HomePod Homepods as default audio output for Apple TV 4K kills my wifi speed

[B/D]

Anyone else have this issue?. It happens to me since the release of the 14.2 update and the home theatre feature.

Selecting the Homepods as the default output of the ATV kills my ATV wifi speed and makes my ping go crazy. It goes from a rock solid 300/300 speed to a 1.2/2.4 speed, and the ping goes from 10ms to 120ms .

No idea why this happens, but it makes my ATV4K unusable for watching high quality content. As soon as I choose my internal tv speakers as default output and select the homepods from the ATV control center, the internet speed of the apple tv return to normal.

 

[Itinj24]

Anyone else have this issue?. It happens to me since the release of the 14.2 update and the home theatre feature.

Selecting the Homepods as the default output of the ATV kills my ATV wifi speed and makes my ping go crazy. It goes from a rock solid 300/300 speed to a 1.2/2.4 speed, and the ping goes from 10ms to 120ms .

No idea why this happens, but it makes my ATV4K unusable for watching high quality content. As soon as I choose my internal tv speakers as default output and select the homepods from the ATV control center, the internet speed of the apple tv return to normal.

Are you using the Ookla Speedtest app on the ATV to test this?

If so, this is what I got (Verizon GB speed, not near a router)

 

[B/D]

Are you using the Ookla Speedtest app on the ATV to test this?

If so, this is what I got (Verizon GB speed, not near a router)

View attachment 1657733

Yes, I am using the speed test app on the ATV.

Thank you very much. Well, those are very good results. I have an old and trusty Airport Extreme AC serving me wifi, and normally I get 300/300 with a 10ms ping in the Apple TV, rock solid. But when I select the Homepods as the default output of the ATV, my speed goes from that to 2.4/1.2 and the pings goes to 120ms.

 

[Itinj24]

Yes, I am using the speed test app on the ATV.

Thank you very much. Well, those are very good results. I have an old and trusty Airport Extreme AC serving me wifi, and normally I get 300/300 with a 10ms ping in the Apple TV, rock solid. But when I select the Homepods as the default output of the ATV, my speed goes from that to 2.4/1.2 and the pings goes to 120ms.

Perhaps I should’ve mentioned before but I’m using an eero pro mesh with the Router it’s connected to in the room directly below. Thought I should be getting better speeds than that actually lol.

Not sure how much it will help but did you try rebooting the network, ATV and/or HomePod? That really is a strange occurrence.

 

[B/D]

Perhaps I should’ve mentioned before but I’m using an eero pro mesh with the Router it’s connected to in the room directly below. Thought I should be getting better speeds than that actually lol.

Not sure how much it will help but did you try rebooting the network, ATV and/or HomePod? That really is a strange occurrence.

Yes, I have tried all that. I am not the only one with this issue, both here in Macrumors and in Reddit.

Hoping for a fix.

 

[Fabios]

Ive got exactly the same issue... very poor speeds with two homepods as default speaker. Impossible too watch anything in 4k from nextflix or any other streaming service!!

 

[B/D]

Ive got exactly the same issue... very poor speeds with two homepods as default speaker. Impossible too watch anything in 4k from nextflix or any other streaming service!!

Select the Homepods manually from the ATV control center until this gets fixed and we can use them as the default speakers. Surround Sound works this way as well.

 

[TonyC28]

Does this seem to be with certain routers or across the board?

 

[Itinj24]

Does this seem to be with certain routers or across the board?

We should make a list...

Eero Pro mesh- no issues.

 

[Rockadile]

Do you have 5Ghz WiFi you can switch the ATV to or 2.4Ghz if it's already on 5Ghz?

 

[TonyC28]

Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 / R7000

Speed tests using Speedtest app on iPhone 11
Numbers are average of 5 tests done back to back

Apple TV asleep:
52.7 Mbps down / 11.3 Mbps up

Apple TV 4K playing Top Gun with Dolby Atmos
28.1 Mbps down / 10.0 Mbps down


So it's not totally killing the wifi although some test results were pretty low, but there is certainly an impact.

 

[Biorunner]

Yes, I am using the speed test app on the ATV.

Thank you very much. Well, those are very good results. I have an old and trusty Airport Extreme AC serving me wifi, and normally I get 300/300 with a 10ms ping in the Apple TV, rock solid. But when I select the Homepods as the default output of the ATV, my speed goes from that to 2.4/1.2 and the pings goes to 120ms.

My AirPort Extreme used to do the same thing, actually it was worse. Apple TV to HomePod used to reset my entire network after being connected for a few minutes In addition if my PlayStation 4 had an update the AirPort Extreme would assign all of my 100mbit bandwidth to it making every other device crawl.

When I first got the AirPort network for two laptops, a printer and two iPhone 4s it was great but adding a PlayStation, Hue lights, Nest smoke alarms etc just killed it.

