HomePod (UK) Siri refusing to play radio stations / other strange behaviour

[Ggvfvgbffbf]

2 OG stereo HomePods in living room:

“Hey Siri play Absolute Radio” “I couldn’t find Absolute Radio in your Apple Music library”.
“Hey Siri play Greatest Hits Radio ” “I couldn’t find Greatest Hits Radio in your Apple Music library”.
“Hey Siri play Heart 90s” “I couldn’t find Heart 90s in your Apple Music library”.
“Hey Siri play Apple Music 1 ” “I couldn’t find Apple Music 1 in your Apple Music library”.
“Hey Siri play Apple Radio” “ The app hasn’t added support for that with Siri”.

“Hey Siri play Absolute Radio on TuneIn” “I couldn’t find Absolute Radio in your Apple Music library”.

All of these are UK National radio stations and worked perfectly up until about a week ago. Now I can’t get any to work.

I’m also getting the “Listen for Hey Siri” sound even though it’s heard me and replying. Also last night watching a movie: “How old is Keira Knightley?” —“sending to John’s iphone’ (in another room) rather than giving a verbal response but giving a verbal response (Keira Knightley is 37) if I ask the exact same question again!

A decade on and Siri is still as unreliable as ever. You’ll get a good 6 month run and then you’re outta luck. I sometimes think it’s run out of an exec’s spare room and occasionally the kids get in there and start pulling wires out or something.

 

[DanielCoffey]

You aren't alone in this. About a week ago my two OG HomePods did the same thing for my playlists. In the past when it happened it fixed itself in a day or two but this time it is going on for longer.

I am able to AirPlay from iPhone to HomePod perfectly, just not direct from the HomePod. "Hey Siri, play the playlist Playlistname in the Bedroom" works fine on my iPhone but the HomePod just does the "I couldn't find Playlistname in your Apple Music Library.

I will be making a support call on Tuesday after the holiday and see wha they say this time.

 

[Duncan-UK]

Funnily enough I was just going to post something to possibly help other users when I logged into the forums and saw these posts.

This past week I've been having problems getting the HomePod to play (via Siri) playlists. I have iTunes Match - not Apple Music. I was continually being told that "I couldn't find XYZ in your Apple Music Library"

After much banging of head against brick walls and cursing of Siri, I placed a support call. After being placed on hold for about 5 mins or so the agent suggested I turn off "recognise my voice" or whatever it is called - and instantly it solved the problem.

So try it - you dont have anything to lose!

 

[alunjunkinsuk]

I’ve found Siri just getting worse and worse . It used to be pretty good ; it would hear me from two forms away get things right and generally do what I need. Now I find myself asking out one echo to turn hue lights on and off as Siri can’t tell the difference between those two words .
It so bad now I’m really thinking of getting a show 10 from Amazon with all that entails . Siri has become a lot more frustrating the last 6 months or so

 

[Duncan-UK]

Sadly Siri is a joke - it barely works with HomePod and as you say, can be very erratic with lights as well. Considering Apple is a multiple trillion dollar company, you'd think they would have something better. A choice of trigger expressions would also be good rather than the awful "Hey" Americanism...

 

[DanielCoffey]

After much banging of head against brick walls and cursing of Siri, I placed a support call. After being placed on hold for about 5 mins or so the agent suggested I turn off "recognise my voice" or whatever it is called - and instantly it solved the problem.

Sadly that was not a solution in my case. I have added and removed Recognise Voice and also signed out of the "When voice not recognised, use HomePod Account - Apple Music" and back in again without any change in its behaviour.

 

[Ggvfvgbffbf]

It’s funny. After a week of no service I got some functionality back today. Most radio stations are working although the usual Siri nonsense is still there:

”Hey Siri play Heart 90’s” -“Now playing Heart 80s”
“Hey Siri play Absolute Radio” -“Here‘s Love Soul Radio London”

I’m also getting lots of “one moment”, “the device is taking a while to respond” with basic HomeKit requests.

 

[StumpyBloke]

It’s funny. After a week of no service I got some functionality back today. Most radio stations are working although the usual Siri nonsense is still there:

”Hey Siri play Heart 90’s” -“Now playing Heart 80s”
“Hey Siri play Absolute Radio” -“Here‘s Love Soul Radio London”

I’m also getting lots of “one moment”, “the device is taking a while to respond” with basic HomeKit requests.

I think pretty much everybody is suffering with the delays with HomeKit since the release of 15. It has been raised hundreds of times on here and with Apple but they seem completely unable or not wanting to fix what they broke. I’ve given up with it now.

 

[iGeek2019]

It’s funny. After a week of no service I got some functionality back today. Most radio stations are working although the usual Siri nonsense is still there:

”Hey Siri play Heart 90’s” -“Now playing Heart 80s”
“Hey Siri play Absolute Radio” -“Here‘s Love Soul Radio London”

I’m also getting lots of “one moment”, “the device is taking a while to respond” with basic HomeKit requests.

In terms of “Hey Siri, play Heart 90s” it also does this to me and decides to play Heart 80s unless I say “Hey Siri, play Heart 90s from TuneIn” and then it works ?.

Very hit and miss!

My HomePod Minis also decided to stop showing the Lossless icon on the Music app when I handed over for a wee while but it’s back again now ?

 

[steve knight]

we have so many issues with HP and it just gets worse. Siri gets deaf over time and it never improve when it hears the same thing over and over again. we have Siri turn on water every day half the time it gets it right and a couple days ago it though I said turn on all the lights Plus it tried to turn on a outlet that was not a light all in one fell swoop and it did it twice in a row. it all works fine on our phone or watches. but with a home pod right there it does not hear most of the time.

