HomePod It turns out my Homepods longstanding sound issues were because of my Wifi...

[B/D]

Apple told me, after contacting them, that the HP´s tend to lower sound quality/volume/fullness if the network is not up to the task, instead of just stopping or buffering. That explained a lot of things for me, but it would have never occurred to me. Why would you, dinamically, adjust how the speaker sound depending on how solid the network is?.

I completely solved Apple TV home theater mode sound issues (mostly dialogue problems), muddy bass issues, low volume issues, etc by simply selecting the best wifi channel for each band (single SSID, and the devices switch automatically between bands as they see fit), even though, and this is important, the wifi performance of the rest of my devices was stellar (and apparently the homepods were perfoming great too).

In my case, the best channel for the 2,4ghz band was 13, and the best channel for the 5Ghz band was 36. I did this by manually testing all the channels one by one throught my whole house (and I have a big house).

After that, I was surprised by how much full bodied they sounded both with the Apple TV and on their own when playing Apple Music content. Tried the See season 2 trailer and for the first time I was truly impressed with the Atmos recreation.

So, even if you think your wifi is rock solid, take the time to manually scan for the best wifi channels in your house. It may be worth it.

Jesus, the homepods are finicky as hell network wise.

 

[Itinj24]

Apple told me, after contacting them, that the HP´s tend to lower sound quality/volume/fullness if the network is not up to the task, instead of just stopping or buffering. That explained a lot of things for me, but it would have never occurred to me. Why would you, dinamically, adjust how the speaker sound depending on how solid the network is?.

I completely solved Apple TV home theater mode sound issues (mostly dialogue problems), muddy bass issues, low volume issues, etc by simply selecting the best wifi channel for each band (single SSID, and the devices switch automatically between bands as they see fit), even though, and this is important, the wifi performance of the rest of my devices was stellar (and apparently the homepods were perfoming great too).

In my case, the best channel for the 2,4ghz band was 13, and the best channel for the 5Ghz band was 36. I did this by manually testing all the channels one by one throught my whole house (and I have a big house).

After that, I was surprised by how much full bodied they sounded both with the Apple TV and on their own when playing Apple Music content. Tried the See season 2 trailer and for the first time I was truly impressed with the Atmos recreation.

So, even if you think your wifi is rock solid, take the time to manually scan for the best wifi channels in your house. It may be worth it.

Jesus, the homepods are finicky as hell network wise.

I noticed poor sound quality coming out of a stereo pair of OGs the other day but dismissed it as them needing to be rebooted. Now that you mention it though, they were getting poor Wi-Fi reception at the time.

Forgive my ignorance, how do you change Wi-Fi channels? Is that a router specific feature/setting? Haven’t seen anywhere to do that with eero.

 

[B/D]

I noticed poor sound quality coming out of a stereo pair of OGs the other day but dismissed it as them needing to be rebooted. Now that you mention it though, they were getting poor Wi-Fi reception at the time.

Forgive my ignorance, how do you change Wi-Fi channels? Is that a router specific feature/setting? Haven’t seen anywhere to do that with eero.

On your router, yes. Go to your router settings page and look around the wireless section. Should be a channel selection area there.

 

[Itinj24]

On your router, yes. Go to your router settings page and look around the wireless section. Should be a channel selection area there.

Thanks…looked into it and eero doesn’t support user selectable channels. It’s all supposed to be handled automatically by the software. I got a couple GC’s coming in to run Ethernet throughout my house today. Gonna make drops for all my eeros and AppleTVs. Hopefully that helps.

 

[B/D]

Try to experiment with the option "band steering" (turning it off and on), and see what works best for you performance wise.

 

[B/D]

Thanks…looked into it and eero doesn’t support user selectable channels. It’s all supposed to be handled automatically by the software. I got a couple GC’s coming in to run Ethernet throughout my house today. Gonna make drops for all my eeros and AppleTVs. Hopefully that helps.

That should help quite a bit.

 

[Itinj24]

That should help quite a bit.

