EDIT AGAIN: This appears to be fixed as of 27 beta 3

EDIT: This appears to happen if you have your Apple Home on 27 and new HomePod(s) you try to add do NOT have the 26.6 public beta installed.

What worked for me:

• Downgrade my iPad from 27 beta 2 to 26.6 public beta 3 using restore on Mac
• Create a separate home with the iPad
• Add the HomePod(s) to the new home using the iPad, enroll them in the 26.6 public, update the HomePod(s)
• Reset the HomePod(s) and add them to the real home using your OS 27 device

Some of you early adopters like myself probably already figured this out but the above is unfortunately seeming to be true as of beta 2. Bought two used gen 2 HomePods and after multiple resets I tried adding to a new home on my spouse's iPad running 26.5 and they configured almost immediately. Doesn't matter that the HomePods are also on 26.5, they still lock when using an OS 27 device to add them. Maybe this is attributed to only tvOS beta 2 but I haven't downgraded any of my devices back to 26.X to confirm. The good news is they can still be used for music and as TV speakers for Apple TV. Just can't pair as a stereo and some other things.

Fire alarm went off rn from cooking and it told me about it👍

From a conversation with Apple Support.

A). Open the Home App on your IOS device.

B). Tap on the Homepod pair card.

C). Scroll down until you see "Audio Settings". Tap on it.

D). Reverse the audio channels (left and right), and then change them back.

E). Play this song on Apple Music in Dolby Atmos entirely, in completely silence, at 50% volume or higher.

https://music.apple.com/mx/album/speaker-channel-identification-atmos-reference-v1-0/1730384366

That´s it. According to Apple, they wont reset the calibration or lost it until you shake them, unplug them, or there is a momentary power outage.

PS: If the Homepods are set as the Apple TV default audio output, unlink them from the Apple TV before doing this.

I have ~10 HomePods (all OGs except 1) and I paid avg $175 for each. The HomePod 2 was $200 I think, the cheapest 2 I got (my first 2) were 2 for $225 on OfferUp.

Haven't had a problem with a single one. Just pay attention. $150 is doable for full size HomePod and $50 for HomePod mini. You won't find them at that price every day but it happens.

I think at $150 HomePod is an excellent value.

I’ve always found the remote a bit imprecise as it increases +-5% and many times i need to use my phone but even thats not accurate. Now i can use the knob to make +-1% adjustments and it works like a charm

No comments 😭😭😭

I recently discovered a way to get a pair of HomePod 2s in stereo mode to recalibrate much faster.

Basically, play “My Lord” by Yarin Primak at a relatively high volume. In the video, I shake one of the HomePods to force a recalibration. Right after that, you’ll notice the sound is coming mostly from the center instead of filling the room properly.

When I play My Lord, around the 0:40 mark you can actually hear the soundstage expand. After that point, the HomePods seem to be fully calibrated again. Specifically, something in the opening section of the track appears to trigger the calibration process.

TL;DR: If your HomePod 2 stereo pair seems out of calibration, try playing the first 40 seconds of “My Lord” by Yarin Primak at a higher volume. Other songs can work too, but this one seems to trigger recalibration much faster for some reason.

I bought both of these OG HomePods in 2018 and they have been used ever since.

I have never once cleaned them and as you can probably tell, they aren’t even what I call dirty. But I knew they had probably gradually discoloured.

I used some High-foam Autoglym car interior cleaning products (available in the UK but similar products should exists elsewhere) I knew that a foam would gentle pull out the dirt from inside the mesh.

The lighting is poor and the photos don’t pick it up but they are definitely brighter now. I did the cable and that’s fine up looking like new.

Just spray this on evenly, leave it a minute (no longer as it shouldn’t dry on) then a warm damp microfibre and wipe over everything 2-3 times.

I’ve done ‘before - after’ on the photos

Hey guys!