 

[ascender]

For the last week, the main issue with HomePods here have been that if I'm in the living room, I'll ask Siri to do something and the HomePod in the kitchen will respond to me (or vice versa). I bet that in a week's time, it will just start working.

I've also had some of these other issues in this thread, so presumably Siri in the cloud is having some sort of brain fart due to some tuning going on at the time? Assuming your internet connection is ok and they've had a reboot in the last while, what else could it be?

Although this week, my Mac has stopped being able to airplay music to a stereo pair in the study without a reboot of the Mac. Weird.

 

[Ashbash75]

Siri does not exist. She is now known as "Bitch Face".

For radio stations/music I use an old ipad and airplay to the speakers I want.

It's pot luck to which homepod will respond.

Also timers. Set one in the kitchen, ask the living room, "how long the kitchen one has left?" and there are no timers set!! Kitchen timer goes off. Tell the living room to "Stop the kitchen timer" and the response is "Stop, the kitchen?". YESSS BITCH FACE, I said that.

 

[iGeek2019]

Anyone else experiencing their HomePod Minis being out of whack when it’s set up as a Stereo pair?

Set Heart 90s as the radio station to go off as per my automation when I wake up and playback echos as if there is a second delay between the left and right hand side.

Unpaired and repaired again but still happening.

 

[Ggvfvgbffbf]

Anyone else experiencing their HomePod Minis being out of whack when it’s set up as a Stereo pair?

Set Heart 90s as the radio station to go off as per my automation when I wake up and playback echos as if there is a second delay between the left and right hand side.

Unpaired and repaired again but still happening.

Yes, started today. The sound is now heavily (totally?) biased to the left speaker. ive reset and done all the usual.

Also getting the usual Siri drivel I referenced in the OP.

“Hey Siri play Heart 90s” -- I cOulDnt FiNd heArT 90S IN yOuR AppLE MUSic lInraRy…

 

[rikscha]

Is it not possible to create a radio playlist? Bit annoying if you have to ask Siri and doesn’t work with non-english radio stations either
Any input is much appreciated

 

[ForkHandles]

Absolutely share your pain here OP. Currently “Play Radio XXXXXX from TuneIn” is working, next week it won’t and I’ll dream of an Alexa…… again

 

[tyrone841]

Siri does not exist. She is now known as "Bitch Face".

For radio stations/music I use an old ipad and airplay to the speakers I want.

It's pot luck to which homepod will respond.

Also timers. Set one in the kitchen, ask the living room, "how long the kitchen one has left?" and there are no timers set!! Kitchen timer goes off. Tell the living room to "Stop the kitchen timer" and the response is "Stop, the kitchen?". YESSS BITCH FACE, I said that.

This is unfortunately SO TRUE.

I have the exact same setup - one Mini in the kitchen, one in the office. Siri knows S**T about a timer on any other device. Drives me up the wall. Especially since she specifically says that "there is no timer set".

 

[tyrone841]

After updating to iOS 16.2 (and the homepod software as well) I am having problems listening to radio on my homepods.

I get the stuppid "I can't find ... in your Apple Music Library".
I will try with the "recognize my voice" setting off as suggested above, but I have little to no hope. It sometimes happened before 16.2 (but mostly I had to just say it again and it worked then).

But now I've tried all these suggestions on how to tell her I want to hear that certain radio station and on my homepod she just doesn't get it.

On the phone however, it works like a charm. So frustrating.

 

[tyrone841]

After much banging of head against brick walls and cursing of Siri, I placed a support call. After being placed on hold for about 5 mins or so the agent suggested I turn off "recognise my voice" or whatever it is called - and instantly it solved the problem.

@Duncan-UK this fixed it for me - I could not believe my ears when Siri started playing music again. So frustrating.
Of course I don't know what the setting was before the update, but now that I switched it off, it works.

What is confusing that the above setting is in the general Home settings and when switched off, the Personal Requests toggle automatically disappears. However, within the individual HomePod settings, I can still activate "Personal requests", but they do not work anymore. For me, that's a small sacrifice, as I only use the HomePods for Radio and controlling my Home.

Well... guess what - when I asked the HomePod about upcoming events, it told me to activate the "recognize my voice" feature (which I had explicitly deactivated as written above, so the behavior was expected). So I did turn it ON, but then switched it back OFF again and went once again into the individual HomePod settings and turned "Personal requests" back on in there - and now both things work: telling Siri to play my favorite radio station AND even personal requests, although "Recognize my voice" is turned off.

I can't believe it - an early Christmas gift for me.
And so annoying that we have to go through all this after an update. Where is the "It just works"?

 

[Neil.gtis]

Hi all in the uk
With all the problems that I have read
Is it worth getting a home pod
Neil

 

[tyrone841]

Hi all in the uk
With all the problems that I have read
Is it worth getting a home pod
Neil

While I'm not in the UK, I think the answer depends on what you're planning to use the HomePod for.

I use it to play Radio (that's how I found this thread) and other than that just for switching on/off some outlets and as a Thread/Matter router for said outlets. Sure, I sometimes ask Siri about outside temperatures and to start a countdown, but that's all I use it for (because in German Siri is even worse than in english). My ecosystem is "Apple only", so it fits in nicely as well.

So for me the EUR 99,- were worth it, because it's a decent speaker with enough functionality for my few and very limited usecases.

 

[Neil.gtis]

Hi tyrone841
I will probably just use it to play music from iPhone or Siri voice
Neil

 

[tyrone841]

You should definitely go and test-listen to them somewhere if the sound is enough for you though.

 

[Ashbash75]

Get a homepod mini if you have homekit and siri.

Music wise, it's good for background noise, like a portable radio.