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I have seven HomePods; four originals organized as two stereo pairs - one pair in my living room and another pair in my woodshop, a single original in my wife's studio, and two HomePod Minis.

All are superb producing music and taking Siri commands- I have zero complaints with any of them. Hat-tip to Tim Cook for developing them!
Agreed on the quality. I have a stereo pair in my great room that I tend to use for Apple TV Audio over my really expensive Home Theater. For most situations the pair provide plenty of audio for my needs, and I only fire up the full home audio when I have a dedicated movie night these days.

Siri has greatly improved since it was introduced. It can’t match some of the abilities of Google Assistant just due to the more privacy focused system, however voice recognition itself has been better on Apple devices for me recently. I have Google Home and Home Pods in my household.
 
Although HomePods (and Airpods Max) sound great, there’s no way anyone is going to hear any difference on them between lossless and properly recorded aac256 - so I can’t see the point.

On the other hand, Dolby Atmos,spacial should be good :)
 
Have you run wireless audio sync for each of the video modes on your Apple TV? (4K SDR, 1080p SDR, 4K HDR, etc.)? It has to be run for each of those modes because the TV will have a slightly different delay for each one.
That's true and that feature works very well in my case. You also have to run it for each separate frame rate. Doing the whole lot can take awhile given how many options there are.

Edit: I don’t know when they added it but apparently we can now do a wireless audio sync for external sources.
 
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Did you try not using it for about 6 days? then try resetting it, you know finger down. You might need to ensure the volume is high enough to hear it, tap, tap the + a few times. I have one HomePod that seems to be susceptible to something (hacking, power spikes, out of phase power? who knows) and it stops working when in the kitchen. I have idled it for 4-6 days, then reset it successfully (no more kitchen your you HomePod). I'm still going with humidity or temperature (from bad power) as a guess, I mean they are enclosed units, but why take so long to reset a thermal trip?

anyway, it successfully resets and then works great. I am on 15 customer seed, There was a flaky wireless status where it said it was not on same network (even though it was). And with at least one version of beta, it was not recognized by iOS, but that was some beta iterations ago
Thanks for the info and help MauiPa. Unfortunately, I've tried all those things only to set HomePod back up and have it start making those super loud noises to which it then restarts. Have read quite a bit about it on the forums. It's only this one Homepod, my other 11 are all working correctly. From what I can tell, the problem Homepod was near beginning of production so they probably fixed problem moving forward. Still a damn expensive paperweight... I'll keep my fingers crossed, plug it back in and see what, if anything, this update does. Regardless, thank you for chiming in!
 
I’m still sad that Apple discounted the original. The sound is great. I wish they would just release a new one with a U1 chip in it, but that definitely isn’t happening.
Never say never.

Of course, the market is now flooded with an infinite number of low-cost vendors (I exclude Sonos because they were early adopters, I used to have them too). But maybe the excited market will calm down, similar to operating systems, and then Apple can regain ground with quality and a mature audience.
 
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Alongside the iOS 15.1 beta, Apple has also introduced a HomePod 15.1 beta that brings Lossless and Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio support to the HomePod and the HomePod mini.

HomePodandMini-feature-green.jpg

The HomePod beta software is invite only and is not provided to developers for testing purposes, but 9to5Mac was able to confirm that Lossless and Spatial Audio support are included in the beta.

Apple added Dolby Atmos with Spatial Audio and Lossless support to iOS and Mac devices in May, but promised that the feature would be coming to the HomePod and HomePod mini at a later time.

Lossless Audio and Dolby Atmos can be enabled through the Home app. Open up Home Settings, tap on your profile, and then under Media, tap on Apple Music. From there, toggle on Lossless Audio and Dolby Atmos. Note that these options appear in the iOS 15.1 beta, but the HomePod 15.1 beta seems to be needed to actually use the features on the HomePod.

If all goes well, these features should launch with the HomePod 15.1 software that is set to be released alongside iOS 15.1. Since the iOS 15.1 was just provided to developers today, we likely have several weeks of testing to go.

Article Link: HomePod 15.1 Beta Adds Lossless Audio and Dolby Atmos Support
Si if I update to 15.1 beta, will my Big HomePod be ok? It already sounds great with Dolby atmos, will lossless also come to movies and series? Or only Music?
 
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I've updated 2 HomePod Minis to 15.1 but cannot see the options?
Or is this basically not an option, but it just plays losless (or Dolby Atmos) when its available?
 
