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HomePod Users Complain of Sudden Failures, Could Be Linked to 14.6 and 15 Updates

Not nice that software updates are damaging the devices. A new software update should hopefully resolve any issues.
 
ScottHarrison89 said:
I have 2 HomePods in a stereo pair to the AppleTV. One of them randomly stopped working last week and had blinking volume lights. A reset did nothing. Apple support said it was a known issue and to book a genius appointment. The genius said it ISNT a known issue. They don’t know why it suddenly stopped working and all they could do is sell me a new one as it’s over 12 months old. Feel totally fobbed off. Neither of my HomePods or AppleTV are running beta versions. 🤬 I’m now left with an expensive blinking paperweight as apple have no interest in working out why it’s stopped working or what the blinking lights mean.
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heh.. the famous "ecosystem".. of paperweights :apple:
 
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ScottHarrison89 said:
I have 2 HomePods in a steep pair to the AppleTV. One of them randomly stopped working last week and had blinking volume lights. A reset did nothing. Apple support said it was a known issue and to book a genius appointment. The genius said it ISNT a known issue. They don’t know why it suddenly stopped working and all they could do is sell me a knew one as it’s over 12 months old. Feel totally fobbed off. Neither of my HomePods or AppleTV are running beta versions. 🤬
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Apple is really good about taking care of these things. Give them time to sort out the problem and they will definitely take care of you. I had them repair an out of warranty MacBook Pro with a free motherboard a couple of years ago. This was after telling me it was going to cost me $500+. I was really nice to them and they found a way to get it covered for me.
 
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performa_6400 said:
Something is going on. My minis have been continuously disconnecting recently and have been unusable for Homekit devices. My wife wants me to reconnect our Echos. Crossing fingers for an update soon. Mine are on 14.6.
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Knock on wood, my HomePods have been fine on 14.6 and 15.0.

My Minis however have been entirely unusable. If they aren’t dropping connection, they aren’t responding to audio coming from the Apple TV 4K.

And the one time they did work, turning them up cause the audio to break up (think like driving a speaker too hard), which then slowed the video playing until it broke sync.
 
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I have a old HomePod Also that was bricked during I think it was HomePod OS update I think it was version 12. something and still have not had a chance to get to apple for them to check it out
 
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It might be a bit stretch to say this is planned obsolescence but HomePod has been very rough from day 1 and here we are.
What’s worse, if HomePod can no longer be updated wirelessly, it is practically dead. No way to salvage it as a generic speaker. Sad.
 
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I’ve noticed this for a while now. If I ask Siri to play music and the HomePods are defaulted as the audio out on my AppleTV, they will stay “on” even after I ask Siri to stop playing. The volume controls still show on the speaker. The fix is to restart the AppleTV. I’m sure this is the issue people are having.
 
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The logic board is a weak spot on these. I have 9 right now, and only have 3 in use. 3 are brand new still in the box, and 3 others are in storage. I used to have 12 when I bought broken units and combined good parts to make functional units.

The 3 currently in use all get warm randomly. I have a stereo pair and a lone HomePod. None of them are connected to the Apple TV 4K and I don’t even use them every day. The top surface of the right one in the stereo pair is warm right now and so is the one in the dining room. Neither have been used recently, and neither are an active HomeKit hub. I’m sure in a few hours they will cool back down like they always do. For a company so concerned about the environment, they should try making stationary objects last more than a few years. Why is my HomePod heating up, it’s not rendering a video?
 
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There really needs to be a provision for bare metal restore in every device so that people can recover from situations like this.

Even something convoluted is okay; it's not something that will have to be done often. For example the user could create a WiFi network called "HomePod Restore" with the serial # of the HomePod as a WPA2 key. Then hold down the button on power on which would cause it to get the latest firmware from Apple and update, much like bare-metal restoring a Mac over Wifi.

Not only would it lead to less inconvenience for users when this happens, but also less support costs for Apple and not having to swap as many devices.

It's not just Apple either, BTW... I had a JBL Authentics speaker brick during a firmware update. They had to swap it for a new one; there was literally no way to force another firmware update once an update fails.
 
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