I tried playing around with band steering. It’s really hit or miss with the eero and not really consistent. I’m 99.9% sure though that all my network woes come from the HomePods and more so, defaulted as audio to the AppleTVs running on Wi-Fi (kudos for discovering that when you did! Admittedly, I though you were nuts at first but the more HomePods and AppleTVs I added, the worse it got lol). I couldn’t take it anymore so ordered the Ethernet drops in pretty much every room in my almost 5000 sq ft house. Costing a nice chunk of money but hopefully it will be worth it. Poor Wi-Fi and thusly, poor HomeKit performance are the bane of my existence lol. The guys are here as we speak. Gonna be fun terminating all that shielded Cat 6a. Been watching lots of YouTube videos lol.

 

[pup]

I couldn’t take it anymore so ordered the Ethernet drops in pretty much every room in my almost 5000 sq ft house.

And so it begins. I was once like everyone else, with my ISP's wifi router stuffed behind the couch. Now I have a server rack in the basement with three 24 port switches, power conditioner, battery backup, patch panels...the works.

Don't know what you've ordered, but something to keep in mind is that if you ever switch to a different speaker setup, they may require a separate cable for each speaker; so, two per room. Four, minimum, for a surround setup. And you'll want to hardwire your wifi nodes, smart home bridges, AppleTVs, maybe the TVs themselves, any gaming consoles, security cameras, etc. Oh, and maybe a few for, you know, data.

 

[Itinj24]

And so it begins. I was once like everyone else, with my ISP's wifi router stuffed behind the couch. Now I have a server rack in the basement with three 24 port switches, power conditioner, battery backup, patch panels...the works.

Don't know what you've ordered, but something to keep in mind is that if you ever switch to a different speaker setup, they may require a separate cable for each speaker; so, two per room. Four, minimum, for a surround setup. And you'll want to hardwire your wifi nodes, smart home bridges, AppleTVs, maybe the TVs themselves, any gaming consoles, security cameras, etc. Oh, and maybe a few for, you know, data.

The house was already wired for speakers throughout with a bunch of in wall and a few patio speakers going to an AirPlay 2 Receiver so that’s covered. The layout of my house is not very friendly for running wire so I’m going to have wire in a chain rather than haul every single drop back to the gateway. I’m going to have to invest in quite a few (small, 5 Port) network switches to achieve my plan.

 

[B/D]

How everything went?. Any improvements?.


@Itinj24 Keep in mind, about the home theater mode with the Apple TV ,that it is still broken at its core. Hardwiring the Apple TV solved the A/V quality issues, but if I left permanently the homepods set as its default audio output, the rest of the wireless devices of my network will perform worse and worse as the time goes by.

So currently, what I do is to make the pods the default output of the ATV when I´m going to watch something, and then revert to my internal tv speakers when I´m done.

Apple have to fix this.

 

[Itinj24]

How everything went?. Any improvements?.


@Itinj24 Keep in mind, about the home theater mode with the Apple TV ,that it is still broken at its core. Hardwiring the Apple TV solved the A/V quality issues, but if I left permanently the homepods set as its default audio output, the rest of the wireless devices of my network will perform worse and worse as the time goes by.

So currently, what I do is to make the pods the default output of the ATV when I´m going to watch something, and then revert to my internal tv speakers when I´m done.

Apple have to fix this.

This job is far from done lol. Right now they’re still opening up walls and ceiling to make the run. Then I still have to terminate all the cables when they’re done. Hopefully I’ll have answers by the end of the week.

Out of curiosity, what are you using for your Wi-Fi network? ISP speeds, router? Also how many ATVs and HPs connected to them?

If this doesn’t fix the issues, like you say, then I’m going to get soundbars for each TV and just leave the HomePods to music/Siri duties. I can’t go back and forth selecting default audio option each time. Really one of the main reasons I use the HomePod as default audio is so I have volume control on the remote app and Apple Watch.

 

[B/D]

This job is far from done lol. Right now they’re still opening up walls and ceiling to make the run. Then I still have to terminate all the cables when they’re done. Hopefully I’ll have answers by the end of the week.

Out of curiosity, what are you using for your Wi-Fi network? ISP speeds, router? Also how many ATVs and HPs connected to them?

If this doesn’t fix the issues, like you say, then I’m going to get soundbars for each TV and just leave the HomePods to music/Siri duties. I can’t go back and forth selecting default audio option each time. Really one of the main reasons I use the HomePod as default audio is so I have volume control on the remote app and Apple Watch.

