HomePod Clear multiple streams on Apple Music

[Synna]

Dear Community,

I hope I'm in the right subforum for this, as I do have a curious problem with my HomePod setup.

I have a HomePod mini in about every room and after some hassle, I managed to be able to send one music stream from my phone to all of them at the same time. However, when I open Apple Music on my phone, I can see that there are multiple "active" streams listed there. One is the stream that is sent to all my HomePods and one is my iPhone only, but there is a third stream, that only shows one HomePod. All of these streams also show different titles.

Of course, there can only be one active stream and I get that there might be a distinction necessary between just listening on my phone or streaming to the HomePods, but where does this third stream come from that just lists one individual HomePod? Is there a way to somehow "clear" these different streams and reduce them to what is actually used and necessary?

Thanks for your help!

 

[xraydoc]

Can you upload some screenshots?

 

[Synna]

Can you upload some screenshots?

Sure thing, thanks for your reply.

Please find a screenshot attached and apologies in advance, the respective iPhone is set to "German". From what I see, the first stream is used when only listening on the iPhone while the second stream is used to stream to all Homepods, but somehow, the third stream shows the Apple TV (for no apparent reason) and sometimes, there's another stream instead, showing "room +2", indicating that it is also streamed to HomePods, but not to all of them.

 

[xraydoc]

Since each HomePod is capable of streaming music from an internet source to both itself and to other HomePods, I'm guessing what you're seeing on your phone is a listing of all the various streams since you can use your phone as a remote to pause, skip forward, etc., even if the source is not coming from your phone.

However, if you're listing to one thing on all the HomePods at the same time, I'm not sure why it would show multiple different streams. And I can only presume your AppleTV is showing what it's currently doing.

I've got several HomePods in my house as well. I'll have to do some experimenting this coming weekend and see if I can replicate what you're seeing.

 

[Synna]

Thank you so much for trying to replicate this, I'm curious to see what you find out.

 

[xraydoc]

So here's a little follow-up.

If I asked Siri (on a HomePod) to play music on that particular HomePod, I would be able to see what it was playing on my phone, as if the phone was the remote control. But the music was not originating from the phone as I could go to, say, YouTube and watch a video and the video's sound wouldn't alter the music coming from the HomePod.

So then I started different music on a different HomePod. My phone would then show the "remote" for the most recently started HomePod music, no longer showing the now-playing artwork & controls for the first HomePod.

Then I started music from my phone via AirPlay to a third HomePod. The phone, as expected, showed the artwork and controls for the music coming from the phone while the other two HomePods continued independently.

If I pulled down the phone's control center and hit the AirPlay button, I could see the song title and volume level of each individual HomePod (plus the ones that were simply paused).

I'm not sure how to get the phone to show the remote controls again for a specific HomePod, but I didn't try to bring the phone in close proximity to my HomePod mini's and try the ultrawideband handoff, nor did I try digging back into the Music app and looking in there like in your screenshot (forgot to look in there; I was just looking in the Control Center pulldown AirPlay submenu).

I apologize for not taking any screenshots. I completely forgot until my experiment was over.

 

[Synna]

So here's a little follow-up.

If I asked Siri (on a HomePod) to play music on that particular HomePod, I would be able to see what it was playing on my phone, as if the phone was the remote control. But the music was not originating from the phone as I could go to, say, YouTube and watch a video and the video's sound wouldn't alter the music coming from the HomePod.

So then I started different music on a different HomePod. My phone would then show the "remote" for the most recently started HomePod music, no longer showing the now-playing artwork & controls for the first HomePod.

Then I started music from my phone via AirPlay to a third HomePod. The phone, as expected, showed the artwork and controls for the music coming from the phone while the other two HomePods continued independently.

If I pulled down the phone's control center and hit the AirPlay button, I could see the song title and volume level of each individual HomePod (plus the ones that were simply paused).

I'm not sure how to get the phone to show the remote controls again for a specific HomePod, but I didn't try to bring the phone in close proximity to my HomePod mini's and try the ultrawideband handoff, nor did I try digging back into the Music app and looking in there like in your screenshot (forgot to look in there; I was just looking in the Control Center pulldown AirPlay submenu).

I apologize for not taking any screenshots. I completely forgot until my experiment was over.

Thank you so much for your detailed experiment, it's so nice of you that you took the time to do that! <3 I'll try to replicate this on my own setup. Just a quick question: Is there a way to "clear out" the control center or will all HomePods stay in there "forever"?

 

[Meuti]

Hi Synna, you can use Einstellungen/Kontrollzentrum to set which controls will show up in the control center. You can also use the Home App and the individual settings of each Homepod to have them show up in your favorites. If you need any help just shoot me a private message. I'm German, too so it might be easier if we speak in our own tongue

 

[Synna]

Hi Synna, you can use Einstellungen/Kontrollzentrum to set which controls will show up in the control center. You can also use the Home App and the individual settings of each Homepod to have them show up in your favorites. If you need any help just shoot me a private message. I'm German, too so it might be easier if we speak in our own tongue

Thanks so much for your tip, I'll try doing that and then definitely get back to you and take you up on your offer regarding the private message if it still doesn't work. ;-)