Still no better with the latest 15.3 beta 2. I’ve updated all devices and it’s still as crap as ever. Apple are a pathetic joke. Not one of the multitude of issues that I’ve got have been fixed since they were introduced with the original 15.0.
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HomePod HomePod becoming useless!
- Thread starter clg82
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Still no better with the latest 15.3 beta 2. I’ve updated all devices and it’s still as crap as ever. Apple are a pathetic joke. Not one of the multitude of issues that I’ve got have been fixed since they were introduced with the original 15.0.
I figured nothing will change. Not holding my breath for any fixes, that’s for sure.
If you don’t get the option to add timers, it usually means either you’re on a different network than the HomePods or they’re not getting a good connection to the internet.
Or Apple software is just crap.
I just have one network, phone is on it, Homepods are within 2m of router. Same place as they’ve been for 12 months.
One Homepod displays that, the other is fine. So unless the homepod is on its way out. But that one takes all the requests lights etc do doesn’t seem to be
i noticed sometimes the Timer option takes a minute or so to load up. Try force closing the Home app and re-opening.
Lutron caseta here and I’m getting the last response sometimes as well. Siri will say it’s taking to long but the task is already done. Or she’ll say she can’t do it or whatever but next time she’ll do it. half the time she does work correctly.
Just want to add my 2c worth here.
I deliberately (yes, you read that right) recently switched my smart home system from multiple Amazon Echos to multiple HomePod minis.
I can concur the following but my view is a bit more balanced.
Pros:
Contrary to posts further up this thread, I find that the microphone response is significantly better than Amazon echos. With the echos I might struggle to make myself heard sometimes but the HomePods always hear me.
The sound quality of the minis is fine. Good. not stellar, but good for the size and better than they have a right to be. The stereo pair sounds much better of course and the sound isn't bad for the size and price.
Cons:
Most of the posters in here are spot on.
Ive been shocked by some of the flakiness of the HomeKit setup. The Amazon echos were far more stable (although occasionally just lost the plot and needed a reboot).
When it goes wrong, it GOES WRONG and there's not much you can do about it... and what shocks me is its all server-side issues. Yes, Ive seen lights respond followed by a pregnant pause and the message 'somethings gone wrong' when it clearly hasn't.
Handoff for me look amazing in YouTube videos... not so much for me! Every time I try to demonstrate it it just doesnt work and I look stupid.
My biggest issue which ive created a separate thread about is that sometimes a single HomePod takes it upon itself to respond to each and EVERY request regardless of how far away it is - this is sooooooo bloody annoying. However ill say this:
As annoying as that problem is to live with... shockingly it comes and goes.. therefore I don't blame the hardware, or even the OS, but something server side is causing problems and weird happenings and THAT is unacceptable, Apple. Sort it out.
Having said that I don't regret my move. There are certain things that work better than Amazon's ecosystem but I have faith that Apple need this to succeed, they need it to be better and as its software related they will sort it sometime. HomeKit itself also needs much greater support and I truly hope that Matter sorts that out in the near term.
I deliberately (yes, you read that right) recently switched my smart home system from multiple Amazon Echos to multiple HomePod minis.
I can concur the following but my view is a bit more balanced.
Pros:
Contrary to posts further up this thread, I find that the microphone response is significantly better than Amazon echos. With the echos I might struggle to make myself heard sometimes but the HomePods always hear me.
The sound quality of the minis is fine. Good. not stellar, but good for the size and better than they have a right to be. The stereo pair sounds much better of course and the sound isn't bad for the size and price.
Cons:
Most of the posters in here are spot on.
Ive been shocked by some of the flakiness of the HomeKit setup. The Amazon echos were far more stable (although occasionally just lost the plot and needed a reboot).
When it goes wrong, it GOES WRONG and there's not much you can do about it... and what shocks me is its all server-side issues. Yes, Ive seen lights respond followed by a pregnant pause and the message 'somethings gone wrong' when it clearly hasn't.
Handoff for me look amazing in YouTube videos... not so much for me! Every time I try to demonstrate it it just doesnt work and I look stupid.
