HomePod Multiroom

[joelhinch]

I have 3 homepods.
2x in my living room as a stereo pair
1x in my office

when I’m in my living room i say “hey Siri play *song”

music then starts playing on all homepods.

I can’t get it to stop doing this. Every time I ask Siri to play a song or radio it plays everywhere. Even after i manually say “stop playing in the office” or manually i tick via iOS.

Any ideas? I’ve never had this problem before. It’s only recently started.

 

[waw74]

scroll down on this page, there are several siri commands for multi room audio, something might help

Use Siri to play music and podcasts - Apple Support

Discover all the ways to use Siri to play the music and podcasts that you love to listen to. Learn tips for using Siri, and how to control whatʼs playing throughout your home with just your voice.

support.apple.com

you might want to check in the home app, make sure HomePods are still assigned to the rooms they should be.

Also try rebooting your HomePods,

We're approaching new OS updates, which typically mean siri gets squirrelly. Not sure why, but from my experience, as the updates get closer, she looses it a bit. It might be related to Apple updating servers, but don't know.

 

[joelhinch]

scroll down on this page, there are several siri commands for multi room audio, something might help

Use Siri to play music and podcasts - Apple Support

Discover all the ways to use Siri to play the music and podcasts that you love to listen to. Learn tips for using Siri, and how to control whatʼs playing throughout your home with just your voice.

support.apple.com

you might want to check in the home app, make sure HomePods are still assigned to the rooms they should be.

Also try rebooting your HomePods,

We're approaching new OS updates, which typically mean siri gets squirrelly. Not sure why, but from my experience, as the updates get closer, she looses it a bit. It might be related to Apple updating servers, but don't know.

thanks for your response.

yeah they are in the correct rooms.

i guess the solution for now is to say "hey siri, play 'X' in the living room" so that it doesn't assume my surroundings.

 

[boltjames]

I have several HomePods and have set up several Shortcuts in the Shortcuts app for various combinations of HomePod’s and Apple TVs. You can call up a shortcut using your voice with Siri or you can access them by swiping right on your home screen if you don’t feel like speaking. You can even choose a playlist or radio station to assign each instance of each Shortcut.

 

[joelhinch]

I have several HomePods and have set up several Shortcuts in the Shortcuts app for various combinations of HomePod’s and Apple TVs. You can call up a shortcut using your voice with Siri or you can access them by swiping right on your home screen if you don’t feel like speaking. You can even choose a playlist or radio station to assign each instance of each Shortcut.

This issue is that I want to use my voice.. I want to speak to the Living Room HomePod to ask it to play music. What I don't want to then happen is, every HomePod around the house in different rooms all connect together and start playing the same song. I expect only the HomePod I spoke to to play. I don't need my Office HomePod to link with AirPlay 2, because then i have to manually unlink, every damn time.

 

[boltjames]

This issue is that I want to use my voice.. I want to speak to the Living Room HomePod to ask it to play music. What I don't want to then happen is, every HomePod around the house in different rooms all connect together and start playing the same song. I expect only the HomePod I spoke to to play. I don't need my Office HomePod to link with AirPlay 2, because then i have to manually unlink, every damn time.

I have three HomePods at my house currently and they seem to remember their last state. For example, when I use Apple TV as the hub and add one or two HomePods to it, anytime I make a Hey Siri request it applies to all of them together. But when I go into my Apple TV and uncheck a HomePod or two, it functions independently.

Do this:

Swipe down from the top right of your iPhone, bringing up Control Center.

Press and hold on the Music tile.

This should expose all your iOS devices and you should see where your HomePods are grouped together as one instance.

Tap on the tile for that instance, it will bring up the Music app, go to the very bottom and tap on the Airplay icon.

There you can uncheck the HomePods and that should ungroup them.

 

[joelhinch]

I have three HomePods at my house currently and they seem to remember their last state. For example, when I use Apple TV as the hub and add one or two HomePods to it, anytime I make a Hey Siri request it applies to all of them together. But when I go into my Apple TV and uncheck a HomePod or two, it functions independently.

Do this:

Swipe down from the top right of your iPhone, bringing up Control Center.

Press and hold on the Music tile.

This should expose all your iOS devices and you should see where your HomePods are grouped together as one instance.

Tap on the tile for that instance, it will bring up the Music app, go to the very bottom and tap on the Airplay icon.

There you can uncheck the HomePods and that should ungroup them.

Yes this is how I expect it to work, and exactly how it used to behave.

Unfortunately they now for some reason don’t remember the state they are in. I have them ungrouped, then I ask Siri to play something and she automatically groups them, then i have to ungroup them again. Then I ask siri to play again and Siri regroups them. Every time.