@Itinj24

You have far better network equipment than I. Before going the soundbar route, when everything is done in your house network wise, try the default audio output again with the homepods, leave them paired for a week or two, and see if the performance of your wireless devices remain unaffected. If so, happy ending. No need to spend money on soundbars.

As for my equipment, I have a 300/300 fiber connection with a crappy ISP router+ONT+an Airport Extreme AC hardwired to the router. The crappy ISP router has wifi turned off and the Airport serve Wifi to my entire house. Rock solid.

I have an Apple TV 4K in the living room hardwired to the router along with a stereo pair of OG Homepods, a Homepod Mini in the kitchen, and an old Apple TV HD upstairs in the master bedroom. That´s it.

Then I have smart lights and curtains, among others smart accessories.

 

[Itinj24]

@Itinj24

You have far better network equipment than I. Before going the soundbar route, when everything is done in your house network wise, try the default audio output again with the homepods, leave them paired for a week or two, and see if the performance of your wireless devices remain unaffected. If so, happy ending. No need to spend money on soundbars.

As for my equipment, I have a 300/300 fiber connection with a crappy ISP router+ONT+an Airport Extreme AC hardwired to the router. The crappy ISP router has wifi turned off and the Airport serve Wifi to my entire house. Rock solid.

I have an Apple TV 4K in the living room hardwired to the router along with a stereo pair of OG Homepods, a Homepod Mini in the kitchen, and an old Apple TV HD upstairs in the master bedroom. That´s it.

Then I have smart lights and curtains, among others smart accessories.

Of course, I’m gonna test everything before making any additional purchases.

I’m hoping that with the Verizon FiOS GB plan, a few scattered eero Pro 6’s taking up slack (no ISP router, modem only) with a wired backhaul and the AppleTVs hardwired, that the HomePods will leave just enough bandwidth to run the rest of the devices on my network sufficiently lol. We’ll see as Apple has a helluva way of screwing things up.

I was convinced that it was the eero and they just sucked. The more I investigated and the more ATVs and HPs I added, I found where the flaw is.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Of course, I’m gonna test everything before making any additional purchases.

I’m hoping that with the Verizon FiOS GB plan, a few scattered eero Pro 6’s taking up slack (no ISP router, modem only) with a wired backhaul and the AppleTVs hardwired, that the HomePods will leave just enough bandwidth to run the rest of the devices on my network sufficiently lol. We’ll see as Apple has a helluva way of screwing things up.

I was convinced that it was the eero and they just sucked. The more I investigated and the more ATVs and HPs I added, I found where the flaw is.

I often find it’s either a channel issue like the OP had since auto negotiating channels on routers is still terrible and the other big one is when routers automatically select the best frequency for you as it often leaves you in 2.4ghz. This even happens on my flagship Netgear Router.

Routers that don’t allow you to select the channel band you want typically don’t allow you to have separate 2.4/5ghz networks either (e.g. Google Nest) so thye aren’t the best at maximizing your network but are usually easier to setup. Lastly, all Apple products run at HT80 instead of the full HT160 making throughput slower as well.

Bottom line, you shouldn’t need that much equipment for a few devices so either dump the Eeros and get a standalone router or a better mesh system from a company that has been in the game longer like Netgear or Linksys.

 

[Itinj24]

I often find it’s either a channel issue like the OP had since auto negotiating channels on routers is still terrible and the other big one is when routers automatically select the best frequency for you as it often leaves you in 2.4ghz. This even happens on my flagship Netgear Router.

Routers that don’t allow you to select the channel band you want typically don’t allow you to have separate 2.4/5ghz networks either (e.g. Google Nest) so thye aren’t the best at maximizing your network but are usually easier to setup. Lastly, all Apple products run at HT80 instead of the full HT160 making throughput slower as well.

Bottom line, you shouldn’t need that much equipment for a few devices so either dump the Eeros and get a standalone router or a better mesh system from a company that has been in the game longer like Netgear or Linksys.

I just bought a Linksys Velop MX4200 and returned it before I opened. Was scouring the App Store reviews of the app and for the past few months, it looks like it’s been nothing but misery for the users. Since they changed the look. Can’t even log in.

