HomePod HomePods are Apple's WORST product EVER

[abatabia]

Quite literally the worst, most disappointing product Apple has ever made in recent years, at least on the software side.

I went all in on HomePods. An OG pair, three pair of mini in my home, and a pair of second gen.

They are nothing but a complete annoyance.

In the last several years, at least since the architecture or whatever has been updated around 16 or so I have had ENDLESS and I mean ENDLESS issues:

• Endless network issues despite everything else on my network from other brands not having issues connecting. If my router (2gig FIOS) has to reboot for any reason, the HomePods are lost at sea and I have to restart them several times to get them back connected. I have even spent hours on with Apple about this, and have had to reset several pairs. This has happened more times than I can count. Meanwhile I have echo speakers, google speakers that never have this issue. Even when the router is fine, this happens. Even adding an iot network did not help. Endless "network error" crap.
• In 2023 one of my OG HomePods had a logic board failure (+/- flashing) and I let it sit for two years before it magically came back to life on it's own and works flawlessly, although I use it sparingly. See other posts I've made on this.
• 26.5 bricked one of my minis where it got stuck in an endless red flashing light boot loop where it woke me up by announcing that "your HomePod is about to reset" over and over. I was able to get Apple to replace that mini despite it being way out of warranty.
• Today that same replaced mini, along with its pair-mate, have been randomly playing music on and off, unprompted, all day. Rebooting, resetting as new, nothing has stopped this. There appears to be NO WAY to clear the now playing cache in the home app, it remains on paused. It just kept starting playing music as a pair, over and over and over. No prompts from me, I wasn't even in that room.

I finally got so annoyed I unplugged that pair of mini, removed them from my home app, and tossed them into the closet.

Thank you for letting me rant. I get that this is software issue but I am DONE with HomePods. I will never buy this awful, flawed, constantly disappointing product again.

Again, thank you for letting me rant.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Agreed and they never really sounded good IMO, especially the minis. Maybe be better with new Siri but worst product still goes to Vision “Pro” ha.

 

[Harddrive]

I use mine when we are outdoors cooking or get togethers inside I have 5.1 and on the go AirPod Pro 3's. and critical listening headphones.

 

[PowerMacintosh7200]

This is an important post. Here me out.

I have two HomePods and one has been playing music automatically whenever it wants for the last 3-4weeks.

I've spent weeks resetting, cleaning everything and doing whatever was mentioned on Apples site and places such as Reddit. Finally, I took it into the Apple Store in Sydney wanting them to have a look.

The most revealing thing mentioned, and also alarming. Was the tech guy said they "the touch screen is known for having sensitivity issues…"

I've had both mine for 2yrs and 9 months. 9 months over the warranty and they weren't willing to give a replacement – wasn't expecting one, but the tech guy flirted with the idea.

To get it fixed was going to cost me around $375AU, compared to buying it for you $479AU.

No chance, I will ever buy a HomePod again knowing "they have issues" and, only last 2 years.

Not happy Jan.

 

[dmr727]

I have three Homepod minis, and the only reason I don't completely hate them is because all I do is cast music to them. And even that takes waaaay too long - 18 seconds from the time I select the Homepod on my iPhone to the time it starts actually playing the music. 🙁

 

[gregchea]

This is an important post. Here me out.

I have two HomePods and one has been playing music automatically whenever it wants for the last 3-4weeks.

I've spent weeks resetting, cleaning everything and doing whatever was mentioned on Apples site and places such as Reddit. Finally, I took it into the Apple Store in Sydney wanting them to have a look.

The most revealing thing mentioned, and also alarming. Was the tech guy said they "the touch screen is known for having sensitivity issues…"

I've had both mine for 2yrs and 9 months. 9 months over the warranty and they weren't willing to give a replacement – wasn't expecting one, but the tech guy flirted with the idea.

To get it fixed was going to cost me around $375AU, compared to buying it for you $479AU.

No chance, I will ever buy a HomePod again knowing "they have issues" and, only last 2 years.

Not happy Jan.

No help, I’m afraid but I have the same issue. Ours are 2 years 4 months old and Apple literally told me they shouldn’t really be expected to last more than 2 years and I should just throw them away and buy new ones.

That, obviously, won’t be happening. Apple’s response to this situation has been shockingly bad, even by Apple’s recent standards.

 

[Itinj24]

Next to the AirPods (which are basically portable HomePods), the HomePod is probably the most basic of all Apple Devices. It has two jobs, play music and respond to Siri requests. Can’t get either of them right consistently. You would think after all these years, the friggen software would be nothing less than perfectly polished.

For the record, I have 9 OG’s and 8 Minis, some in stereo pairs and some solo. These were all purchased when the software was somewhat decent but went downhill ever since with every iteration of TVOS. Never even gave the HomePod 2 a shot.

We’ll see what the next gen with Siri AI will bring. If comes equipped with another friggen Apple Watch chip, I’ll pass. Ever try doing anything on an Apple Watch with regards to Siri? Takes ages and I have an AWU 3.

