HomePod HomePod 15 / iOS 15 'updated media controls' are garbage

[Feek]

What this seems to mean is that any of the iOS/iPadOS devices in my house (at least ten) are all displaying on their lock screens whatever is playing on the HomePod nearest to them. We have HomePods in every room, this is an absolute sodding nightmare.

My watch is doing the same - It's showing me what's playing on the HomePod nearest me, rather than the time!

The HomePod mini in my office is playing a radio station all day, it's doing it natively, not through the phone (I've proved this by putting the phone in flight mode). I neither need, nor want all the phones in the house to show what the nearest speaker is playing, it's pointless.

My daughter just spent ten minutes trying to get her phone to play some music out of the phone speaker instead of the HomePod it had decided to connect to. The only way she managed it was to restart her phone and start playing quickly.

There's got to be a way to switch this off, surely?

 

[Itinj24]

Pull down control center and tap on the AirPlay platter (top right). Tap on “Control other speakers and TVs” at the bottom. Then tap on whatever device you want to control. There are other ways to do this too.

How to switch it completely off, I don’t know.

Edit*. Looks like switching to the iPhone in the AirPlay platter also removed the controls from my Lock Screen.

 

[Feek]

Pull down control center and tap on the AirPlay platter (top right). Tap on “Control other speakers and TVs” at the bottom. Then tap on whatever device you want to control. There are other ways to do this too.

This is exactly what my daughter (and I) were doing for ten minutes earlier, we had her iPhone selected but it was still playing on one of the HomePod minis.

The problem is that if any of us pick up our phones, they're now automatically connecting to whatever HomePod is playing. That didn't happen before these new 'Updated Media Controls' in iOS/HomePod 15.

 

[Feek]

To give a further example. I shut down my office for the day and went into my radio shack. I looked at my phone and this is on the Lock Screen.

I don't care, I certainly don't want to be controlling that media.

I unlocked my phone, went to the music app, picked an album and hit play.

It started playing on the kitchen HomePod mini because it had automatically connected. I was able to switch away but this is utter gash.

 

[katbel]

What I don't like from Apple is even if I have updates turned off,
my HomePod already downloaded the update and
it's waiting for me to Install. Not going to happen with iOS 15 because too many issues for now.
If accidentally it instals itself- happened with appletv already twice, and I don't have iOS 15 on my iPad or iPhone
is it going to work anyway?