They all have mixed reviews. Some eero reviews are glaring and some not so much. Same goes for Linksys and NetGear. It all comes down to the individual set up. No two are alike. I tried the stand alone router approach. Not good. I have five levels and each room with multiple devices. Then there’s the pool house, about 100’ away, also with multiple devices. I need something with multiple access points. I’m not much of a tinkerer, nor am I networking expert so I need the software to do most of the work for me.


FWIW, I had the gen 2 eero Pro at my last house with about 80 clients on five nodes (wireless backhaul). It was rock solid but I also had only one Apple TV and two HomePods that didn’t have the default audio option yet. This is not an issue with the eero. It’s an issue with Apple and their software. B/D started a whole thread on this mess and the more I looked into, the more it made sense. I could be sitting in my house with no ATVs/HomePods running and the network is excellent. Soon as I turn one of those ATVs on, with defaulted HomePod, it’s over for the whole network. I’m hoping wiring them will mitigate some of that. The issues aren’t with the Network. They’re with the clients.

How well does a smart home work when you split the two bands up into separate SSIDs? Doesn’t HomeKit require you and your devices to be on the same network?

 

[B/D]

I just bought a Linksys Velop MX4200 and returned it before I opened. Was scouring the App Store reviews of the app and for the past few months, it looks like it’s been nothing but misery for the users. Since they changed the look. Can’t even log in.

They all have mixed reviews. Some eero reviews are glaring and some not so much. Same goes for Linksys and NetGear. It all comes down to the individual set up. No two are alike. I tried the stand alone router approach. Not good. I have five levels and each room with multiple devices. Then there’s the pool house, about 100’ away, also with multiple devices. I need something with multiple access points. I’m not much of a tinkerer, nor am I networking expert so I need the software to do most of the work for me.


FWIW, I had the gen 2 eero Pro at my last house with about 80 clients on five nodes (wireless backhaul). It was rock solid but I also had only one Apple TV and two HomePods that didn’t have the default audio option yet. This is not an issue with the eero. It’s an issue with Apple and their software. B/D started a whole thread on this mess and the more I looked into, the more it made sense. I could be sitting in my house with no ATVs/HomePods running and the network is excellent. Soon as I turn one of those ATVs on, with defaulted HomePod, it’s over for the whole network. I’m hoping wiring them will mitigate some of that. The issues aren’t with the Network. They’re with the clients.

How well does a smart home work when you split the two bands up into separate SSIDs? Doesn’t HomeKit require you and your devices to be on the same network?

@Itinj24

Great post. I dont know what the hell is exactly going on when you make the homepods the default audio output of an Apple TV 4K, but it shouldn´t saturate a network like that. Certain strain is something I can understand because of the ad-hoc network that it creates, but to completely destroy a network performance, that requires poorly written and badly optimized software.

And this has been an issue since November 2020!

 

[B/D]

Between that and the incomplete sorround sound/atmos support (no Disney+ content support, for example) Im about to give up on the pods and buy a Sonos Arc.

 

[Itinj24]

@Itinj24

Great post. I dont know what the hell is exactly going on when you make the homepods the default audio output of an Apple TV 4K, but it shouldn´t saturate a network like that. Certain strain is something I can understand because of the ad-hoc network that it creates, but to completely destroy a network performance, that requires poorly written and badly optimized software.

And this has been an issue since November 2020!

I’m losing confidence in all of Apple software. Hardware is great but means nothing without the software to run it. Find My has been an absolute mess for me since 15.1 with all the new features they added.

Funny thing is, I must’ve called eero support 10 times over the past year for my network issues. Cursing, screaming (not really but I was angry). Finally one of the techs asked to go into my network remotely and I allowed it. First thing he says… “uh, I see you have a lot of HomePods on your network…” I immediately thought about your thread and it clicked. It’s not the eero causing my misery ?‍♂️

Think I had one of the first few comments in your thread saying my network was working fine lol. Yeah right.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

I just bought a Linksys Velop MX4200 and returned it before I opened. Was scouring the App Store reviews of the app and for the past few months, it looks like it’s been nothing but misery for the users. Since they changed the look. Can’t even log in.