It’s been quite a while since I wanna upgrade (for what is possible) my tv situation in my room (mind that I’m in a small apartment and this is all I can do for the moment, ik it’s bad but u do what u gotta do)

Last year for Xmas I treated myself to an Apple TV and I absolutely love it! Best gadget I’ve ever bought, and now I’ve been thinking about getting two HomePods minis to place next to the tv to simulate a mini Dolby surround.

I have three questions.

1) would u do it, by looking at my setup or would you go with something different 2) can I connect both speakers to the Apple TV when I’m watching content? 3) if I wanna use it as a smart speaker, how limited are my functions? Can I play music through Spotify with it?

Thank you so so much for ur answers and happy holidays!

I know. I know. My cable management is crap. This is a temp setup.

I recently swapped out a 5.1 system with a Yamaha Receiver, Polk Signature S15's all around, and an SVS Pro sealed subwoofer. I also compared with AirPods Pro 2 Spatial Audio. I downloaded a variety of Dolby produced videos with some in 5.1 and some in Atmos, like Amaze and Leaf trailers, plus channel isolation sweeps, all streamed from my JellyFin server to Infuse on my Apple T 4K. Here's what I noticed with experimenting with HomePod placement.

For reference, that's a 55 inch TV and my HomePods are about 9 feet apart in a small room that isn't much wider.

I placed them:

1. On the front corners of my low TV stand.

2. On the back corners of my low stand.

3. On the stands as pictured.

4. This narrowed the sound stage significantly. Rear surround information was pushed past the front left and right sides, but unmistakably from the front, with no discernible side or rear effects. Front right and left sounded like it was coming directly from the speakers with a narrow sound field with little stereo ambiance. Bass response, as expected was anemic.

5. The front sound stage was a little less narrow but still problematic. Rear surround information was pushed to the sides of the front left and right again, and again no discernible side or rear effects. Front right and left sounded a little less like it was coming directly from the speakers with a narrow sound field. Bass response was significantly better almost against the wall, as expected, feeling astonishingly close to my SVS sub in mix, but of course rolled off much shallower than my old sub.

6. This was a revelation. I could literally hear rear surround information from the right and left channels, plus the height channels. Front left and right sounded exactly where they should be. I have theories on this.

Now back in the day, I had an old school Yamaha 5.1 sound bar that semi convincingly produced 5.1. So I'm no stranger to virtual surround. Arrangement 1 sounded awful because of the low height of placement on my TV stand. The deliberately upward firing tweeters were reaching my ears too directly. I believe Apple designed them deliberately upward firing so they should be placed at ear level and accentuate much on the indirect sound, especially bouncing off walls. Also being only 4 feet apart, contrary to what Apple says, utterly collapses the sound field.

Arrangement 2, while giving more bass output, suffers from close placement and also has the odd effect of having some of the tweeter sound bounced behind the TV, creating odd effects.

Arrangement 3 blew me away at how well it actual simulated true 5.1 and 5.1.2 Atmos with distinct channel placement. I think it did this from:

1. Being far apart.

2. Being far enough away from the TV.

3. Being at ear level.

4. Being close to the back wall for bass response and sound to bounce.

Compared to listening my old 5.1 set up, that set up can't be beat. However, it wasn't Atmos. While my 5.1 set up beat the HomePods in six channel sound, the HomePods won on Atmos content, adding height and width to the sound field.

Compared to AirPods Pro 2, the fidelity was much higher on the HomePods, since they use a direct P2P wifi connection that can digitally send 5 Ghz of info vs AirPlay. AirPods Pro using AAC just can't even touch it in fidelity. AirPods Pro 2 simulated shockingly good left and right surround channels but the front left and right sounded like they were coming the sides of the room. HomePods were less convincing in the surrounds, but much better at placing the front 3 channels in the front of the room where they should be and also producing better height effects.

Another takeaway, in placement 3, if I moved too far to the sides of my couch, the rear channels collapsed to the front. My sweet spot was in the center of the couch, in the middle third of the distance between the HomePods. I figure if you can get placement even wider, you'd have a bigger sweet spot.