 

[boltjames]

Yes this is how I expect it to work, and exactly how it used to behave.

Unfortunately they now for some reason don’t remember the state they are in. I have them ungrouped, then I ask Siri to play something and she automatically groups them, then i have to ungroup them again. Then I ask siri to play again and Siri regroups them. Every time.

A longshot, but are the HomePod's so close together that they are all hearing your Siri commands at the same time? If that's the case, if the speakers can't differentiate which one you're speaking to, I could see why they'd all respond.

 

[joelhinch]

A longshot, but are the HomePod's so close together that they are all hearing your Siri commands at the same time? If that's the case, if the speakers can't differentiate which one you're speaking to, I could see why they'd all respond.

Had the same theory and tested it by making sure doors are shut then whispering right up close to the other. Unfortunately rules this theory out
Thanks though, when I thought the same thing I was sure this was the case. But nope.

Fun fact also:
Siri is smart enough that if Siri hears you on multiple devices, your iCloud linked devices all talk to each other to determine who heard it the loudest and only one responds anyway.

 

[boltjames]

Have you tried uncoupling the stereo pair to see if this still happens? Not permanently, just to see whether or not this fixes the problem?

 

[Itinj24]

I had this same issue. By any chance, are all of your HomePods linked to one single HomeKit automation or scene?

 

[joelhinch]

I had this same issue. By any chance, are all of your HomePods linked to one single HomeKit automation or scene?

They were in a scene to stop playing when leaving the house, yes. I've removed them to see if it helps.

 

[Itinj24]

They were in a scene to stop playing when leaving the house, yes. I've removed them to see if it helps.

Curious how that goes. Had the same issue. For some reason when you link them together in a scene, they always play together also unless you ask Siri to play in a specific room. Hope this gets addressed soon.

 

[joelhinch]

Curious how that goes. Had the same issue. For some reason when you link them together in a scene, they always play together also unless you ask Siri to play in a specific room. Hope this gets addressed soon.

Removing them from the scene appears to fix it.

 

[BalutFX]

I'm reviving this thread because I just got 4 HomePod Minis and am trying to get them to default to just play on the Mini that is spoken to, rather than remembering the last state. We have one in the Master bedroom and want to use it for playing sleep sounds. But if we were using one of the Minis downstairs to play everywhere (which is where we made the mistake), then the last state remembers everywhere and the sleep sounds later that day plays everywhere. Seems like there would be a way to have the Minis not start in the last state, but with Apple trying to make things easier, it seems they make it harder or impossible to set individual preferences. Any suggestions other than not use "everywhere" as a Siri play option?

 

[Itinj24]

I'm reviving this thread because I just got 4 HomePod Minis and am trying to get them to default to just play on the Mini that is spoken to, rather than remembering the last state. We have one in the Master bedroom and want to use it for playing sleep sounds. But if we were using one of the Minis downstairs to play everywhere (which is where we made the mistake), then the last state remembers everywhere and the sleep sounds later that day plays everywhere. Seems like there would be a way to have the Minis not start in the last state, but with Apple trying to make things easier, it seems they make it harder or impossible to set individual preferences. Any suggestions other than not use "everywhere" as a Siri play option?

If you say play in the master bedroom, it doesn’t work?

 

[BalutFX]

It would work, but I want that too be the default without having to say "Master Bedroom". This is what I mean about Apple trying to make things "easier" by remembering the last state. The only Mini that can hear me is the one in the Master Bedroom. Therefore I only want it to play the sleep sounds on that Mini. I don't want to have to say "Master Bedroom" every time, to negate the other minis that I may have been using previously. This seems like a dumb way for Apple to implement AirPlay.

 

[mnichollsuk]

Hey, it’s my time to revive this thread as we are having the same issue and it’s driving us mad!

Last night for example when we started to play some Netflix at 21:00 it started to stream the audio into the babies bedroom as much earlier in the day I was playing some music “everywhere” and every room had a HomePod. Likewise we’ve had a situation where I then play sleep sounds to get my baby to sleep and we have sounds of the ocean playing in every room because hours earlier I may have played some music in every room.

Is there not a way to make it forget the last state unless it’s a pre approved stereo pair?

The other major problem we have is when multiple people are over and someone asks for some music to be played on the HomePod of the room we are in but everyone’s phone lights up and it plays music on a random phone instead - this is the one single benefit of having Alexa in the house as this conflict didn’t happen but we moved away from home Alexa because HomePod is so much better in responding…. But these 2 issues are driving us mad!