My biggest issue which ive created a separate thread about is that sometimes a single HomePod takes it upon itself to respond to each and EVERY request regardless of how far away it is - this is sooooooo bloody annoying. However ill say this:
As annoying as that problem is to live with... shockingly it comes and goes.. therefore I don't blame the hardware, or even the OS, but something server side is causing problems and weird happenings and THAT is unacceptable, Apple. Sort it out.
Having said that I don't regret my move. There are certain things that work better than Amazon's ecosystem but I have faith that Apple need this to succeed, they need it to be better and as its software related they will sort it sometime. HomeKit itself also needs much greater support and I truly hope that Matter sorts that out in the near term.
I did the same thing last summer. This has essentially been my experience with the three HomePod minis we have around the house (two paired in the living room). I made a decision to leave the Amazon fold after I got tired of Alexa 'suggesting' things based on my purchasing history, giving me random tips, or whatever else. I have a 16 month old daughter - there's enough noise in the household as it is without having my tech yapping at me without being asked!
Someone mentioned Apple software not being perfect (or even good), but HomeKit/Siri is a next level mess. I made the transition under OS 14 and hoped 15 would solve a lot of the problems, but it's only made things worse. Stuff that works one minute doesn't work the next - last week all of my minis suddenly stopped being able to use Location Services (yes, it's on) and have no idea where we live. A homepod in my bedroom responding to voice commands when I'm a foot away from the minis in my living room. Being told to 'hang on' when I'm just trying to adjust the volume. The Home app itself is the kind of thing I'd expect from a non-tech company hastily throwing an app together to make its products 'smart'. It's buggy, slow, and the UI is a disaster. It's the most un-Apple-like Apple app on my phone.
The good news is AirPlay still works consistently so the minis aren't a waste. And Siri doesn't suddenly start yapping at me out of the blue like Alexa did. I can bypass Siri and use Control Center to turn lights on and off. But it blows my mind that Apple allows this ecosystem to remain like this. I'm beginning to think that Apple hasn't fixed the problems because it doesn't know how, or has the wrong people working on it. Maybe it's time to tear it all down, bring in new folks, and start fresh.
I agree
But on the hopefully positive side, Apple certainly seem invested in the Home and HomePod as a product. They may well have ditched the full-fat HomePod which is still baffling but maybe to be replaced in the future... but the minis seem far more popular, and will give apple the foothold and motivation to make them actually work well someday!
But on the hopefully positive side, Apple certainly seem invested in the Home and HomePod as a product. They may well have ditched the full-fat HomePod which is still baffling but maybe to be replaced in the future... but the minis seem far more popular, and will give apple the foothold and motivation to make them actually work well someday!
I might have exaggerated on how often Siri works. Honestly she works properly more like 80% of the time. I’m baffled when she tells me it’s taking awhile and it’s already done though. Actually 80% might even be a low estimate because sometimes she doesn’t work because she doesn’t understand my dictation. I found that rooms labeled rooms like classroom or dining room are hard for her to understand so I sub named them class and Dining. The HomePod are great sounding I think for what they are. They can be a little slow to turn on lights when compared to just using the HomeKit.
I had a lot of issues with no response when I first setup my smart home. I’ve learned l that a good internet connection is extremely important and I’ve also replaced a couple of flaky outlets that I think where causing issues. oddly the only thing still giving me issues though is the HomePods they tend to go into a no response mode randomly and it doesn’t matter if it’s the one furthest from my connection or closest to my router. With that said. my Internet has been flawless lately and I have not had almost any issue. I feel like this post was important because, I didn’t want to sound ungrateful the smart home ecosystem with Apple to me is absolutely amazing I love it and I’m all in. I’ve never owned an Apple product until June of last year. I wanted a small phone and I despise the way Apple sells their products but I took the plunge. I can get past apple bleeding their customers dry with their sales tactics because Google and Amazon are no better. They might be worse, their selling your life and profiting. Anyway I’m off subject. I like Apple’s system because it claims it’s more secure and private. I’m not smart enough to know if it’s true but I’m wise enough to know Google and Amazon make their money from selling your life.