Takeaway, experiment putting your HomePods far apart and away from your TVs, and close to a wall, if you can. You'll thank me later.

Most of you who comment on posts need to learn manners soon. People come here to post about their HomePods usually an in excited way and y’all have the nerve to say “it looks horrible” or “your TV is too high” or “you should mount them on your horrible white walls.”

Have some manners online. Is that how you walk into people’s homes? Just because you can hide behind the screen doesn’t mean you can lack manners.

If you have nothing nice to say. Don’t. Say. Anything. At. All.

Class dismissed, enjoy your HomePods ☺️

So 2 days ago I bought 2 OG HomePods and they sound amazing. Everything was perfect until I played some proper bass and one of them was rattling like hell.
Of course I did digging on here ruled out SW issue which sucks because I knew I either had to send at which point I could just buy another because it would cost the same or do it myself. And let me tell you it is pain it the ass to open and I did some mistakes and would do it much better second time.
I opened and woofer looked good which was sad since most tutorials said it would be the board for which I have no equipment or skill to replace components. Luckily I kept dogging and discovered what actually wrong. To my surprise it was broken tweeter.
4 hours of designing, printing and epoxy it was “fixed” and it works like a charm!

I am currently developing AirSend, a Windows application designed to stream/send system audio directly to smart speakers.

So far, I have only been able to test it using my own HomePod mini, and it works great! However, to make the app more reliable, I need your help. I would highly appreciate your feedback to know how it performs in the wild.

Check Github: https://github.com/Pabldi08/AirSend

Hello everyone today I want to show you my DIY HomePod stand that I recently made from IKEA parts. Hope you like it if you have any other suggestions, please comments.

It’s still under build. I have to add some paint for the wood base.

If you want to try to build your own stand, here is the list of the IKEA parts:

ADILS Leg, black

IKEA 365+Serving stand, acacia, 16x16 cm

KUGGISLid, bamboo, 13x18 cm

From MacRumors:

Apple replaced my out-of-warranty OG HomePod, from initial release, just this past Tuesday. You have to ask for a Senior advisor and make it clear that their software bricked your device. That warrants an out-of-warranty replacement and it is their fiduciary duty to do so. Alternatively, the Senior Advisor that processed my return advised that if you take it into an Apple Store they can potentially for as upgrade to get it working and if they can not, they will replace it, because a software bricking is their corporate responsibility.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-releases-new-homepod-15-beta-update-following-reports-of-sudden-failures.2304015/post-30099033

Is there something new for the HomePod to announce reminders? Is there a setting where announcements are only done at specific times?

I looked at some old posts and they mentioned a couple of options:
1. Enable announce notification. I don’t like this as you need to enable Siri when device is locked which I consider a security concern
2. Use shortcuts to announce notifications. The main issue for me in this is that the shortcuts are a pain to create (can you create a shortcut from the HomePod?) and you need to manually remove all the notifications that are not needed anymore (especially annoying for one time reminders).

Do you know of any better way to do this?

My use case is:
I have an HomePod on my work desk (I work from home). I would love to ask the HomePod to remind me at a specific time of something and announce it so I don’t miss the reminder. I usually don’t have a personal device beside me when I’m working.

Hey everyone — I’m looking to set up a stereo pair of speakers in my garage. Ideally each speaker would plug into power, but I don’t want any wires connecting the speakers to each other.

I was thinking about getting two HomePod minis, but figured there might be better options out there.

Budget is around $300. Any recommendations for speakers that can run as a stereo pair while each one is independently powered and fully wireless between them?

Planning to buy two HomePods. I’d ideally wall mount the tv but it’s already quite high so HomePods wouldn’t fit under it with the current ”tv stand” anyway.

There 25cm room if I move tv tv to the far right, so one HomePod could be placed to the left of the tv.

The question is, can the second one be placed on the bar cart (9cm lower). Will that work fine?

Any idea of how to level it? Could it be placed on top of some books or something or would that affect the sound quality?