HomePod HomePod mini Unable to ‘transfer’ or ‘handoff’ audio to other source

[MrPresident]

Recently, whilst playing audio from my iPhone, I have been able to handoff to my music to one of my three HomePod’s.

“Hey Siri, play this audio in the living room” (Spoken to iPhone)

This is an amazing feature that I really enjoy. Once I have handed off audio from my iPhone to a HomePod, if I try to expand the audio to one of the other two HomePods

“Hey Siri, play this audio in the bedroom”

This is where the feature stops working. I get the response;

“I am unable to play this in the bedroom”

Why am I encountering this problem? Is the audio from my iPhone unable to be played by more than one source? Are my HomePods faulty? Is this a software problem?


Any insight appreciated.


iPhone 12 - latest update

HomePod mini - latest update

 

[waw74]

You should be able to play to multiple at once
what app are you playing in?

If it's Apple Music, then when you hand off, it actually hands playback duties off to the HomePod. so your phone isn't playing the audio anymore, it's just a remote for the player on the HomePod.

If it's anything else, it's still playing on your phone, and just being airplayed to the HomePod.

If the music is playing on your phone, You can ask siri to "play this everywhere"

if you want to play on more than one speaker, but not all of them, you have to do it with your finger
go to the airplay menu, and you can select the speakers you want there, as well as set individual volumes

You can access the airplay menu in the top right of control center, or if now playing is on your Lock Screen it will be there.
It's 3 circles with a triangle at the bottom.



although I did just do some exprimenting and it should work like you're trying to do it with siri.
try making it happen with your finger, to rule out a siri problem.

If that doesn't work, reboot your router, and wifi gear, and all HomePods

if it still doesn't work, try resetting that HomePod to factory, and then set it up again.

 

[MrPresident]

You should be able to play to multiple at once
what app are you playing in?

If it's Apple Music, then when you hand off, it actually hands playback duties off to the HomePod. so your phone isn't playing the audio anymore, it's just a remote for the player on the HomePod.

If it's anything else, it's still playing on your phone, and just being airplayed to the HomePod.

If the music is playing on your phone, You can ask siri to "play this everywhere"

if you want to play on more than one speaker, but not all of them, you have to do it with your finger
go to the airplay menu, and you can select the speakers you want there, as well as set individual volumes

You can access the airplay menu in the top right of control center, or if now playing is on your Lock Screen it will be there.
It's 3 circles with a triangle at the bottom.



although I did just do some exprimenting and it should work like you're trying to do it with siri.
try making it happen with your finger, to rule out a siri problem.

If that doesn't work, reboot your router, and wifi gear, and all HomePods

if it still doesn't work, try resetting that HomePod to factory, and then set it up again.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

I am using Apple Music. I have also tried this with my Music Library; I am an iTunes Match subscriber, and it still does not allow me to transfer the audio after initially transferring it to the first HomePod.

What I have noticed is that in the control centre, the source of the audio is still the iPhone with the HomePod acting as an connected device, so to speak. If I was to address one of the HomePods directly; “Hey Siri, play album by artist”, then the HomePod acts as the source of the audio and is able to distribute it freely to other HomePods.

I tried your suggestion of “Hey Siri, play this every where” and the audio is handed off immediately to all AirPlay enabled devices and continues to play using the iPhone as the source. From this, it is clear that the iPhone is able to handle communicating with multiple speakers.

The problem only seems to occur after one device has been used. After the initial transfer the audio can only return to the iPhone. Even the “Hey Siri, play everywhere” command (directed at the HomePod) results in Siri replying “Sorry, I couldn’t play this on other speakers”.

It seems that the only workaround currently is to manually use the control centre to send the audio signal to specific additional sources. A minor inconvenience but disappointing none the less.

I did try your suggestion of rebooting the network and restarting all devices several times before I made this post to no avail.

I’m guessing this is a feature that is yet to be implemented, which is strange given that the functionality exists to achieve what I am attempting.

Appreciate the input, let me know if you have any further thoughts.