HomePod Homepods are confusing

[earmstrong]

Homepods genuinely are amazing speakers theres no doubt about that- especially 2nd gen stereo pairing. This isn’t a hate post against the sound quality or anything, more giving my experience of using them for about a year.

First of all they’re seriously littered with bugs. Like a lot of bugs. A lot of minor inconveniences at times that I just don’t expect from an apple product. Its the same with Apple TV, its great when it works but its got so many issues its hard to believe its actually an apple product.

Even worse, apple support doesn’t even know what to do with them. If I hear ‘restart the homepod’ or ‘reset them’ one more time ima flip. It shouldn’t be so hard to get them to work all the time.

I honestly switch between loving them and hating them at times. What is everyones opinion on them? I genuinely think apple just fling the Home section of apple to under qualified people or something cause how does my iphone mac and ipad work seamlessly and my homepods are like something out of a poundshop 2for1 special.

 

[waw74]

I have 1 HomePod mini, (studio apartment) that is centrally located so I can just talk to siri from pretty much wherever

for music, I'm all sonos.

 

[mikelets456]

Amazon echo-- rarely gets commands wrong, crappy speaker.
Homepod mini--90% success rate on command, amazing sounding speaker.

At first I despised the Homepod and almost returned it. gave it a few days and it grew on me---but the sound clarity more than makes up for short comings. We use it for playlists and some talk radio/Podcasts so there's not much that can go wrong. Especially since I know which commands work.

It's weird, some commands that are simple that don't work on Alexa but do on Siri and sometimes it's vice-versa. The sound quality is why I kept it.

 

[Trevanian]

A large part of the confusion is because Apple hasn’t decided how HomePods should be controlled. One can control them from Music, the Home app, or Shortcuts.
I gave up on the Home app for automations and only use Shortcuts, after months of troubleshooting. It’s not that Shortcuts are great, it’s that they mostly work, unlike the automations in the Home app itself.
Also the Home app has a terrible GUI.

 

[forzagaribaldi]

We don't have any HomePods but do have a bunch of Minis (2 x stereo pairs, 3 single ones) and two AppleTVs. Our experience has been pretty much entirely positive. The TVs have been rock solid and I don't recall ever having to restart any of the Minis. My wife and daughter tend to interact via Siri and this can sometimes be a frustrating expereience. I use them as Airplay targets instead and the worst that I've had happen is the occasional unexpected handoff when using Music.

 

[za9ra22]

I have two HomePods in a stereo pair - original models, and they function perfectly. Sound quality is amazingly good, sound stage excellent, and there hasn't been any indication of any hardware, software or functionality issues in the years since I got them.

One problem only. Siri. A hopelessly useless, seriously feature-limited and dismal implementation of whatever these things are supposed to be. Alexa is way more useful, and I have no doubt Google managed to sneeze a better 'intelligence' than Apple have.

Plus, given the only interaction with HomePods is voice, so you can't instruct it any other way, when its first go at interpreting what you say to it is ALWAYS wrong, but the second is perfect, it doesn't inspire use in the product at all. Yes, you can stream content from an Apple device but for me this isn't what the HomePods were for, so that doesn't help.

But, once they're playing... oh my!!

 

[JonnyMacx86]

The minis, and I had the OG until I cooked it in a power surge one day. I feel like most of the issues I have are surrounding Siri, who is about as attentive as an unpaid intern at a DMV. Love the sound, love the functionality, and I am truly excited for Siri to get better at their job.

 

[HandsomeDanNZ]

I have a stereo pair of Minis.
They sit on my desk in my home office/second living area and are great when they work properly.
THey constantly unpair and I end up with just one speaker playing - often not the same speaker as last time, so I can't even point at one of them and blame it as the culprit.
I reset them and sometimes it solves the issue. More often than not, it just moves the sound to the other speaker instead.
Sound-wise: 10/10
Siri: 8/10
Reliability: 2/10

 

[perezr10]

I have 4 HomePods and 5 minis. I still love them despite their quirks.

 

[weeesss]

I have a single HomePod 1 still going strong but do have to reset the device at times as well as issues with Siri. I was dismayed to find out I cannot get a new one and stereo pair it with the old one. With all these unpairing issues, I am hesitant to buy 2 HomePods. I am down to either getting a pair of Era 100's, or two new HomePods and hoping there are no issues. I would keep the HP for control of my Apple TV, Hue lights and such if I went Sonos, or get the 2 HP's and give the old one to my son.

I am after stereo sound in my 15' x 30' living room instead of having one speaker in the corner next to my couch.

Anyone have experience with both and have some insight?

 

[AL2TEACH]

First of all they’re seriously littered with bugs.

Your stuff was more than eh very vague so could you be more specific.

 

[Lioness~]

I don’t use Siri at all, on any device - we don’t get along and I strongly dislike that function in every way.
I got very tired of Siri disturbance or just random music (not mine, but something inbuilt in the Homepod mini’s speaker) that started to play from them if you accidentally happened to lightly touch them.
Even if Siri is already turned off on all my devices.
This was especially disturbing when the mini’s was located on my meditation place.

So I bought a new set of same size Creative speakers, that I have full control over with physical controls on the speakers too.
They are much much better also, comparing to the same sizes of Apple mini’s.
I have some very old Creative speakers that I run through 2 Expresses, and they've been great for many years. I’m planning to replace those later on as well, to newer Creative’s I think at this point. But I will further evaluate how their app is build to control several of their speakers. As of now I use the newer ones on bluetooth.

Now I connected the 2 mini’s to my 2 bigger HomePod’s again, in the same room with 1 mini and 1 HP closely together. High up on bookshelves, so I don’t touch them accidentally, that will evoke various strange unappreciated behaviour.
The mini's new placement of service surely improved the sound from the already good HomePods too.
I'm so glad that the irritating HomePod mins could get useful after all.
Hope it stays that way!