HomePod BBC Sounds losing connection to HomePod

[philstubbington]

Whether I’m playing BBC Sounds as part of an automation or manually, the connection drops on a regular basis.

Has anyone found a solution? I’ve reset both HomePods (they’re in different rooms), restarted the HomePods and iPhones and it’s still happening.

It would appear the root cause is the BBC Sounds app as it’ll just stop when it’s playing through the iPhone too!

Thanks

 

[Topfry]

Whether I’m playing BBC Sounds as part of an automation or manually, the connection drops on a regular basis.

Has anyone found a solution? I’ve reset both HomePods (they’re in different rooms), restarted the HomePods and iPhones and it’s still happening.

It would appear the root cause is the BBC Sounds app as it’ll just stop when it’s playing through the iPhone too!

Thanks

The fact that we can’t get any BBC radio station natively on homepods is a massive letdown. It’s as bad as when we couldn’t get UK tv catch-up apps on the ATV.
Yours is likely an airplay problem, I guess, maybe try resetting your router (it’s usually a turn it off and on again solution)

 

[philstubbington]

The fact that we can’t get any BBC radio station natively on homepods is a massive letdown. It’s as bad as when we couldn’t get UK tv catch-up apps on the ATV.
Yours is likely an airplay problem, I guess, maybe try resetting your router (it’s usually a turn it off and on again solution)

Thanks. I'll try resetting the routers - we have two with FTTP.

 

[philstubbington]

Thanks. I'll try resetting the routers - we have two with FTTP.

Still no better. Very annoying indeed.

 

[pm67]

I have this problem too. I am sure it’s Sounds-specific since I don’t have a problem with my network with any other apps using airplay, nor with music played directly from Apple Music via Siri. It also struggles to re-connect as HomePod remains convinced that Sounds is still playing and won’t initially replace it. Most strange, and annoying!

 

[philstubbington]

Quite agree, I’ve reset both HomePods (there in different rooms), reset the wifi routers (got two of those too). It’s made no difference.

 

[marlman]

I use a shortcut to run BBC Sounds to my Homepods (I only like Radio 2!) and it works perfectly for me no dropouts and sounds great.

Another big bonus for me is that I can see what songs are playing on my Apple Watch.

 

[philstubbington]

I use a shortcut to run BBC Sounds to my Homepods (I only like Radio 2!) and it works perfectly for me no dropouts and sounds great.

Another big bonus for me is that I can see what songs are playing on my Apple Watch.


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Yes, I do the same (only BBC 6Music). Slightly annoying you can‘t set the playback destination through automation to two homepods at the same time. We’ve got one upstairs and one downstairs, so the automation is from iPhone upstairs and iPad downstairs as they’re the closest devices.

Still not sure why the connection is so unreliable - I guess I could try a mesh network but seems overkill for just this.

 

[pm67]

Thanks Marlman, I’ve never thought of making a shortcut to start Sounds on Airplay (Radio 3 in my case) on my paired Homepods: it‘s already made my life easier! Going to see how it affects stability from now on.

 

[pm67]

Even though the tip to use a Shortcut to start up BBC Sounds was excellent as a timesaver, sadly the cutouts remain. I use Apple Music, both driven from my iPad and via Siri on the Homepods, and Idagio (classical music streaming app - superb), yet neither have the same issue. The BBC Sounds app has a problem.

 

[Calumma]

Even though the tip to use a Shortcut to start up BBC Sounds was excellent as a timesaver, sadly the cutouts remain. I use Apple Music, both driven from my iPad and via Siri on the Homepods, and Idagio (classical music streaming app - superb), yet neither have the same issue. The BBC Sounds app has a problem.

I also use a shortcut to play bbc radio 4 on my bedroom HomePod mini in the morning. Occasionally the bbc sounds app will drop it’s connection, but it’s not frequent enough to be a major annoyance.

 

[Feek]

As an alternative to the BBC Sounds app, if you're using it to listen to live radio then have a shufti at the app called "Receiver" which will play all the beeb stations and you can configure a buffer time. I found that listening to stations such as planet rock and absolute 80s via Tunein would often just go quiet but with the Receiver app and the buffer, I've not had a single drop out.

 

[philstubbington]

As an alternative to the BBC Sounds app, if you're using it to listen to live radio then have a shufti at the app called "Receiver" which will play all the beeb stations and you can configure a buffer time. I found that listening to stations such as planet rock and absolute 80s via Tunein would often just go quiet but with the Receiver app and the buffer, I've not had a single drop out.

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll give that a try. I tried Radioplayer but the buffering with Receiver sounds like just what’s needed!

 

[j_k_nash]

Did it work? I have the same issue I love the sound quality of my Homeports but the disconnects drive me crazy. One of the only Apple product I don't love. I consider getting a new mesh router set up has anyone found a rock-solid performance.

 

[philstubbington]

Receiver is okay, but not sure what length of buffer you’d need to make BBC stations reliable. I just noticed that Receiver is also available for Apple TV so maybe (especially if you have a wired Apple TV) that might be a better option.

Our local FTTP company (Zzoomm) have just updated the firmware on the routers so I’ll do some more testing next week and let you know if anything makes it more reliable.

 

[philstubbington]

Receiver is okay, but not sure what length of buffer you’d need to make BBC stations reliable. I just noticed that Receiver is also available for Apple TV so maybe (especially if you have a wired Apple TV) that might be a better option.

Our local FTTP company (Zzoomm) have just updated the firmware on the routers so I’ll do some more testing next week and let you know if anything makes it more reliable.

So, it would appear that the firmware update has fixed it Not sure whether getting a mesh system would help others with this problem, but we’re back to using BBC Sounds without an issue.