HomePod Homepods as default audio output for Apple TV 4K kills my wifi speed

[B/D]

I was wrong. Thank you very much @mallbritton!

It works! But now its very strange. When the Homepods are selected as the default output speaker of the ATV and I put it to sleep, if I ask the homepods to play some music, they DO without turning the Apple TV on. Good!

If I go to the Airplay menu of an IOS device, the homepods are no longer there, only my Apple TV (with a little homepod icon by its side), but I can send airplay music from that device or from the cloud AND both the TV and the Apple TV remain off while the homepods play. I can even turn off the IOS device and the music keep playing on the Homepods. Great!

However, If I send an airplay video from an app on said IOS device, it turns the Apple TV on. So it seems to detect automatically if you are airplaying music from apple music to the homepods linked to an Apple TV, in which case the speakers play it directly from apple servers, or if you are airplaying a video, in which case it turns the ATV on.

Fantastic! Awesome!

In all cases, however, the home app says that the apple tv is in use... even when the homepods are playing music and the ATV remain off. Thats why its strange.




PD: No duplicate stuff in the Airplay menu of any of my devices, though.

 

[mallbritton]

I'm glad I could help you get it worked out. When Apple's services work they are almost flawless, but they can be fiddly at times which is a pain. I wish I could clean up that menu.

 

[B/D]

It seems that this issue still persist on 14.3

 

[Knar]

Anyone else have this issue?. It happens to me since the release of the 14.2 update and the home theatre feature.

Selecting the Homepods as the default output of the ATV kills my ATV wifi speed and makes my ping go crazy. It goes from a rock solid 300/300 speed to a 1.2/2.4 speed, and the ping goes from 10ms to 120ms .

No idea why this happens, but it makes my ATV4K unusable for watching high quality content. As soon as I choose my internal tv speakers as default output and select the homepods from the ATV control center, the internet speed of the apple tv return to normal.

Yes I have got exactly the same. Download speeds down from 100+ to around 3 Mbps. Upload still reasonable. Restarting, booting etc etc does not help.

This only happens when the 'default audio output' is set to my Homepods. When choosing audio output from the control centre it all works fine.

 

[Knar]

It seems that this issue still persist on 14.3

Yes it does with me too

Fixed this with the help of Apple support!. Finally! It turns out that Homepod (s) ARE particularly finicky when it comes to wifi. A strong, fast and reliable connection is absolutely necessary for the speaker to work correctly.

With the release of ios 14.2, this has become even more important because a new, directly, ad hoc connection is now possible between an Apple TV 4K and the Homepods has been developed, that allows to route ALL apple tv audio to the homepods, bypassing airplay 2 limitations (ie 2.0 audio channels max, ZERO latency with games and live content), and allow the Homepods to virtualize 5.1, 7.1, and Dolby Atmos (BTW, I was WRONG. If you choose the HP from the ATV control center you are using a regular airplay link, which only support stereo.)

Even though regular stereo sound has been very much improved as well in 14.2, the only way to truly get surround sound is to choose the Homepod (s) as the default speakers, which is NOT airplay, but this new ad hoc, improved protocol between an Apple TV 4K and Homepod (s).

This new protocol is much more taxing on the internet conection than regular Airplay, because it transport so much data in real time. To avoid speed and buffering issues, if you are going to use wifi, you must use a strong, fast 5GHZ AC connection, both in the Apple TV AND in your linked Homepod (s) (this last part was my problem). If you cant achieve that, you must hardwire your ATV. Wifi N wont work even if the speed is enough.

To make sure everything is set up properly, create a separate SSID on your router for the 5GHZ band, and connect your Apple TV to it. Now connect to it the Iphone/Ipad that you used to set up the Homepod (s). Factory reset them and pair them back (if you´re using a stereo pair), with that IOS device connected to the 5GHZ band. This way, your Homepod (s), will use the 5GHZ band to connect to the internet going forward.


Thats it. Set them as the default speakers of the ATV again and run a speed test on the ATV. Your speed should be good now.

Thanks for this 'solution' (i'd call it a workaround rather but anyway). Thing is that I can easily check that all my devices are on 5GHz band and always have been, and it's still killing the WiFi.

 

[B/D]

@Knar​

I found something interesting about this, with the help of apple support. Make the Homepods the default audio output (if they already are, undo it and select them again) of the ATV. Do a speed test with the ATV, it should be very bad.

