HomePod HomePod noticeably slower after iOS 15

[B/D]

So, let me explain. While 15.4/15.4.1 finally restored the sound quality of the OG homepods to what it used to be (and improved sound quality on the mini as well), and Homekit/Siri was better to me that on previous updates, I still felt that my Homepods were slower than they should be. It was inconsistent, but they were.

Sometimes, a request would still take an abnormal amount of time to load, particularly Apple music requests. Sometimes, a homekit scene would get stuck for no reason. Sometimes, Siri would stop talking in the middle of an answer (¡very spooky!), o would give flat out crazy responses. On top of that, Apple music lossless songs would buffer and pop from time to time.

Yesterday, I decided to call Apple again. Explained them the situation. And to my surprise, they said something very specific "do you have any Apple TV in the house?. If so, could you try to disable all of them as homekit hubs AND disable the "find nearby airpods" feature?.

I think we´ve finally found the cause of the erratic performance of Siri/Homekit on the homepods. Its not the analytics. Its those settings, and the underlying interaction that they cause between homepods and apple tv´s, when they are in the same network".

Reluctanly, I disabled those settings in both my Apple TV 4K in the living room and my Apple TV HD in my bedroom and rebooted them.

And the change in the homepods performance was DRAMATIC. Night and day.

I couldn´t believe it. Still can. Being testing for almost 24h now.

Apple support also said that currently is better to disable Apple TV´s as homekit hubs because there are specific bugs associated with having them enabled as such, like for example secure accessories fail to change on the first try when using Siri.

To disable an Apple TV as a homekit hub: Go to settings, Airplay and Homekit. and scroll down all they way to the bottom. Click on "Home" to turn it off.

To disable "find nearby airpods": Settings, Remote and Devices, Bluetooth. Turn off "suggest nearby airpods" there.

 

[twistedpixel8]

So, let me explain. While 15.4/15.4.1 finally restored the sound quality of the OG homepods to what it used to be (and improved sound quality on the mini as well), and Homekit/Siri was better to me that on previous updates, I still felt that my Homepods were slower than they should be. It was inconsistent, but they were.

Sometimes, a request would still take an abnormal amount of time to load, particularly Apple music requests. Sometimes, a homekit scene would get stuck for no reason. Sometimes, Siri would stop talking in the middle of an answer (¡very spooky!), o would give flat out crazy responses. On top of that, Apple music lossless songs would buffer and pop from time to time.

Yesterday, I decided to call Apple again. Explained them the situation. And to my surprise, they said something very specific "do you have any Apple TV in the house?. If so, could you try to disable all of them as homekit hubs AND disable the "find nearby airpods" feature?.

I think we´ve finally found the cause of the erratic performance of Siri/Homekit on the homepods. Its not the analytics. Its those settings, and the underlying interaction that they cause between homepods and apple tv´s, when they are in the same network".

Reluctanly, I disabled those settings in both my Apple TV 4K in the living room and my Apple TV HD in my bedroom and rebooted them.

And the change in the homepods performance was DRAMATIC. Night and day.

I couldn´t believe it. Still can. Being testing for almost 24h now.

Apple support also said that currently is better to disable Apple TV´s as homekit hubs because there are specific bugs associated with having them enabled as such, like for example secure accessories fail to change on the first try when using Siri.

To disable an Apple TV as a homekit hub: Go to settings, Airplay and Homekit. and scroll down all they way to the bottom. Click on "Home" to turn it off.

To disable "find nearby airpods": Settings, Remote and Devices, Bluetooth. Turn off "suggest nearby airpods" there.

I don’t have an Apple TV and my Siri is still an idiot, taking ages to confirm she has set scenes that set immediately.

Is this “look for AirPods” setting on your Apple TV?

 

[B/D]

I don’t have an Apple TV and my Siri is still an idiot, taking ages to confirm she has set scenes that set immediately.

Is this “look for AirPods” setting on your Apple TV?

Yes, on the apple tv settings.

 

[twistedpixel8]

Yes, on the apple tv settings.

Can’t be the only thing causing this issue then. I think it’s something to do with local processing and DNS (in my case anyway).

 

[StumpyBloke]

I don’t have an Apple TV and my Siri is still an idiot, taking ages to confirm she has set scenes that set immediately.

Is this “look for AirPods” setting on your Apple TV?

I do have an Apple TV and disabled that setting, but as predicted, HomeKit through HomePods is still an abortion. I genuinely don’t understand how Apple have so royally ****ed it all up with audio OS 15. It was spot-on with 14 and now we are lumbered with this crap.

 

[StumpyBloke]

So, let me explain. While 15.4/15.4.1 finally restored the sound quality of the OG homepods to what it used to be (and improved sound quality on the mini as well), and Homekit/Siri was better to me that on previous updates, I still felt that my Homepods were slower than they should be. It was inconsistent, but they were.

Sometimes, a request would still take an abnormal amount of time to load, particularly Apple music requests. Sometimes, a homekit scene would get stuck for no reason. Sometimes, Siri would stop talking in the middle of an answer (¡very spooky!), o would give flat out crazy responses. On top of that, Apple music lossless songs would buffer and pop from time to time.

Yesterday, I decided to call Apple again. Explained them the situation. And to my surprise, they said something very specific "do you have any Apple TV in the house?. If so, could you try to disable all of them as homekit hubs AND disable the "find nearby airpods" feature?.

I think we´ve finally found the cause of the erratic performance of Siri/Homekit on the homepods. Its not the analytics. Its those settings, and the underlying interaction that they cause between homepods and apple tv´s, when they are in the same network".

Reluctanly, I disabled those settings in both my Apple TV 4K in the living room and my Apple TV HD in my bedroom and rebooted them.

