HomePod HomePod becoming useless!

[The-Real-Deal82]

It’s worth mentioning that Apple stifled their chances of getting a huge chunk of their user base to choose HomePod by not allowing rival streaming services. They may have put less effort into the service as the adoption has been quite disappointing.

 

[StumpyBloke]

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.

I agree with this to a point. However my main complaint is that prior to the release of the 15 software HomeKit, for me at least, was very reliable across all of my devices. Now it’s not reliable on any of my devices.

 

[StumpyBloke]

And now absolutely everything on HomePod has stopped working, and I mean everything. On all of them. Anyway as I’m on a beta I can’t complain about that but it better be sorted soon. I just genuinely believe it will never get back to the relative reliability of software 14.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Same for me on the latest beta. Reported feedback to apple

Thanks for confirming. I’ve just said in a previous post that now absolutely everything has stopped working across the board on the HomePods.

 

[stocklen]

@StumpyBloke I mean this with the greatest of respect but whatever issues you are having with the beta are kindoff irrelevant. Your choice to run beta software and you know the risks involved.

Outside the beta... back in the world of 15.2....

Today its back to working. Yesterday that pesky bedroom HomePod decided it would be answering all queries.

Out of interest.... this is just when using 'hey siri' - if you tap and hold the top of the mini you are addressing... it then responds correctly.

 

[StumpyBloke]

@StumpyBloke I mean this with the greatest of respect but whatever issues you are having with the beta are kindoff irrelevant. Your choice to run beta software and you know the risks involved.

Outside the beta... back in the world of 15.2....

Today its back to working. Yesterday that pesky bedroom HomePod decided it would be answering all queries.

Out of interest.... this is just when using 'hey siri' - if you tap and hold the top of the mini you are addressing... it then responds correctly.

Absolutely I do, you’re right and I said that I can’t blame the beta above, but as said before all these issues came with the release of 15 back last year. It has not improved one iota since.

 

[Itinj24]

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.

Pretty sure it’s on Sonos now. Apple opened it up to third parties as highlighted at WWDC. Only Ecobee took advantage so far as I know.

 

[Melmanoh]

Pretty sure it’s on Sonos now. Apple opened it up to third parties as highlighted at WWDC. Only Ecobee took advantage so far as I know.

That's what I figured. I sure hope Sonos does it. I love their speakers and would keep buying their products if they included Siri.

 

[BobRey77]

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”.

No, we can't all just agree to that. My HomePods are functional and sound great. I use them to control my lights and my blinds and, of course, for home entertainment including music and home theatre. What's not to like?

 

[AL2TEACH]

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.

eh, you are not comparing HomePods to the Sonos Arch?

 

[AL2TEACH]

No, we can't all just agree to that. My HomePods are functional and sound great. I use them to control my lights and my blinds and, of course, for home entertainment including music and home theatre. What's not to like?

So far mine are working great but I use em just for music. Siri can uh mess up at times but 10 years from now, we will be telling the younger ones how we knew Siri when it was a baby, lol.

 

[stocklen]

eh, you are not comparing HomePods to the Sonos Arch?

no offence but ive found Sonos software to be worse than Apples in many ways.

I have a Sonos ARC and that happily sits as part of my multiroom HomeKit setup. Its actually the main reason I switched to HomePods from Alexa as Sonos refused to be part of Alexas multi room setup.

BUT

Sonos software is appallingly bad. I, myself had the most ridiculous hoops to jump though in order to change my router - simply changing wifi was a mission in itself and necessitated hours of googling, searching, and eventually having to run a network cable to one of the speakers in order to make it happen. Ridiculous.
It gets worse. My friend also has a Sonos Beam and he has moved house... is currently simply trying to re-setup the Beam but the Sonos software simply will.not.see.the.speaker!!!!!! so very very annoying.

Compare that experience to setting up a homepod and its night and day difference.

Its also the reason why I opted for HomePod minis to fill the house rather than my other choice which would have been Ikea Symfonisk bookshelf speakers. Sure, they would have worked and would arguably sound better than the HomePod mini but they are the identical price, do not have Siri built in... are physically bigger, and I just couldn't cope with the idea of expanding my reliance on Sonos's appalling software experience.

 

[Plett]

I have three homepods in my home, all of which I feel are starting to degrade in functionality over time. Has anyone else noticed this? When I first bought them and started using them in my home they were fantastic. Haven't changed anything within my network infrastructure to affect them. We all know Siri is miserable, but it seems lately she can't even do something as easy as set an alarm anymore. There seems to be some degradation in the microphones and it can't hear me as well. I even removed it from the home app, removed it from my account, restarted all of them and it doesn't seem to be getting better. Anyone else feel like there's are starting to become useless? My 10+ year old Echo Dot responds and does things more efficiently then these HomePods. I'm an Apple fanboy and this is starting to become frustrating.

I popped in to say "Yes". Not pleased, but I too am a fan boy and don't care for the alternatives at this point.

 

[Melmanoh]

eh, you are not comparing HomePods to the Sonos Arch?