Use the device a little (stream something a few seconds). Then put the ATV to sleep and wait a few hours. Do a speed test again. It should be much better. It´s seems to estabilize itself after a few hours.

Mine went to 3mb to 100 over the course of 24 hours (apple tv sleeping with the homepods connected to it). I dont understand why this happens.


Anyway, a fix for this is coming "soon" or so Apple told me.

 

[AJTC]

This is happening in my house ever since my family started setting the HomePod Minis as the default audio source for the Apple TV 4K.

When Apple support said a fix was coming soon did they make it sound like it was a common issue?

 

[B/D]

This is happening in my house ever since my family started setting the HomePod Minis as the default audio source for the Apple TV 4K.

When Apple support said a fix was coming soon did they make it sound like it was a common issue?

Yes, quite common, but your post intrigues me. The Homepod Mini cannot be set as the default audio source of an Apple 4K, this feature only applies to the original Homepod.

The Mini only works with an Apple TV by manually selecting it as an Airplay audio output on the Apple TV control center, which, for me (if I do this with my OG Homepod pair) , doesn´t cause any issues with wifi speed and stability. This method does not send all Apple TV audio in real time to the Homepods, only support stereo sound and only works with certain apps and content.

Interesting.

 

[maugustine]

So glad I found this post! I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why my Apple th 4K had such slow download speeds.
I switched the default audio to the TV and went back to 189 down. Switching back to the HomePods as default audio output and the faster speeds remained.
Hopefully it doesn’t regress but now I know what to do it it does. 🙏

 

[AJTC]

Yes, quite common, but your post intrigues me. The Homepod Mini cannot be set as the default audio source of an Apple 4K, this feature only applies to the original Homepod.

The Mini only works with an Apple TV by manually selecting it as an Airplay audio output on the Apple TV control center, which, for me (if I do this with my OG Homepod pair) , doesn´t cause any issues with wifi speed and stability. This method does not send all Apple TV audio in real time to the Homepods, only support stereo sound and only works with certain apps and content.

Interesting.

Yep sorry I meant they’re airplaying the audio to the HomePod Minis and doing this for Netflix and Amazon Prime. Which in that case is very similar to it being the default audio output. This seems to be what’s killing our WiFi speed all over the house.

I have my own original HomePods as the default audio output on my Apple TV 4K and the only difference I notice between theirs and mine is mine keeps the connection to the HomePods always.

 

[B/D]

Yep sorry I meant they’re airplaying the audio to the HomePod Minis and doing this for Netflix and Amazon Prime. Which in that case is very similar to it being the default audio output. This seems to be what’s killing our WiFi speed all over the house.

I have my own original HomePods as the default audio output on my Apple TV 4K and the only difference I notice between theirs and mine is mine keeps the connection to the HomePods always.

So just doing regular airplay is killing your Apple TV wifi?. Interesting. In my case, only setting the homepod as the default output causes the issue. Are you sure that isn´t your original Homepod linked to your Apple TV 4K who is causing this in your house?.

Try to select back your TV speakers as the default output of your Apple TV 4K, then connect the minis via Airplay with the other Apple TV in your house. Do a speed test with the Ookla app in the ATV.

Is the wifi speed back to normal?.

 

[B/D]

@JBaby. Today I couldn´t stand it anymore. Called my ISP very early in the morning. Technician came shortly thereafter and we had to drill some holes and rearrange some elements in my living room, but now my Apple TV is hardwired to the router. Not only the speed issue with the Homepods is solved, latency is much better than before I had this issue.

Everything is much faster, buffering is non existent. All streaming apps starts instantly at maximum quality, including 4K/Dolby Vision.

Moral of the story, if you can hardwire a device, do it. Is completely worth it.

 

[AJTC]

So just doing regular airplay is killing your Apple TV wifi?. Interesting. In my case, only setting the homepod as the default output causes the issue. Are you sure that isn´t your original Homepod linked to your Apple TV 4K who is causing this in your house?.

Try to select back your TV speakers as the default output of your Apple TV 4K, then connect the minis via Airplay with the other Apple TV in your house. Do a speed test with the Ookla app in the ATV.

Is the wifi speed back to normal?.

I think you might be right that it’s the original HomePods. But I didn’t notice the issue until the whole family was using stereo pairs of Minis airplaying from Apple TVs in different rooms.

