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HomePod Does the HomePod auto power-off?
- Thread starter Pagemakers
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I was forgetting it’s just the Play 5’s that have a line-in, so you could connect a Bluetooth adapter if you wanted.
That said, they’re not just Airplay, other WiFi protocols are supported. And if you enjoy a bit of tinkering (I do love tinkering
) you can setup a Raspberry Pi to add Bluetooth to even a Play 1.It’s not a plug and play jobbie, but then tinkering rarely is
I’m working on a similar principal to try and add Bluetooth to the HomePod. Bluetooth to Pi > Pi AirPlay to HomePod. It’s far from working and may never work, but that’s the tinkering thing again
I was forgetting it’s just the Play 5’s that have a line-in, so you could connect a Bluetooth adapter if you wanted.
That said, they’re not just Airplay, other WiFi protocols are supported. And if you enjoy a bit of tinkering (I do love tinkering
It’s not a plug and play jobbie, but then tinkering rarely is
I’m working on a similar principal to try and add Bluetooth to the HomePod. Bluetooth to Pi > Pi AirPlay to HomePod. It’s far from working and may never work, but that’s the tinkering thing again
Interesting, thanks. I am a tinkerer when the need arises but will probably skip this option as, like I say, most of my usage is podcasts for which stock Echo Plus’s are more than adequate.
Definitely, the HomePod is overkill if it's primarily podcasts. Well, I'd say so anyway. The Echo is more than capable for that purpose. Heck, the Echo isn't the worst sounding Bluetooth speaker I've ever heard.
I'm actually considering firing up my Echo 2 as a Bluetooth speaker. I was going to get rid of it, since the wife's banned it for listening in when it's not supposed to be. To be fair I'm less than happy on the privacy front with it myself. But each to their own as far as that's concerned.
But I'm thinking, disable Alexa completely by removing the Echo's WiFi connection, so there's no possibility of listening in and I've got a decent wee Bluetooth speaker for the bathroom (I like to sing in the shower, where no-one can hear me
) Suppose it would depend on me convincing the wife it's not going to be listening to us. Besides I can guarantee that even if it was connected no-one at Amazon or anywhere else would want to listen to my singing, that'd stop them listening for sure
I've used Airplay to send music from iTunes on my iMac to my HomePod (kitchen) and my AirPlay compatible A/V receiver (living room) at the same time. I've played this combination (along with the iMac's speakers playing too) for several hours (3-6) several times and I've not experienced any timeouts whatsoever.
Mark
Mark
Doesn't happen if you're playing music, but if you leave it paused for long enough it typically drops the connection to conserve battery power. Apparently.
In my experience, it varies. Playing podcasts from the stock Podcast app, sometimes unpausing after a couple of minutes defaults back to the phone. Other times it maintains the connection longer.
It’s quite maddening and is the dealbreaker in my decision to return them unfortunately.
If that is your situation, why do you need to even use the iPhone to play the podcast? Simply ask HomePod Siri to play the podcast in question. If you are using the stock podcast app and are signed into your iCloud account you shouldn't have any trouble with that.
And, if you ARE playing it from your iPhone over AirPlay, you pause it for awhile and it loses the connection, you simply tell HomePod Siri to "Continue with podcast [insert podcast name here]" and HomePod should play from where you paused.
Mark
In my situation I have an ipad in the kitchen. It remains on permanently to play music to Bluetooth speakers.
I was thinking of changing the Bluetooth speakers to a pair of HomePods.
In my testing when the iPad is not playing music the airplay connection drops within 10 minutes making the HomePod option a real non starter.
I was thinking of changing the Bluetooth speakers to a pair of HomePods.
In my testing when the iPad is not playing music the airplay connection drops within 10 minutes making the HomePod option a real non starter.
All good points. Acted a bit funny re: position syncing when I tried this previously though. Plus, when my phone refused to connect when switching between bedroom and lounge HomePod, multiple times the Podcast app bugged out entirely and started the podcast at the beginning.
I really do not have much luck with anything service related from Apple. Continuity/handoff etc have always been so flakey that I cease to even try to use them. Made the mistake of using Pages for a little while until I lost some significant progress in the ether. For all the specific cases I’ve tried everything, spent hours diagnosing issues and searching forums for the answer but to no avail.
Plus, as much as podcast support is interesting on the HomePod, I really do not like the stock app. Overcast is a million times more functional imo and is probably my most used app. After dabbling with the stock Podcast app I realise I’m simply not prepared to give Overcast up. I could use both but that’s an extra layer of organisation that is unneeded. Back to Echo Plus’s and Bluetooth for me.
On the positive side, I generally have always had a good experience with iOS re stability and bugs etc. Usually hop on the beta for the next iOS at about beta 5 and don’t seem to experience nearly as bad an experience as others seem to have.
That said, my AirPods have definitely got worse since iOS11. iOS11 has been okay for me but the bulletproof instant connection of AirPods to phone is a distant memory sadly. My bad luck with Apple anything-connection-wise strikes again. When they DO connect, they’re fine though and are stable. Again, tried resetting, repairing blah blah. I’m convinced it’s just iOS11 doing what it does.
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Does it have to use spotify? I use my phone to start a playlist on the homepod when I go to sleep and the music app is still set to control it when I wake up.
That I don't know, I think you might be trying to shoehorn a specific usage type into the the HomePod that won't be all that successful, at least to your satisfaction.
Yes I have a spotify subscription (did try Apple music - Yuk).
Regardless of HomePod or Echo, I prefer to control my music by touchscreen rather than voice.
For now, if you get an Apple HomePod then you better get an Apple Music subscription as well. I’m a big time Apple fan but I wouldn’t pay $349 for HomePod if I wasn’t able to take advantage of the smart speaker capabilities. If you’re stuck on Spotify then it would be better to buy a smart speaker that supports it. If you’re looking for decent sound quality too then get a Sonos One that has Alexa support. Alexa currently supports Spotify.
If you don't have Apple Music but you do have iTunes Match ($25/year), the HomePod plays every song you own (via Siri voice-command) just fine.
Mark
Mark