HomeKit HomeKits Multiroom Music Reliability

[stocklen]

Hi All

So, quick question to find out everyones experiences here.

Ive recently converted an Alexa only multi room speaker system to a HomePod mini one using HomeKit. Long story but wanted my Sonos Arc to be part of multiroom but got fed up waiting for it so decided to convert. I have 5 minis now, 2 of which are a stereo pair.

Now, Ive found a number of pros, and cons to the conversion.... and using the Home app has been interesting as I hadn't paid much attention to it before.

My timing sucks. I got the HomePod minis when 15.1 was released so they updated immediately to that and I understand that introduced issues which 15.1.1 has fixed - all of mine are updated once again to this.

However to say that there are things that often dont work is an understatement.

I used to be able to say "alexa play music everywhere'..... and 9 times out of 10 it would work fine. These things always have the odd niggle in Alexa which are often fixed by re-issuing the command.

When I say 'Hey Siri play music everywhere' I often find that some speakers just aren't playing. I then try 'Move this everywhere' and sometimes it kicks off another speaker to join in sometimes not. Sometimes speakers are stubbornly refusing to play ball. I find it hard to know how to fix this as re-issuing the command doesn't seem to work. I dont really want to have to restart a HomePod and restarting the Home app isnt the way either.


The news doesn't work all the time - the 'whats my update' doesn't seem to lead into news which I can see in this forum is something thats currently broken for a lot of people.

I use alarms of course.. and the bedroom HomePod is set to wake up with a radio station. This has worked maybe 2 times in the last week. Once it had decided to switch off the alarm altogether in the home app (as a result of the 15.1.1 update i think) so good job my body clock woke me up that day!. It 'worked' this morning but with an alarm and not a radio station however this is exactly the same behaviour Ive had with Alexas over the years where if it cant get the radio station it resorts to an alarm.

I dont regret the change at all, but this is feeling like a very immature system in comparison the the Alexa setup however the HomePods have been out plenty long enough and HomeKit has been a thing for many years and im surprised at the level of ropeyness.

This isnt a bash HomeKit thread but id like some genuine hints and tips as to how to troubleshoot these things.

 

[dotme]

When I say 'Hey Siri play music everywhere' I often find that some speakers just aren't playing. I then try 'Move this everywhere' and sometimes it kicks off another speaker to join in sometimes not.

This is an indicator of underperforming or misconfigured WiFi. What is the setup there?

 

[stocklen]

This is an indicator of underperforming or misconfigured WiFi. What is the setup there?

pretty sure that isn't the issue. I have a great Eero mesh network and pretty much every device in the house has a near full signal - definitely true of the HomePods.

 

[stocklen]

So, this morning my 'radio alarm' worked but for about 5 seconds. The radio came on at 7am to the correct station but 5 seconds later. silence.

I then asked siri to play 'radio x' - no response. I couldn't get it to work at all.

I then resorted to my iPhone and got the radio there and asked it play radio X everywhere and it started to play just in the bedroom.

When I left the bedroom I tried many times 'move this everywhere' but it just responded with 'moving this in here' and continued playing.

I then tried 'listen to radio x everywhere' and it kept responding 'now playing blah blah (sorry cant recall the station but it wasn't radio x)' but remained silent.

I then went back to my phone and tried 'play radio x everywhere' at which point it started playing on all other speakers except for the bedroom ones that remained silent.

Am I doing something wrong with multi room?
Should I set up specific zones - including my own custom 'everywhere' so as not to reply on its own interpretation of that?

I have also found that as impressive as the far field microphones are... the bedroom ones seem to always respond infuriatingly regardless of where i am. Im in a medium sized house but with 5 HomePod minis there are others far closer and yet the bedroom always responds. This is useless for 'turn on the lights'. I can literally be sat 2 foot away from my mini on my desk and say 'hey siri' and the bedroom (next door) responds.

Anyone with far more experience with multi room HomePods able to advise here?

 

[dotme]

pretty sure that isn't the issue. I have a great Eero mesh network and pretty much every device in the house has a near full signal - definitely true of the HomePods.

I own 14 HomePods (9 OGs and 5 Minis). I can AirPlay to all of them simultaneously with no trouble. Four are standalone, the remaining 10 are stereo-paired. All are on 15.1.1 - So the whole-house audio thing does work.

Please understand I'm not criticizing your WiFi, just encouraging you to consider that it may be in the mix (Or at least not rule it out). AirPlay is a very "chatty" protocol requiring a ton of back and forth between nodes as they all attempt to stay in sync. I agree that 5 Minis shouldn't be taxing to the network, but I also don't know the density where you live. For example if you are in a shared building with other tenants also running WiFi, overlap/congestion becomes a possibility. Or it could be a beacon/mesh issue as well.

I don't have any tips for you on the wrong HomePod answering to Hey Siri. I ended up disabling Hey Siri on a few of mine just to cut down on the annoyance a bit.

 

[stocklen]

I own 14 HomePods (9 OGs and 5 Minis). I can AirPlay to all of them simultaneously with no trouble. Four are standalone, the remaining 10 are stereo-paired. All are on 15.1.1 - So the whole-house audio thing does work.