I've updated 2 HomePod Minis to 15.1 but cannot see the options?
Or is this basically not an option, but it just plays losless (or Dolby Atmos) when its available?
its supposed to be an option I didn't see it either. are you running iOS 15.1? im wondering if you need that installed as well. I didn't do it yet I as waiting till after my new phone comes so I don't have to install it on the new device wipe it and re setup etc etc
 
I've updated 2 HomePod Minis to 15.1 but cannot see the options?
Or is this basically not an option, but it just plays losless (or Dolby Atmos) when its available?
Is your iPhone updated as well? The option is clearly there. Article is clear. If you have set speakers as default audio output on Apple TV, go there
 
That's true and that feature works very well in my case. You also have to run it for each separate frame rate. Doing the whole lot can take awhile given how many options there are.

But what I wanted to say was, the feature doesn't work with an external source including the HomePods. Only to the tv speakers. Pretty stupid eh?
It is, especially how it works fine. Unless you have the new appletv that takes audio out from tv, make sure all of your audio processing on tv is off, it could be adding an echo
 
Would there be any chance this could fix the horrible problems the MiniHomePods have with synchronizing video (people's lip movement), with video sound with Macs? iOS 15 did not. I run two in stereo from my M1 MacMini and constantly have to re-boot after pausing the video, or sleeping the MacMini to synchronize video sound with video action.
On QuickTime? Mine works great, other apps may have their own issues
 
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Can someone with Homepods set as default audio confirm some behaviour for me?

I have 2 minis as a stereo pair with an AppleTV 4k (original version)

Setting them as default audio works, however

1. Siri remote doesn’t change volume of whatever is playing
2. The paired homepods are available as an Airplay Target for other devices however nothing plays (despite it seeming like they are the selected target)

I can change the volume of the default output using the TV remote, but this seems backwards to me.

Is this all expected behaviour?

Siri remote works fine, if you have set minis as default speakers, they will not appear as airplay, the appletv will.
Make sure your devices are all updated. I used to use windows, so old habits, I go through a power off (unplug) cycle after update
 
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Whelp I did the update and none of my HomePods will connect to the internet now:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
Same here - definitely not a network issue, definitely a Beta issue.

Installed on one HomePod (OG), and whilst the installation seemed fine, as soon as it restarted it's been unable to do anything -- all requests meet with a Siri alert that it's unable to connect to the Internet.

I was able to perform a hard reset (spinning red light) and after doing that, and re-pairing with an iPad, it worked for about 15 minutes, then it died again and no matter the number of restarts/unplugs, it won't work. Not quite a brick, but, close enough, functionality wise.

The device is seen on my network, has a DHCP lease, the IP is answering to ICMP, and all other devices are working just fine. Definitely a beta issue, so, beware. Reported via Feedback to Apple as well.
 
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Same here - definitely not a network issue, definitely a Beta issue.

Installed on one HomePod (OG), and whilst the installation seemed fine, as soon as it restarted it's been unable to do anything -- all requests meet with a Siri alert that it's unable to connect to the Internet.

I was able to perform a hard reset (spinning red light) and after doing that, and re-pairing with an iPad, it worked for about 15 minutes, then it died again and no matter the number of restarts/unplugs, it won't work. Not quite a brick, but, close enough, functionality wise.

The device is seen on my network, has a DHCP lease, the IP is answering to ICMP, and all other devices are working just fine. Definitely a beta issue, so, beware. Reported via Feedback to Apple as well.
And yet all mine work great. Did you power off router, power off or restart HomePods? If you have them set as default speaker, you must use Apple TV name in Siri query “hey Siri play album on living room tv”. Other than that, all my equipment is modern and updated to latest encryption

one more thing to check, if you have that iCloud plus feature of splitting the signal, it didn’t work for me in prior builds (private relay, make sure it is off) g”luck
 
I'm a little surprised that the HomePod continues to be sold and get software updates. I'd think Apple would get the hint.

I feel like Tim Cook's legacy should be remembered as being Siri. She was introduced at the first keynote where Tim lead, and despite the constant evidence that she needed massive improvements, he never did and instead just kept shoving her into more places she wasn't wanted.

Maybe Tim's successor will kill Siri as their first action. Then the HomePod.

It'll be like how Steve started his second run as CEO - he just axed all the stupid distractions that Apple had on their plate and focused on the core things that Apple should do right.

If you're going to sell a product at all, make it GREAT. And if it's not great, don't bother. HomePod and Siri are both things that should never have left R&D at Apple. The Apple Watch... has potential. Apple just keeps missing the mark. It feels like they need somebody new in-charge of the Apple Watch to bring it from OK to GREAT.
LOL, we found Elon's burner account. Your view of Tim's time at apple is myopic at best and agenda driven at worst.
 
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