And the change in the homepods performance was DRAMATIC. Night and day.

I couldn´t believe it. Still can. Being testing for almost 24h now.

Apple support also said that currently is better to disable Apple TV´s as homekit hubs because there are specific bugs associated with having them enabled as such, like for example secure accessories fail to change on the first try when using Siri.

To disable an Apple TV as a homekit hub: Go to settings, Airplay and Homekit. and scroll down all they way to the bottom. Click on "Home" to turn it off.

To disable "find nearby airpods": Settings, Remote and Devices, Bluetooth. Turn off "suggest nearby airpods" there.

Thanks for your update, but didn’t work for me. It’s still garbage.

 

[Squuiid]

So, let me explain. While 15.4/15.4.1 finally restored the sound quality of the OG homepods to what it used to be (and improved sound quality on the mini as well), and Homekit/Siri was better to me that on previous updates, I still felt that my Homepods were slower than they should be. It was inconsistent, but they were.

Sometimes, a request would still take an abnormal amount of time to load, particularly Apple music requests. Sometimes, a homekit scene would get stuck for no reason. Sometimes, Siri would stop talking in the middle of an answer (¡very spooky!), o would give flat out crazy responses. On top of that, Apple music lossless songs would buffer and pop from time to time.

Yesterday, I decided to call Apple again. Explained them the situation. And to my surprise, they said something very specific "do you have any Apple TV in the house?. If so, could you try to disable all of them as homekit hubs AND disable the "find nearby airpods" feature?.

I think we´ve finally found the cause of the erratic performance of Siri/Homekit on the homepods. Its not the analytics. Its those settings, and the underlying interaction that they cause between homepods and apple tv´s, when they are in the same network".

Reluctanly, I disabled those settings in both my Apple TV 4K in the living room and my Apple TV HD in my bedroom and rebooted them.

And the change in the homepods performance was DRAMATIC. Night and day.

I couldn´t believe it. Still can. Being testing for almost 24h now.

Apple support also said that currently is better to disable Apple TV´s as homekit hubs because there are specific bugs associated with having them enabled as such, like for example secure accessories fail to change on the first try when using Siri.

To disable an Apple TV as a homekit hub: Go to settings, Airplay and Homekit. and scroll down all they way to the bottom. Click on "Home" to turn it off.

To disable "find nearby airpods": Settings, Remote and Devices, Bluetooth. Turn off "suggest nearby airpods" there.

Good to hear this coming from Apple. Thanks for sharing.

I’d actually noticed this myself too, that when any of my 7 HomePods were acting as the Hub then performance of HomeKit devices, and even speed of them showing their status in the Home app, was excellent.
As soon as the ATV became the Hub, which it prioritises over HomePods as it is LAN connected, then performance went to sh1 t.

I will now disable the ATV as a hub entirely, as recommended by the Apple tech. Again, thanks for confirming this for me.

However, the AirPods feature is damn useful but fortunately I did not actually find that I had to turn that off. YMMV.

 

[jacklink01]

So, let me explain. While 15.4/15.4.1 finally restored the sound quality of the OG homepods to what it used to be (and improved sound quality on the mini as well), and Homekit/Siri was better to me that on previous updates, I still felt that my Homepods were slower than they should be. It was inconsistent, but they were.

Sometimes, a request would still take an abnormal amount of time to load, particularly Apple music requests. Sometimes, a homekit scene would get stuck for no reason. Sometimes, Siri would stop talking in the middle of an answer (¡very spooky!), o would give flat out crazy responses. On top of that, Apple music lossless songs would buffer and pop from time to time.

Yesterday, I decided to call Apple again. Explained them the situation. And to my surprise, they said something very specific "do you have any Apple TV in the house?. If so, could you try to disable all of them as homekit hubs AND disable the "find nearby airpods" feature?.

I think we´ve finally found the cause of the erratic performance of Siri/Homekit on the homepods. Its not the analytics. Its those settings, and the underlying interaction that they cause between homepods and apple tv´s, when they are in the same network".

Reluctanly, I disabled those settings in both my Apple TV 4K in the living room and my Apple TV HD in my bedroom and rebooted them.

And the change in the homepods performance was DRAMATIC. Night and day.

I couldn´t believe it. Still can. Being testing for almost 24h now.

Apple support also said that currently is better to disable Apple TV´s as homekit hubs because there are specific bugs associated with having them enabled as such, like for example secure accessories fail to change on the first try when using Siri.

To disable an Apple TV as a homekit hub: Go to settings, Airplay and Homekit. and scroll down all they way to the bottom. Click on "Home" to turn it off.

To disable "find nearby airpods": Settings, Remote and Devices, Bluetooth. Turn off "suggest nearby airpods" there.

Thanks so much for sharing this information, but so far, after trying this, I am still experiencing slow response times from Siri when she sets scenes. I will keep testing to see if it improves. I will also try unplugging all my HomePods and plugging them back in as I often try to remedy this unavoidable issue.

Its so crazy how she INSTANTLY sets the scene, but still responds saying "still working on it" over and over again--every time! We are all so fed up, but update after update, Apple does nothing to address this it seems. Like another poster said, iOS 14 was great and working perfectly. Then iOS 15 came along and they ruined it.

 

[Itinj24]

Thanks for sharing. Haven’t tested yet but I’m reluctant. Have always gotten poor HomeKit performance with a HomePod as the hub and great performance with the ATV. I’ll give it a shot and see what happens.

This should not be the case though. Apple broke this with iOS 15. I use the find nearby AirPods feature a lot and we shouldn’t have to disable useful features they added to fix something else they broke.