How to Assign Primary Users to Individual HomePods in the Same Household

[MacRumors]

Apple on Tuesday released an iOS 14.3 update for HomePod and HomePod mini, which Apple's release notes said included "general performance and stability improvements," but it actually failed to mention a new feature that allows the head of a household to assign primary users to different HomePods in the same home.

HomePod can automatically recognize voices to personalize music requests, playlists, and recommendations. However, Apple acknowledges that Siri may not always recognize individual voices. Therefore, the new feature allows you to assign a primary user for each HomePod, and when Siri fails to recognize the voice of a user, that HomePod will fall back to the primary user to which it has been assigned and carry out the request. Here's how to access the feature and set it up.

1. Launch the Home app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Press and hold on the HomePod or grouped HomePods that you want to assign a primary user.
3. Scroll down to the bottom and tap the settings button (the cog icon) in the bottom-right corner of the interface.
   
   
   
   Under "Music & Podcasts," tap Primary User.
   Select the person that you'd like to assign as the Primary User of this HomePod or grouped HomePods. Alternately, select HomePod Account to use the default account used for Apple Music and Podcasts when Siri fails to recognize the voice that made the request.
   

The feature appears to have been added because Apple recognizes that some homes will have multiple HomePods located in different rooms, some in which particular users may reside more than others – such as in a private bedroom, for example. In other words, if Siri fails to recognize their voice, it can still process their personal request.

The new feature in iOS 14.3 was originally spotted by The 8-bit.

Article Link: How to Assign Primary Users to Individual HomePods in the Same Household

 

[gsmornot]

Is there a way to give access to a homepod without giving access to all the other devices? I would like to pick up Minis over time for my daughters but I dont want them to have access to every device in the house.

 

[Digital Dude]

I have eight HomePods, and they hadn't worked properly in several months, particularly when iOS 14 trashed everything. I ended up removing them all after countless attempts to use the Apple preferred way. While not as good as the HomePods, I picked up a few nest speakers, and they work flawlessly. Yeah, I don't have the whole ecosystem, but in my opinion, Apple has lost some of that advantage due in no small measure to their inability to get their software to work. I was hopeful after installing iOS 14.3, things would calm down and solve some issues. Well, it did allow me to use Contacts and Messages again, but that's about it.

The silver lining is that the iPhone 12 Max and Apple Watch seem to work very well, so there's that.

 

[thogin]

Hope this works with adding items to a shared grocery list, too. That's the primary feature we use for multi-user.

 

[Kebabselector]

I would be nice if you could tune the sound rather than be stuck with only using Airplay for that.

 

[MauiPa]

Is there a way to give access to a homepod without giving access to all the other devices? I would like to pick up Minis over time for my daughters but I dont want them to have access to every device in the house.

So they can’t play music. I never heard of that need before. If it is to restrict purchases. Set the require password setting

 

[MauiPa]

I would be nice if you could tune the sound rather than be stuck with only using Airplay for that.

They have adaptive control, music sounds like it’s supposed to. Of course some people don’t like that I guess. I haven’t checked if pandora allows that or Spotify (LOL, after they whine about Apple not being an open platform for the next five years, then maybe getting around to HomePod support)

 

[MauiPa]

I have eight HomePods, and they hadn't worked properly in several months, particularly when iOS 14 trashed everything. I ended up removing them all after countless attempts to use the Apple preferred way. While not as good as the HomePods, I picked up a few nest speakers, and they work flawlessly. Yeah, I don't have the whole ecosystem, but in my opinion, Apple has lost some of that advantage due in no small measure to their inability to get their software to work. I was hopeful after installing iOS 14.3, things would calm down and solve some issues. Well, it did allow me to use Contacts and Messages again, but that's about it.

The silver lining is that the iPhone 12 Max and Apple Watch seem to work very well, so there's that.

It works for me, why wouldn’t it work?

 

[MauiPa]

I have eight HomePods, and they hadn't worked properly in several months, particularly when iOS 14 trashed everything. I ended up removing them all after countless attempts to use the Apple preferred way. While not as good as the HomePods, I picked up a few nest speakers, and they work flawlessly. Yeah, I don't have the whole ecosystem, but in my opinion, Apple has lost some of that advantage due in no small measure to their inability to get their software to work. I was hopeful after installing iOS 14.3, things would calm down and solve some issues. Well, it did allow me to use Contacts and Messages again, but that's about it.

The silver lining is that the iPhone 12 Max and Apple Watch seem to work very well, so there's that.

Interesting. I had a problem with a couple of betas, and there was an outage caused by Amazon’s cloud, but since the 14.3 update, they are back to working flawlessly

 

[coachgq]

I have eight HomePods, and they hadn't worked properly in several months, particularly when iOS 14 trashed everything. I ended up removing them all after countless attempts to use the Apple preferred way. While not as good as the HomePods, I picked up a few nest speakers, and they work flawlessly. Yeah, I don't have the whole ecosystem, but in my opinion, Apple has lost some of that advantage due in no small measure to their inability to get their software to work. I was hopeful after installing iOS 14.3, things would calm down and solve some issues. Well, it did allow me to use Contacts and Messages again, but that's about it.

The silver lining is that the iPhone 12 Max and Apple Watch seem to work very well, so there's that.

Weird. I have 11 homepod/homepod mini devices. Not one issue.