I had a lot of issues with no response when I first setup my smart home. I’ve learned l that a good internet connection is extremely important and I’ve also replaced a couple of flaky outlets that I think where causing issues. oddly the only thing still giving me issues though is the HomePods they tend to go into a no response mode randomly and it doesn’t matter if it’s the one furthest from my connection or closest to my router. With that said. my Internet has been flawless lately and I have not had almost any issue. I feel like this post was important because, I didn’t want to sound ungrateful the smart home ecosystem with Apple to me is absolutely amazing I love it and I’m all in. I’ve never owned an Apple product until June of last year. I wanted a small phone and I despise the way Apple sells their products but I took the plunge. I can get past apple bleeding their customers dry with their sales tactics because Google and Amazon are no better. They might be worse, their selling your life and profiting. Anyway I’m off subject. I like Apple’s system because it claims it’s more secure and private. I’m not smart enough to know if it’s true but I’m wise enough to know Google and Amazon make their money from selling your life.
For balance again, coming from an Amazon Echo house and switching...
Although Siri is super flaky, and not a patch on Alexa.... almost everything you describe can and does happen with Echo devices too. I had to reboot all my Echos a handful of times.
Alexa can not hear as well and its mics are worse than HomePods in that respect - im seriously impressed sometimes how HomePods can cut through very loud background noise to hear the commands whereas Echos would struggle at best.
The big difference is that although Echo devices glitch in similar ways.... but taking your percentage analogy i say that Echos work flawlessly in excess of 90% of the time.
Also out of interest although HomePod does occasionally say 'working on it' or 'i cant do x,y,z' i laugh at it when I ask to turn off the lights and it does so then reports back it couldn't. I have to say though that although there is not much in it... I find that the HomePods when working correctly turn off the Hue Lights noticeably faster than Echo ever could.
I have to say that I tend to agree with the general comments on the HomePod here. The HomePod mini is not a replacement for the HomePod as it sounds terrible when compared to the HomePod and sounds no better than Amazon Echo speakers which have a better AI assistant. The HomePod is a very good speaker with very poor software and appalling connectivity.
I have 7 HomePods in 3 stereo pairs and a singleton spread around house. They do not replace my high end audio system and multimedia TV system but they provide high quality music entertainment when they work. The only stand alone powered speaker system I have that beats them is my NAIM MuSo 2 but that is 4 times the price!!
My current gripe is that HomePods no longer reliably stream from Apple Music. I tend to store my music on all my machines - Macs, iPhones and iPads (I do not trust Apple or the internet) but when I stream from a Mac/iPad/iPhone to the HomePods, Apple tends to move to stream from the cloud/iCloud/Apple Music where it is also stored and abandons the direct connection from my device. The problem is that it is unreliable. The HomePods will intermittently stop streaming a track and move to the next track, but only when it is streaming from the cloud/Apple Music. I can stream from my computers to other Airplay 2 devices with no problem (eg. my NAIM) whatsoever, but you try doing this on the HomePods and you get this constant stopping and starting. If you can keep the HomePods streaming from the computer it is fine, but after some indeterminant period it switches to the cloud. Note that they used to work without a problem, it seems to have started with new music options (lossless, spatial, but I turned them off to check whether they caused an issue) and/or software 15.2.
I initially thought this was caused by my internet connection, but I have no problems with anything other than the HomePods (all 7 of them). I can stream to my computers from the cloud without problem. I have reset the HomePods back to factory and reset them up with no change to their behavior several times. These are great speakers but they are about to be dumped and it is a terrible shame. You do not even have the option to physically connect to them or connect via BT. Airplay or nothing and it is broken. So sad.
I have 7 HomePods in 3 stereo pairs and a singleton spread around house. They do not replace my high end audio system and multimedia TV system but they provide high quality music entertainment when they work. The only stand alone powered speaker system I have that beats them is my NAIM MuSo 2 but that is 4 times the price!!