No comparing to the two Sonos One's I have and the Beam. Also have a Roam and Move to me they sound better than both the OG HomePod and mini really no comparison to ears. Between the software and the sound with Sonos Apple has a hard battle. This is coming from an Apple Fanatic .

 

[Itinj24]

Just this morning, for the first time, I wanted to try out the shiny new feature of making a future request to turn off a HomeKit accessory. Have a stereo pair of HomePod Minis in my master bathroom and my exhaust fan hooked up to a Lutron Caseta switch. I took a shower and had to run out, but wanted to let the fan run for an hour before turning off…
“Hey Siri, turn off the the exhaust fan in one hour.”
“Working on it… Still on it… This is taking too long”
- I check the Home app and it created an automation for one hour with no devices selected and the automation disabled.
- Try again, same result
- Try on my iPhone Siri in the same location, worked perfectly.

 

[AL2TEACH]

no offence but ive found Sonos software to be worse than Apples in many ways...

okay, you mean the software.

 

[AL2TEACH]

No comparing to the two Sonos One's I have and the Beam. Also have a Roam and Move to me they sound better than both the OG HomePod and mini really no comparison to ears. Between the software and the sound with Sonos Apple has a hard battle. This is coming from an Apple Fanatic .

I was thinking of getting the Sonos Arch set-up but have to wait until I can hear the Sony HT-A9.

 

[S3rv3d]

Since my last post can no longer control ATV with the HomePods in the last week or so.

I used it to play/pause, turn on/off subtitles, reduce loud sounds, skip back etc.

All broken now.

Get responses there’s no screen here or nothing playing.

 

[stocklen]

Since my last post can no longer control ATV with the HomePods in the last week or so.

I used it to play/pause, turn on/off subtitles, reduce loud sounds, skip back etc.

All broken now.

Get responses there’s no screen here or nothing playing.

What surprises me the most about the HomePod setup is the fact that a lot of these issues are server-side problems.

This isnt surprising in itself as thats how all these smart speaker systems work Alexa included - the issue here is the unreliability of that connection and the seemingly random ways it manages to stop working or work OK one day then not the next.

This needs addressing.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Groups (Zones) are no longer working for me. If I ask it to play music upstairs it only starts on one of my HomePod minis. I have to manually select the others through control centre.

 

[stocklen]

Groups (Zones) are no longer working for me. If I ask it to play music upstairs it only starts on one of my HomePod minis. I have to manually select the others through control centre.

what's annoying though is I suspect that its working again.... for a while...
then stops... then works again.

 

[Shanghaichica]

what's annoying though is I suspect that its working again.... for a while...
then stops... then works again.

It was so ridiculous this morning. I asked to play music upstairs. Logically if it’s not going to work I expect it to work on the device that took the command. Nope didn’t start playback on that device just picked another homepod to start playback on.

 

[Semiopaque]

I have three homepods in my home, all of which I feel are starting to degrade in functionality over time. Has anyone else noticed this? When I first bought them and started using them in my home they were fantastic. Haven't changed anything within my network infrastructure to affect them. We all know Siri is miserable, but it seems lately she can't even do something as easy as set an alarm anymore. There seems to be some degradation in the microphones and it can't hear me as well. I even removed it from the home app, removed it from my account, restarted all of them and it doesn't seem to be getting better. Anyone else feel like there's are starting to become useless? My 10+ year old Echo Dot responds and does things more efficiently then these HomePods. I'm an Apple fanboy and this is starting to become frustrating.

Haven’t been on MacRumors for awhile, but came here to see if anyone else has been having this issue. For the last month of two everything seems to be rapidly degrading. I can’t even get my mini that I got a few months ago to set a timer. She hears me, says on it and then does nothing. Random pops on my older Homepods and music just drops out. Not mention the most annoying because she can’t always clearly hear me for whatever reason, when I try to turn off the bedroom lights she’s asks me which room and then proceeds to list off every single light in the house.

 

[C0re0]

Hi,

regarding random pops on the older Homepods (2018) and music just drops out: the popping is a widespread issue, see

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253251143

and there are different opinions what might be the cause.

In some cases, it seems to be caused by faulty hardware (i.e. defect amplifier IC). In other cases it may be caused by a software bug introduced with IOS 15. To differentiate between those two, you could check the Homepod analytics log: If there is an entry "panic full" this might be related to a software bug. If your homepod pops even in standby, it might be caused by a hardware fault. Apple seems to be aware of this problem because it is listed in 15.3

https://www.reddit.com/r/HomePod/comments/rlaz92

 

[B/D]

15.3 RC FINALLY shows some care for the Homepod platform. It fixes the dreaded popping (the software kind) and crackling audio issues that have been affecting people for a long time, it fixes A TON of small airplay bugs, and improves the overall speed, reliability. and responsiveness of Apple smart speakers.

Given that, in my opinion, the Homepod user experience have been in a steady decline since 14.6 was released, I´m hopeful, considering 15.3, that future tvOS releases (the homepods use a fork of tvOS) will confirm this as a change in the good direction.