Last night my wifi speed was 1Mb/s and the ping was going up into the hundreds. I removed the HomePods as the default source for the Apple TV and after a few mins the wifi speed went back to over 300Mb/s with a normal ping.

I hope iOS 14.4 fixes this issue.

 

[B/D]

I think you might be right that it’s the original HomePods. But I didn’t notice the issue until the whole family was using stereo pairs of Minis airplaying from Apple TVs in different rooms.

Last night my wifi speed was 1Mb/s and the ping was going up into the hundreds. I removed the HomePods as the default source for the Apple TV and after a few mins the wifi speed went back to over 300Mb/s with a normal ping.

I hope iOS 14.4 fixes this issue.

Does 14.4 (for the Homepods and the apple tv) fixes this?

Just released.

 

[AJTC]

Does 14.4 (for the Homepods and the apple tv) fixes this?

Just released.

It might be too soon to tell but I’ve updated 4 HomePods and 6 HomePod Minis.

The stereo pair original HomePods are connected to an Apple TV and at the same time one set of stereo pair Minis are AirPlaying from another Apple TV. I just ran a Speedtest and it started off at 20Mb/s and slowly increased to 80Mb/s. Hoping this keeps improving. I’ll reboot the Airport Extremes when I get a chance too.

 

[garethjs]

Nope 14.4 doesn’t fix it

I think the reason for this is that Apple TV acts a wifi hub that the homepods connect to instead and this reduces latency which for lip sync is very important.

I suspect the limitation is on the 4 year old wifi chipset in the appleTV trying to maintain 2-3
wifi connections (1 or 2 to homepod/s) and then router.

i get over wifi to the Apple TV around 500mb/sec when the homepods are not connected.

that drops to 300 when they are connected.

ive also noticed that this breaks location services.

homepods when alone and asked the weather work great.

homepods when linked to the Apple TV has no idea my location

and location settings in the HomePods is based on wifi

 

[B/D]

It might be too soon to tell but I’ve updated 4 HomePods and 6 HomePod Minis.

The stereo pair original HomePods are connected to an Apple TV and at the same time one set of stereo pair Minis are AirPlaying from another Apple TV. I just ran a Speedtest and it started off at 20Mb/s and slowly increased to 80Mb/s. Hoping this keeps improving. I’ll reboot the Airport Extremes when I get a chance too.

Did you tried to update the apple as well to 14.4?. Maybe that helps...

 

[B/D]

Nope 14.4 doesn’t fix it

I think the reason for this is that Apple TV acts a wifi hub that the homepods connect to instead and this reduces latency which for lip sync is very important.

I suspect the limitation is on the 4 year old wifi chipset in the appleTV trying to maintain 2-3
wifi connections (1 or 2 to homepod/s) and then router.

i get over wifi to the Apple TV around 500mb/sec when the homepods are not connected.

that drops to 300 when they are connected.

ive also noticed that this breaks location services.

homepods when alone and asked the weather work great.

homepods when linked to the Apple TV has no idea my location

and location settings in the HomePods is based on wifi

Yes... is a very unfortunate issue. I ended hardwiring my apple tv, and that solved the issue.

Your weather issue is strange, my homepods know my location even when linked whith the apple tv?.

Have you tried rebooting both the apple tv and homepods?. That solved a few Siri issues for me.

 

[garethjs]

B/D I have rebooted. It works for awhile and then it says it can’t determine where I am. However with my minis in the room it works perfectly fine

edit: I went into the home settings and tried turning off location settings and it wouldn’t let me turn it off. I also noticed that there was an alarm appearing and I tried to delete that and it wouldnt delete. So It was safe to assume something was definitely stuck somewhere.

1. I disabled homepods as an output source for my Apple TV.

2. I broke the stereo pair

3. Now I could delete the alarm and turn off location settings which was stuck on one particular HomePod (strangely enough the original HomePod I got at launch and not the one I got my later on)

4. I tried to re-enable stereo pair and it wouldn’t pair.

5. Rebooted both homepods

6. No issues re-enabling stereo pair

7. Created an alarm and it allowed me to delete it. I could also turn on and off location settings

8. Went back into TVOS and re-enabled it as my output speakers.

9. No issues with location now

also I did a Speedtest with the homepods disconnected and got 320mbps and I’m getting around 300+ with them connected back to the Apple TV. So perhaps the wifi has been fixed with 14.4

 

[Knar]

Nope, WiFi still around 3Mbps when choosing Homepods as default audio (not airplay).

