maybe adding a Bluetooth reciever to the HiFi setup and using that instead of AirPlay will be the best solution for now.
 
Airplay would probably drain the battery on a watch. And if that’s an issue then I see no reason to add it as I can open the music app on my watch, press the airplay icon and choose a speaker and it starts playing music using airplay, though from my phone. The ends result is the same
 
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