 

[Kebabselector]

They have adaptive control, music sounds like it’s supposed to. Of course some people don’t like that I guess. I haven’t checked if pandora allows that or Spotify (LOL, after they whine about Apple not being an open platform for the next five years, then maybe getting around to HomePod support)

Strange it just sounds too bass heavy compared to any other speaker/amp combinations I've owned. I don't expect to match the quality of a dedicated amp and speakers, but some form of control would be nice. Not sure why you mention Pandora or Spotify as like Apple Music they are just the source. Surely adaptive control could be setup to allow some parameters to be set by the end user.

 

[imola.zhp]

I have eight HomePods, and they hadn't worked properly in several months, particularly when iOS 14 trashed everything. I ended up removing them all after countless attempts to use the Apple preferred way. While not as good as the HomePods, I picked up a few nest speakers, and they work flawlessly. Yeah, I don't have the whole ecosystem, but in my opinion, Apple has lost some of that advantage due in no small measure to their inability to get their software to work. I was hopeful after installing iOS 14.3, things would calm down and solve some issues. Well, it did allow me to use Contacts and Messages again, but that's about it.

The silver lining is that the iPhone 12 Max and Apple Watch seem to work very well, so there's that.

Weird, we have 4, two regular, two mini's. Haven't had much if any issues before or after iOS 14.

 

[Digital Dude]

Weird, we have 4, two regular, two mini's. Haven't had much if any issues before or after iOS 14.

Yeah, I get that a lot, so perhaps this new Alien router may improve matters. Before iOS 14, the HomePods worked about 50% of the time due to Siri limitations that have been resolved. Just found it ironic that I don't have any issues with the nest speakers. I'm not a big google product fan, but still.

Just installed the Alien router, removed all of the HomePods from iCloud and the iPhone 12 Max, renamed all of them, and seem to do the trick. Easy? —not really.

 

[gsmornot]

So they can’t play music. I never heard of that need before. If it is to restrict purchases. Set the require password setting

No. I want to give full access to the HomePod so it can reply with the personal experience and recognize who they are but not provide access to all of the lighting and temp controls and the garage and things. I dont want the kids turning things off/on whenever they feel like. When they are older maybe but not yet.

 

[whyamihere]

Meanwhile my Homepod still refuses to even recognize different voices at all. Every few months I get the itch to give it another try and go through all the Apple and various 3rd party site suggested troubleshooting steps to get it working. And every time it ends in the same disappointing inability to recognize different voices. Literally the definition of insanity at this point.

 

[diamornte]

I have eight HomePods, and they hadn't worked properly in several months, particularly when iOS 14 trashed everything. I ended up removing them all after countless attempts to use the Apple preferred way. While not as good as the HomePods, I picked up a few nest speakers, and they work flawlessly. Yeah, I don't have the whole ecosystem, but in my opinion, Apple has lost some of that advantage due in no small measure to their inability to get their software to work. I was hopeful after installing iOS 14.3, things would calm down and solve some issues. Well, it did allow me to use Contacts and Messages again, but that's about it.

The silver lining is that the iPhone 12 Max and Apple Watch seem to work very well, so there's that.

I have the same problem. My HomePods & HomePod Minis do not play simultaneously if you ask Siri to play all speakers, and the music only starts playing once I remove one of the stereo-paired HomePods. Apple software is lacking & Apple is too busy juggling products/services that they neglect the software of things like the HomePod.

And now that Apple came out with this new update that allow separate users to different HomePods, it basically is an admission from Apple that they know their Siri software fails to identify separate users & this is a shoddy/patchy fix. They falsely advertised that Siri could recognize different voices in the house.

 

[anthony13]

I’m confused what this update enables, and the article doesn’t do a great job explaining it. This is for limiting users or giving more people access? As it stands the HomePod already responds to everyone?

 

[secDJ]

Is there any way to assigned different user under "personal request" on homepods. I own 4 homepods, but i want my bedrrom homepod to respond to my personal information, and the one in the living room to respond to another user in the house. Is this possible?

 

[jaster2]

They have adaptive control, music sounds like it’s supposed to. Of course some people don’t like that I guess. I haven’t checked if pandora allows that or Spotify (LOL, after they whine about Apple not being an open platform for the next five years, then maybe getting around to HomePod support)

I disagree. There are times when I'd prefer a thinner sound. It baffles me why Apple didn't include some way to make simple adjustments like reducing bass.

 

[Hook'Em2006]

it would be nice if every time I used my HomePod (I am the only user), it didn't ask me who was speaking. Its really quite annoying.

 

[nph]

Works perfect with HomePod recogizing my name since 14.3. Before that it was totally random.

 

[KeithJenner]

I’m confused what this update enables, and the article doesn’t do a great job explaining it. This is for limiting users or giving more people access? As it stands the HomePod already responds to everyone?

Prior to this update, every HomePod had the owner of the home as the primary user. In our house that is me. So, I was the primary user of the HomePod Mini that our son has in his bedroom, and if he asked it to play music then it would play from my library unless his voice was recognised. In fairness, it quite reliably recognised his voice but, for example, if he had a friend round then that persons voice wouldn't be recognised and any request from that person would default to my account.

Now I have been able to designate him as the primary user of that HomePod, meaning that this issue is solved.

It is very useful for us, as we have a couple of Homepods with this situation.

 

[Davidglenn]

Our homepods recognise all of us in the house. Which is surprising as one of my children doesn't speak clearly. Yet Siri understands them 90% of the time.

 

[B/D]

Wrong thread.

 

[mlody]

is anyone having an issue with the primary account not showing correctly on the macOS Home app? We have 3 HomePods and each one has different primary users. When I check for that from iOS Home app, the primary user shows up correctly, but when I look this up from macOS Home app, all HomePods are defaulted to the primary account and when changed, they default in few seconds to the primary account?