 

[scottrods]

Reading all this makes me understand a bit why My Homepods wouldn't pair with my ATV box... but I now have 14.4 (auto update) and all kinds of problems came with it. Most importantly was having to unplug the two Homepods to get them to even recognize the ATV... Got that and now the voice sync is way off and using Apples direction My Wireless Sync won't sync... the Phone starts playing through the Speakers when the Homepods should be playing tones... I gave up for now, but am curious if anyone has any input on the sync issue before I throw the Homepods Far and hard... You guys seem to have had best results from all my reading online. I haven't had time to call and deal with Apple support and I'm not real sure whether they'd help me without charging me something to do so...

 

[Itinj24]

I am currently running five eero pro routers in my mesh network. For the past couple months, my network would randomly boot devices off the network, show poor connection on a couple of the routers and speeds would be disgustingly slow on Verizon GB (modem only, no gateway). This would happen for about 30 minutes to an hour, then things would stabilize.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was going on. I removed a couple eero routers from my network as suggested by eero support and things seemed to be better.

The other day, I connected a new ATV 4K with a stereo pair of HomePods as the default audio and to my shock, the eero issues were popping up again, but I didn’t make the connection. This dawned on me when I went to turn on a different ATV 4K with a HomePod as defaulted audio and the network issue popped up again, this morning.

I removed all defaulted HomePods from their ATV 4Ks (five in total) and the network started re-stabilizing.

I was really looking forward to this feature when it was announced but it’s broken. Awful. All my devices are on the latest updates, no betas.

 

[B/D]

I am currently running five eero pro routers in my mesh network. For the past couple months, my network would randomly boot devices off the network, show poor connection on a couple of the routers and speeds would be disgustingly slow on Verizon GB (modem only, no gateway). This would happen for about 30 minutes to an hour, then things would stabilize.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was going on. I removed a couple eero routers from my network as suggested by eero support and things seemed to be better.

The other day, I connected a new ATV 4K with a stereo pair of HomePods as the default audio and to my shock, the eero issues were popping up again, but I didn’t make the connection. This dawned on me when I went to turn on a different ATV 4K with a HomePod as defaulted audio and the network issue popped up again, this morning.

I removed all defaulted HomePods from their ATV 4Ks (five in total) and the network started re-stabilizing.

I was really looking forward to this feature when it was announced but it’s broken. Awful. All my devices are on the latest updates, no betas.

This is all very interesting. I solved the Apple TV quality drops and buffering issues when the Homepods were set as its default audio output by hardwiring it to my router.

However, I recently noticed, like you said, that having the Homepods set as the default output of the Apple TV also degrades the performances of the rest of the devices that connect to my network wirelessly, even when the apple tv is sleeping. (!!!)

I have resorted to make the Homepods the default output of the ATV only when I´m going to use it, and to revert back to my internal tv speakers at the end of each session.

This, of course, entirely defeats the purpose of the feature itself. Terrible. Apple needs to solve this ASAP, and its been a huge problem since the introduction of the Home Theater feature with the 14.2 firmware.

 

[Itinj24]

This is all very interesting. I solved the Apple TV quality drops and buffering issues when the Homepods were set as its default audio output by hardwiring it to my router.

However, I recently noticed, like you said, that having the Homepods set as the default output of the Apple TV also degrades the performances of the rest of the devices that connect to my network wirelessly, even when the apple tv is sleeping. (!!!)

I have resorted to make the Homepods the default output of the ATV only when I´m going to use it, and to revert back to my internal tv speakers at the end of each session.

This, of course, entirely defeats the purpose of the feature itself. Terrible. Apple needs to solve this ASAP, and its been a huge problem since the introduction of the Home Theater feature with the 14.2 firmware.

I meant to come back on here and ask if anyone is having issues with other WiFi clients on their networks or just the AppleTVs/HomePods. Guess I’m not alone. Would love to hardwire all my ATVs but that’s not possible for me.

 

[mpetrides]

I've been having the same problems everyone else is reporting. On the off chance that the new Apple TV with its faster chip set and enhanced audio support will fix the problem, I have one on order. Can't wait to see what happens when it arrives in a couple of weeks!