 

[abatabia]

Thank you all for your input. They used to work decently enough, I used them for music and paired with my Apple TV, and reading me messages when I didn’t have my phone nearby.

Ever since the changes in 16.2 I think it was, it’s been nothing but frustration.

The echo dots sound good enough and are leagues more reliable so I’ve been using them more and more and paid for decent soundbars.

Reading your responses I see I’m not alone.

When these HomePods inevitably die they won’t be replaced by new HomePods.

I’m done.

I miss the old days when I could pair a decent set of speakers with the AirPlay Apple express. That setup worked so much better.

 

[page3]

I think it depends on what you want to do with them, and your personal experience of reliability.

For me, they’re replacing an Amazon ecosystem which has been far more frustrating. I’ve had two Echoes, a Dot and two Spots fail just outside warranty, and even when they worked the experience was increasingly poor with adverts, patchy integrations and slow responses.

My HomePods certainly aren’t perfect, and I can understand why repeated software and networking issues would drive someone mad. However, my experience has been largely positive. The ability to instantly play audiobooks, music or podcasts to a ceiling-mounted HomePod, triggered by a simple voice command, has been excellent and far more reliable than the Alexa setup it replaced.

I suspect HomePods are one of those products where your opinion is heavily influenced by whether you’ve had a good unit and a stable setup. If you’ve had the sort of issues you’ve described, I’d probably be done with them too.

 

[PowerMacintosh7200]

I think it depends on what you want to do with them, and your personal experience of reliability.

For me, they’re replacing an Amazon ecosystem which has been far more frustrating. I’ve had two Echoes, a Dot and two Spots fail just outside warranty, and even when they worked the experience was increasingly poor with adverts, patchy integrations and slow responses.

My HomePods certainly aren’t perfect, and I can understand why repeated software and networking issues would drive someone mad. However, my experience has been largely positive. The ability to instantly play audiobooks, music or podcasts to a ceiling-mounted HomePod, triggered by a simple voice command, has been excellent and far more reliable than the Alexa setup it replaced.

I suspect HomePods are one of those products where your opinion is heavily influenced by whether you’ve had a good unit and a stable setup. If you’ve had the sort of issues you’ve described, I’d probably be done with them too.

how long have you had your HP's for?

 

[kagharaht]

It's literally the worse product that apple has created in regards to stability and functionality. Hardware wise, it's beautifully made. The Audio coming out of this thing is gorgeous. Sadly the Constant "hmm taking too long", "there is a problem with...yada yada yada", creating scenes that FAIL every other day....makes you want to toss it all out the window. Yet when it works, it's like wow...for now I have them. If one by one they start to break, I won't replace them.

 

[subjonas]

I don't know why but people seem to have widely varying experiences with HomePods in these forums. Personally, I've had 3 OG HomePods and 1 Mini since their launch, and they're some of the most enjoyable and most used Apple products I have (and I probably have too many Apple products). They're not perfect 100% of the time, but the issues for me have been minor, and the good has greatly outweighed the bad.

What I use my HPs for:
- ATV audio (stereo pair)
- music
- controlling home and TV
- alarms/timers
- weather and random queries
- finding my phone (too often)

The issues I've had:
- Siri is limited in ability (but works within its limitations)
- a few times over the years my stereo pair has lost sound from one speaker, but a reset always fixes this
- if I stream ATV audio to multiple rooms and then mute the ATV, when I unmute, the volume control often gets confused and only unmutes/controls the HPs in the other rooms, so I have to switch the ATV back to single room streaming

The last issue is the only consistent and significant one for me, but again it's relatively minor and greatly outweighed by the enjoyment and usefulness I get from my HPs.

 

[anthony13]

Just venting as well as my HomePods have had constant issues this past week yet again. Connecting issues, tv audio output problems. They just literally never get better. Apple products main selling point used to be ‘it just works’. Not for these things.

 

[danpass]

HomePod mini working fine. 99% used as a timer lol.

Really its my HomeKit central unit, instead of using an Apple TV for that function.

The Siri part overall is pretty lame. 80% of the time it tells me to ask again from my iPhone. Telling it to answer my question without referring to opening the iPhone is met with silence lol.

-

 

[Ralfi]

None of these complaints surprise me.

When a product relies on a voice assistant to work, & that voice assistant has been dysfunctional for years, you’re doomed.

It should improve now that Siri relies on another LLM to work, but I won’t jump on until that’s proven.

 

[AL2TEACH]

Have the OG HomePods (2) and use them only for music and simple Siri requests and no problems.
Just been lucky.

 

[bergmef]

I have one HomePod, the latest, and it will probably hit the trash can soon and I'll go back to the old bluetooth speaker. I reset it every week, it wants me to reset the router 3 times a week which nothing else has an issue with. I have siri turned off and have no music subscription. All I want is to stream my iPad music to the stoooooopid thing. All help is NO help, 'have you restarted your router yet?'
pure utter garbage, I so miss the 'just works' days