My current gripe is that HomePods no longer reliably stream from Apple Music. I tend to store my music on all my machines - Macs, iPhones and iPads (I do not trust Apple or the internet) but when I stream from a Mac/iPad/iPhone to the HomePods, Apple tends to move to stream from the cloud/iCloud/Apple Music where it is also stored and abandons the direct connection from my device. The problem is that it is unreliable. The HomePods will intermittently stop streaming a track and move to the next track, but only when it is streaming from the cloud/Apple Music. I can stream from my computers to other Airplay 2 devices with no problem (eg. my NAIM) whatsoever, but you try doing this on the HomePods and you get this constant stopping and starting. If you can keep the HomePods streaming from the computer it is fine, but after some indeterminant period it switches to the cloud. Note that they used to work without a problem, it seems to have started with new music options (lossless, spatial, but I turned them off to check whether they caused an issue) and/or software 15.2.
I initially thought this was caused by my internet connection, but I have no problems with anything other than the HomePods (all 7 of them). I can stream to my computers from the cloud without problem. I have reset the HomePods back to factory and reset them up with no change to their behavior several times. These are great speakers but they are about to be dumped and it is a terrible shame. You do not even have the option to physically connect to them or connect via BT. Airplay or nothing and it is broken. So sad.
Woke up this morning to find that not one of my HomePods will control any of my HomeKit, apart from power sockets.
I ask Siri to do something and the silly bitch says “on it”, “on it”, “this is taking a bit too long”… (or other such crap): this applies to lights, Soma smart shades etc
The whole experience just gets worse and worse.
Edit: just gone to play music and that doesn’t work either with the same errors. FFS!
Edit 2: can’t even add something to my shopping list now.
Edit 3: I should add for clarity and transparency that this is all using the latest development betas as of today’s date, but under these versions, it was working, as well as this load of crap does, until this morning.
I ask Siri to do something and the silly bitch says “on it”, “on it”, “this is taking a bit too long”… (or other such crap): this applies to lights, Soma smart shades etc
The whole experience just gets worse and worse.
Edit: just gone to play music and that doesn’t work either with the same errors. FFS!
Edit 2: can’t even add something to my shopping list now.
Edit 3: I should add for clarity and transparency that this is all using the latest development betas as of today’s date, but under these versions, it was working, as well as this load of crap does, until this morning.
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Maybe Apple's quality control people want more money or stock options but yeah the just works thing is bygone.
I had to leave my beloved HomePods behind for a full Sonos environment. So sad not to have Siri on the speaker but I still have a HomePod mini for voice and controlling my home but for music streaming I've moved over to Sonos. Their app is actually pretty good love that I can control it from my Mac,ipad, iPhone and it's all in sync. If Siri ever comes to Sonos it's game over for the HomePod.
Even if Siri ever does come to Sonos, it will need a HomePod to actually process the requests. That’s how the Ecobee Thermostats work and likely for any third party device. You could minimize the amount of HomePods you need though with this implementation.
Curious what other third party devices are going to get the Siri integration. I’m hoping it’s Sonos
A friend of mine at work complains his AirPod doesn’t work very well too. I went the Amazon route years ago as the devices were much cheaper and now they control everything from my lights to the cctv on my house. I find Alexa is much more accurate than Siri too. I tear my hair out asking Siri questions on my iPhone and Apple Watch whereas Alexa understands mostly first time.
Same for me on the latest beta. Reported feedback to apple
Can we just agree all smart speakers are terrible. All of them have an insane amount of limitations, poor sound quality, and often times require more steps to complete the same process you could just walk to your phone or tablet.
Literally the most useless device in mainstream tech that people have been tricked into thinking makes their lives more “convenient”.
Literally the most useless device in mainstream tech that people have been tricked into thinking makes their lives more “convenient”.
I kind of have to agree with this. Whilst the google nest and echo devices have some clear advantages over HomePods, there are nothing but complaints from users of both of those sets of devices. None of them are perfect. Just this morning I was reading a post over on reddit about somebody that was throwing all their google smart home stuff out because it wasn't working. Everyone was chiming in saying that they had the same experiences and then somebody posted that the HomePods were perfect and work all the time!
I think it's fair to say the grass is not always greener on the other side. However I don't think they are useless. I find them more interesting and useful than phones and tablets and computers despite their quirks.
Yup I still have two HomePod Minis plugged in and an Apple TV 4K hopefully that will handle the routing. I just hope Sonos brings the Siri function. I don't know if it's up to Apple or Sonos to allow it.