HomePod HomePod Multi Room Music Issues - After much investigation.....

[stocklen]

After much discussion on here in various threads.... my experience of multi room music using HomePods remains as ropey as ever even with multiple OS upgrades over the last few years.

Long story short is that multi room music with HomePods is very hit and miss and although it goes through periods of relative stability for me... lately its been terrible.

I ended up doing something drastic which still didnt help... there was an 'accepted' fact that anything over 6 HomePods in one house gave problems...
For various reasons, I decided to replace a stereo pair of HomePod minis with a Sonos Era 100 - making my home 6 HomePods, and now 2 Sonos speakers.... (I already had Sonos so adding to that was not really an issue).

However..... addressing the HomePods and saying 'Siri, play music everywhere' simply didnt work sometimes or lately most of the time. Very frustrating.

In the past, I have then resorted to reaching for the iPhone and playing music there via the music app and then selecting manually each airplay 2 speaker including the HomePods and the Sonos... slow but usually worked.

But, I have now found something that works pretty much all the time, and certainly when the Siri command direct to the HomePod does not...

The solution to me now is to use Siri on the iPhone instead of the HomePod. My iPhone has 'hey siri' turned off mostly because of the confusion it always cased in a house full of HomePods....
So, I pick up the phone, press and hold the lock button to invoke Siri, and say "Play Music everywhere" - and so far, every time (which is a miracle) it has started paying all round the house including the HomePods and the Sonos speakers which is just what I need it to do. The key here is that it so far works every time.

Now, this is not what I was expecting to find and yet shines a light on how bizarre and annoying the issue is. Why can i address my iPhone with 100% success, and yet when I address the HomePods direct with the same command they struggle to work.

Anyone else with similar experiences? Id be interested to know how it works for you and also any theories as to why addressing the HomePods with the same command is just so hit and miss.

 

[Itinj24]

I have this same issue with timed commands. When I get out of the shower, I ask the HomePod to turn off the exhaust fan in 20 minutes. Most of the time I get a response of “who is speaking?” “I don’t recognize your voice, you can turn on voice recognition in the home app.” (It is and always was turned on).

If I do it on my iPhone, it works 100% of the time without fuss.

The truth of the matter is, Siri on the HomePod is and always was a steaming pile of elephant dung.

Hopefully with the new generative AI plans for Siri coming up in OS 18, we’ll see some improvements.

But I also wonder if it has anything to do with the old chips they’re using in HomePods. Mostly recycled from old devices. I knew once they announced the new HomePod with an Apple Watch chip, it would be trash and in line with Siri in the Apple Watch which has also always been trash.

 

[stocklen]

I have this same issue with timed commands. When I get out of the shower, I ask the HomePod to turn off the exhaust fan in 20 minutes. Most of the time I get a response of “who is speaking?” “I don’t recognize your voice, you can turn on voice recognition in the home app.” (It is and always was turned on).

If I do it on my iPhone, it works 100% of the time without fuss.

The truth of the matter is, Siri on the HomePod is and always was a steaming pile of elephant dung.

Hopefully with the new generative AI plans for Siri coming up in OS 18, we’ll see some improvements.

But I also wonder if it has anything to do with the old chips they’re using in HomePods. Mostly recycled from old devices. I knew once they announced the new HomePod with an Apple Watch chip, it would be trash and in line with Siri in the Apple Watch which has also always been trash.

I agree in that as I said... it really does 100% boil down to Siri in the Homepods.

Im sure the chip cant have much to do with it.. Apple Watch or not - because they are still powerful chips and im sure much more powerful than anything found in Amazon Echo devices.

However, its baffling to me that there is a difference in reliability for Siri in one device vs another.

My experiment continues and it's certainly as definitive as it can be now.... using Siri on the iPhone to instigate multi room music playing is certainly as close to 100% reliable as you can hope for.

 

[stocklen]

seems I spoke a little too soon.

OK, so not as catastrophically bad as usual but today I found that a single HomePod mini was silent when the rest of the house was playing music.

Again, instigated via Siri on the iPhone and its been pretty stable.

So, I have to rescind my 100% of the time statement and its more like 90%... but thats still better than asking the HomePods direct to do the same thing.

 

[Itinj24]

seems I spoke a little too soon.

OK, so not as catastrophically bad as usual but today I found that a single HomePod mini was silent when the rest of the house was playing music.

Again, instigated via Siri on the iPhone and its been pretty stable.

So, I have to rescind my 100% of the time statement and its more like 90%... but thats still better than asking the HomePods direct to do the same thing.

Glitches happen every now and again. I wouldn’t be too worried about that one.

 

[malcky77]

I have not tried this with multiple HomePods, but could you set up a scene whereby you select all your HomePods to play music....and call the automation something like "music time".....so then you just need to say "Hey Siri, Music Time"

I have this exact scene, and it works for me.....but I only have 1 HomePod for that scene selected......I do have 4 HomePods, but only need 1 HomePod for that scene in my setup.

The only downside is that you have to select the music it plays for the scene....so it will always be the same playlist to start off with......but then you can just use Siri to change the music once its started......assuming it works when using multiple HomePods????

 

[stocklen]

I have not tried this with multiple HomePods, but could you set up a scene whereby you select all your HomePods to play music....and call the automation something like "music time".....so then you just need to say "Hey Siri, Music Time"

I have this exact scene, and it works for me.....but I only have 1 HomePod for that scene selected......I do have 4 HomePods, but only need 1 HomePod for that scene in my setup.

The only downside is that you have to select the music it plays for the scene....so it will always be the same playlist to start off with......but then you can just use Siri to change the music once its started......assuming it works when using multiple HomePods????

Ive actually just done something a little different but promising.

So, ive set up a simple shortcut.

The shortcut first sets airplay destination to 'room 1'. It then adds an airplay destination of 'room 2', then adds destination 'room 3' etc etc. and finally it plays a radio station that I listen to.
Selecting the radio station was rather fussy but I found it in the play music section picking it from my recently listened to stuff.

Now, I have a shortcut button to play Radio X everywhere. I can also use Siri on the phone to run the shortcut.

I need to delve deeper here but im going to see how this works for now and make things more sophisticated later.