Please understand I'm not criticizing your WiFi, just encouraging you to consider that it may be in the mix (Or at least not rule it out). AirPlay is a very "chatty" protocol requiring a ton of back and forth between nodes as they all attempt to stay in sync. I agree that 5 Minis shouldn't be taxing to the network, but I also don't know the density where you live. For example if you are in a shared building with other tenants also running WiFi, overlap/congestion becomes a possibility. Or it could be a beacon/mesh issue as well.

I don't have any tips for you on the wrong HomePod answering to Hey Siri. I ended up disabling Hey Siri on a few of mine just to cut down on the annoyance a bit.

its ok I appreciate your advice.

Im quite sure that the wifi is fine. I also understand how it could be an issue for some.

Ive replaced a perfectly fine functioning Alexa system (no wifi issues) with a ropey HomeKit one


I think I will set some zones up.

Do you have zones in your setup?

 

[diego.caraballo]

I use multi-room audio without issues.
Regarding zones: the Home app uses the room name as a "zone".
So, make sure that the mini's are placed on the correspondent room (ie Bedroom, Kitchen) in the Home app.
Also, turn off all of them. Factory reset and add one by one, testing each time if the setup is working fine.

Also, as dotme said: turn OFF Siri where not needed. I don't use "Hey Siri" on my devices but my GF does. When she ask something to Siri (play music, turn on a light) is much slower on her side that when I ask.

 

[stocklen]

Thank you

They are all new and its a fresh setup. I don't think I need to factory reset just yet at this juncture.

All rooms are present and correct and all HomePods are assigned to the correct rooms. Im quite experienced with the Alexa app and the concepts therein and ensured that the Home app was similarly correctly configured.


I read somewhere that the classic 'turn off and on again" (ie unplug) was a solution for some issues like this.


Ive been checking this all out again this evening and its so unpredictable as to what works where and when. So frustrating.

 

[diego.caraballo]

You did 2 software updates, so it’s worth the trouble of reset and re-pair. 5 mini’s could take around 20 minutes. Sometimes strangers things happens and the best way is to start all over again. If you add one by one it could give you a better picture of what’s happening on.

 

[stocklen]

You did 2 software updates, so it’s worth the trouble of reset and re-pair. 5 mini’s could take around 20 minutes. Sometimes strangers things happens and the best way is to start all over again. If you add one by one it could give you a better picture of what’s happening on.

I’ll give it a go. One at a time or all at once?

Interesting happening this morning.

The 7 am alarm worked and played the correct radio station. However I was aware that it was also playing elsewhere in the house.

When I tried ‘move this everywhere’ it again responded with ‘moving this in here’ and it remained in the bedroom (having stopped also whichever other speakers were playing). I tried a couple more times and it insisted on ‘Moving this in here’.
Out of exasperation i then tried ‘move this to the everywhere group’ and this time it worked. No idea why but at that point I finally got what I wanted which was all the AirPlay speakers in the house playing the radio station.


If this isnt common HomeKit ropey behaviour then a reset is in order.

 

[diego.caraballo]

I’ll give it a go. One at a time or all at once?

Interesting happening this morning.

The 7 am alarm worked and played the correct radio station. However I was aware that it was also playing elsewhere in the house.

When I tried ‘move this everywhere’ it again responded with ‘moving this in here’ and it remained in the bedroom (having stopped also whichever other speakers were playing). I tried a couple more times and it insisted on ‘Moving this in here’.
Out of exasperation i then tried ‘move this to the everywhere group’ and this time it worked. No idea why but at that point I finally got what I wanted which was all the AirPlay speakers in the house playing the radio station.


If this isnt common HomeKit ropey behaviour then a reset is in order.

I will give it a go one by one. (Remove all of them from Home, reset one, add one, test, reset another, add it, test...)
Even if working well, I would restart the EERO just in case before adding the HP mini's again.

Not sure if you can use move to everywhere. Maybe "Play this everywhere"?
Most annoying thing of Siri for me is that the commands should be exactly as he/she is expecting.

Here's the official command list:

Control audio with Siri on HomePod

Use Siri on HomePod to play audio, control multiple speakers, get news, and more.

support.apple.com

 

[stocklen]

I will give it a go one by one. (Remove all of them from Home, reset one, add one, test, reset another, add it, test...)
Even if working well, I would restart the EERO just in case before adding the HP mini's again.

Not sure if you can use move to everywhere. Maybe "Play this everywhere"?
Most annoying thing of Siri for me is that the commands should be exactly as he/she is expecting.

Here's the official command list:

Control audio with Siri on HomePod

Use Siri on HomePod to play audio, control multiple speakers, get news, and more.

support.apple.com

Thank you

That link to apple was really helpful.


Might just be a case of syntax. Im coming from a predominately Alexa based smart home setup where syntax isn't really all that important mostly.

There's a but to get used to.

Looks like 'play this everywhere' works.

I learned a fair bit of additional functionality from that link too. thanks.