They all have mixed reviews. Some eero reviews are glaring and some not so much. Same goes for Linksys and NetGear. It all comes down to the individual set up. No two are alike. I tried the stand alone router approach. Not good. I have five levels and each room with multiple devices. Then there’s the pool house, about 100’ away, also with multiple devices. I need something with multiple access points. I’m not much of a tinkerer, nor am I networking expert so I need the software to do most of the work for me.


FWIW, I had the gen 2 eero Pro at my last house with about 80 clients on five nodes (wireless backhaul). It was rock solid but I also had only one Apple TV and two HomePods that didn’t have the default audio option yet. This is not an issue with the eero. It’s an issue with Apple and their software. B/D started a whole thread on this mess and the more I looked into, the more it made sense. I could be sitting in my house with no ATVs/HomePods running and the network is excellent. Soon as I turn one of those ATVs on, with defaulted HomePod, it’s over for the whole network. I’m hoping wiring them will mitigate some of that. The issues aren’t with the Network. They’re with the clients.

How well does a smart home work when you split the two bands up into separate SSIDs? Doesn’t HomeKit require you and your devices to be on the same network?

Separating the SSIDs just gives peace of mind that you’re getting the bandwidth you need. Devices that are further away or don’t require a lot of bandwidth (e.g. non media devices) will have better connectivity on 2.4ghz but slower data speeds where as the 5ghz will have higher data speeds but cuts the distance almost in half. Some routers and devices just aren’t smart enough to negotiate SSIDs correctly so it could be the difference of getting 20MB or 800MB download speeds. I keep things like my printer, thermostat and Sonos on the 2.4ghz network but my computers, phone, and ATV on 5ghz. I have FIOS and my ATV is about 15ft from my router and gets 700MB+ down on wireless.

I had the OG HomePods running default audio and didn’t have any serious issues other than audio latency before that was fixed. As soon as they discontinued them I saw the writing on the wall and sold them. Sonos is effectively the Apple of wireless home audio so I have a nice simple setup in my living room primarily for my wife’s ease of use and moved my nicer/bigger home theater speakers into my office.

 

[Itinj24]

Separating the SSIDs just gives peace of mind that you’re getting the bandwidth you need. Devices that are further away or don’t require a lot of bandwidth (e.g. non media devices) will have better connectivity on 2.4ghz but slower data speeds where as the 5ghz will have higher data speeds but cuts the distance almost in half. Some routers and devices just aren’t smart enough to negotiate SSIDs correctly so it could be the difference of getting 20MB or 800MB download speeds. I keep things like my printer, thermostat and Sonos on the 2.4ghz network but my computers, phone, and ATV on 5ghz. I have FIOS and my ATV is about 15ft from my router and gets 700MB+ down on wireless.

I had the OG HomePods running default audio and didn’t have any serious issues other than audio latency before that was fixed. As soon as they discontinued them I saw the writing on the wall and sold them. Sonos is effectively the Apple of wireless home audio so I have a nice simple setup in my living room primarily for my wife’s ease of use and moved my nicer/bigger home theater speakers into my office.

When I do my speed tests, I always check to see what node they’re connected to and on what frequency. They’re usually where the should be unless I’m getting a Home Hub switch for no apparent reason. Weird.

I’m losing faith in Apple though. For example, last night, I was watching a hockey game on ESPN+. Still had all my HomePods audio defaulted to their respective Apple TV’s (6 ATV 4Ks with 10 HomePods, mix of mini in stereo and OGs in stereo and solo). The video quality was like watching blobs skating around. I went into the Home App and disabled all the default audios and instantly, the video and audio quality improved to what I’d expect. Coincidence?

 

[AL2TEACH]

Between that and the incomplete sorround sound/atmos support (no Disney+ content support, for example) Im about to give up on the pods and buy a Sonos Arc.

lol, don't about to rather give up on the pods and get the Sonos Arc. I'm waiting for the Sony HT-A9.

 

[Shanghaichica]

My HomePods actually play really nicely with my wifi. My echos just throw tantrums all the time and disconnect themselves from my wifi but my HomePods are quite sold in that respect and I don't really get dropped music playback or anything.