HomePod Handoff issues & stereo pair issues...

[Ansath]

I've had my HomePod Mini since Monday, and I've had a couple of issues......

1. Handing off podcasts (might be the same with other, but I mainly just listen to podcasts), by tapping the device seems very hit and miss. I get times where it just won't work. Then starts working again half hour later....

2. Playing audio out of my stereo pair will occasionally, mid playing a podcast, will stop playing out of one of the 2, then start again a couple minutes later.

Very spotty, not sure if it's just some teething issues with the Mini, or if a long running thing with HomePods in general.....

 

[scottwiz105]

I've had my HomePod Mini since Monday, and I've had a couple of issues......

1. Handing off podcasts (might be the same with other, but I mainly just listen to podcasts), by tapping the device seems very hit and miss. I get times where it just won't work. Then starts working again half hour later....

2. Playing audio out of my stereo pair will occasionally, mid playing a podcast, will stop playing out of one of the 2, then start again a couple minutes later.

Very spotty, not sure if it's just some teething issues with the Mini, or if a long running thing with HomePods in general.....

I’ve had a similar experience. I bought 2 to set up as a pair. The first set up no problem. When setting up the second as a stereo pair to the first, it shows as installed and paired properly in the Home app, but I’ve never been able to get music out of both speakers at once. Further, airplay doesn’t seem to be working properly either. I’ve updated software on my phone, iPad, and speakers with no luck. Tried uninstalling, reinstalling, etc. and nothing. The only error of any sort I saw was something saying it didn’t like my network, but they connect to the network anyway. Called apple, and they’re clueless. They took diagnostic logs and I’m waiting a response in a couple days. I’ve never had an experience like this on an apple product. I asked about replacing them and they seem to think it’s a software glitch. Still doesn’t help me. Anyone else had a similar experience with Homepods (mini or regular), and if so, how did you get around it?

 

[haralds]

Make sure they both have the latest firmware. When I got my second one it offered to set it up in stereo and I agreed. It took a while because it updated to the same firmware.
Network conditions are very important. Airplay uses Apple Lossless, so it does take some bandwidth.

 

[Ansath]

Make sure they both have the latest firmware. When I got my second one it offered to set it up in stereo and I agreed. It took a while because it updated to the same firmware.
Network conditions are very important. Airplay uses Apple Lossless, so it does take some bandwidth.

They were updated to 14.2 as part of setting them up. They are about 12 feet away from a NetGear NightHawk Wifi 6 router, which is ethernet connected to the ISP's router and speediest confirms I'm getting a minimum of 150Mbps. The HomePod Mini's are within 3 feet of each other. There's only4-5 devices using that wifi.

So, it cannot be an issue with my network.

 

[MTShipp]

Hit and miss here too. My issue is I decided I wanted to unpair stereo so I could move one around the house. The devices show unpaired but within Airplay for every application it shows them paired together even though only one will play sound.

 

[TomElson]

I’ve had a similar experience. I bought 2 to set up as a pair. The first set up no problem. When setting up the second as a stereo pair to the first, it shows as installed and paired properly in the Home app, but I’ve never been able to get music out of both speakers at once. Further, airplay doesn’t seem to be working properly either. I’ve updated software on my phone, iPad, and speakers with no luck. Tried uninstalling, reinstalling, etc. and nothing. The only error of any sort I saw was something saying it didn’t like my network, but they connect to the network anyway. Called apple, and they’re clueless. They took diagnostic logs and I’m waiting a response in a couple days. I’ve never had an experience like this on an apple product. I asked about replacing them and they seem to think it’s a software glitch. Still doesn’t help me. Anyone else had a similar experience with Homepods (mini or regular), and if so, how did you get around it?

I have had a near identical experience with my HomePod mini’s since I got them this week. Bought two to pair in stereo but I cannot get them to both reliably play music at the same time. They say they are paired in the home app, I can get them to ping left and right (all though this can be hit and miss) but I can only ever get one to play music. I also got the same message about the network not supporting peer to peer but I never got this message on my pair of standard homepods which are happily paired in stereo.

My last thing to try will be to try adding the two HomePod minis to a different router to see if that improves performance. Otherwise, it will be a case of reporting the issue to apple and waiting to see if they fix it in a software update. Feels to me like the software isn’t quite where it needs to be. Shame as the hardware is excellent.

 

[scottwiz105]

I have had a near identical experience with my HomePod mini’s since I got them this week. Bought two to pair in stereo but I cannot get them to both reliably play music at the same time. They say they are paired in the home app, I can get them to ping left and right (all though this can be hit and miss) but I can only ever get one to play music. I also got the same message about the network not supporting peer to peer but I never got this message on my pair of standard homepods which are happily paired in stereo.

My last thing to try will be to try adding the two HomePod minis to a different router to see if that improves performance. Otherwise, it will be a case of reporting the issue to apple and waiting to see if they fix it in a software update. Feels to me like the software isn’t quite where it needs to be. Shame as the hardware is excellent.

I should be getting a call back from Apple tech support tomorrow to continue trouble shooting, but at this point I’m not confident of a fix without a software update. I honestly only bought these for a stereo pair to replace some a pair of echo studios in my office for music that are also buggy. It seems like others haven’t had any problems in their setups, so I’m hoping to try replacing once. If that doesn’t resolve it, I’m just returning them and I’ll go with a pair of Sonos One’s as I have a pair in my kitchen that I never have problems with.

The peer to peer network thing I did some research on and it seems like some people had issues with their network name, specifically having a space in it. I don’t have a space, but there is a hyphen, so I’m wondering if that’s maybe what’s causing issues. Honestly though, I’m not sure why a space or a hyphen should matter. I have so many devices to change if I have to change my network name that it’s almost not worth it.

 

[Ansath]

Stupid HomePod mini is still spannering with working perfectly as a stereo pair. I'm still having it decide to suddenly switch from audio out of both, to just the left for a few seconds, then normal then just to the right for 20 seconds. This is when natively streaming from Podcasts or Music.

 

[Bogstandard]

I see the hyoe of the hand off feature on the mini, but I used to have handoff on my first home pod.
I did not use it much and it seems not to work at all now.