I dumped my AirPort Extreme and Express network for Google Mesh a few years back. I’ve had no issues ever since. Possibly time to switch?

 

[B/D]

My AirPort Extreme used to do the same thing, actually it was worse. Apple TV to HomePod used to reset my entire network after being connected for a few minutes In addition if my PlayStation 4 had an update the AirPort Extreme would assign all of my 100mbit bandwidth to it making every other device crawl.

When I first got the AirPort network for two laptops, a printer and two iPhone 4s it was great but adding a PlayStation, Hue lights, Nest smoke alarms etc just killed it.

I dumped my AirPort Extreme and Express network for Google Mesh a few years back. I’ve had no issues ever since. Possibly time to switch?

In the beginning when i bought the AE (2013) was having the same problems that you did have until I enabled igmp snooping on the airport extreme settings. Since then, everything perfect (rocking solid speed) until this particular issue

Since it happens to quite a lot of people without an Apple router, I´m inclined to say its a bug.

 

[B/D]

Fixed this with the help of Apple support!. Finally! It turns out that Homepod (s) ARE particularly finicky when it comes to wifi. A strong, fast and reliable connection is absolutely necessary for the speaker to work correctly.

With the release of ios 14.2, this has become even more important because a new, directly, ad hoc connection is now possible between an Apple TV 4K and the Homepods has been developed, that allows to route ALL apple tv audio to the homepods, bypassing airplay 2 limitations (ie 2.0 audio channels max, ZERO latency with games and live content), and allow the Homepods to virtualize 5.1, 7.1, and Dolby Atmos (BTW, I was WRONG. If you choose the HP from the ATV control center you are using a regular airplay link, which only support stereo.)

Even though regular stereo sound has been very much improved as well in 14.2, the only way to truly get surround sound is to choose the Homepod (s) as the default speakers, which is NOT airplay, but this new ad hoc, improved protocol between an Apple TV 4K and Homepod (s).

This new protocol is much more taxing on the internet conection than regular Airplay, because it transport so much data in real time. To avoid speed and buffering issues, if you are going to use wifi, you must use a strong, fast 5GHZ AC connection, both in the Apple TV AND in your linked Homepod (s) (this last part was my problem). If you cant achieve that, you must hardwire your ATV. Wifi N wont work even if the speed is enough.

To make sure everything is set up properly, create a separate SSID on your router for the 5GHZ band, and connect your Apple TV to it. Now connect to it the Iphone/Ipad that you used to set up the Homepod (s). Factory reset them and pair them back (if you´re using a stereo pair), with that IOS device connected to the 5GHZ band. This way, your Homepod (s), will use the 5GHZ band to connect to the internet going forward.


Thats it. Set them as the default speakers of the ATV again and run a speed test on the ATV. Your speed should be good now.

 

[mallbritton]

That's some good detective work. I was just jumping on this thread to let you know the 14.3 beta may include a fix, but if it is all about the Wi Fi band that assumption would be incorrect.

 

[B/D]

That's some good detective work. I was just jumping on this thread to let you know the 14.3 beta may include a fix, but if it is all about the Wi Fi band that assumption would be incorrect.

If the 14.3 beta reduces the strain on the wifi network of the home theatre feature when connected to a lesser wifi (or a 2,4GHZ band), its great news!. Have you tested it? (I never use beta software on my devices).

 

[mallbritton]

I actually was just testing it, but don't know what band the HomePods pair is on in my living room. I'm going to reset them right now and give it another test.

 

[B/D]

I actually was just testing it, but don't know what band the HomePods pair is on in my living room. I'm going to reset them right now and give it another test.

Ok! Report back when you can! Thank you for your help and time!

 

[mallbritton]

So I reset my HomePods, running 14.3 beta, and made sure my iPhone was on the 5Ghz band of my wifi before configuring them. I am also running the tvOS 14.3 beta. Both betas were installed last night.

Using the Speedtest app on my Apple TV 4K I ran 3 tests multiple times. These speeds are normal for my home Wi Fi network.

Default audio selected: between 300-400 Mbps down/70-100 up. The upload speed is a little slow, but shouldn’t adversely affect anything.

AirPlay selected: Just over 400 Mbps down/300 Mbps up. Normal.

TV Speakers selected: Just over 400 Mbps down/up. This is the norm.

I don’t know if the improved speeds are a result of the 14.3 beta, or just getting everything on the 5 Ghz band of my WiFi network. I can’t step back to 14.2 to check.

 

[B/D]

Thank you very much! Glad to see the solution given to me by Apple support is working for others as well.

.

Perphaps 14.3 also brings improvements to this, although as you said we can´t know for sure.

 

[B/D]

Now the only thing missing to make this feature work perfect is this: currently when stereo homepods are set default to Apple TV the homepods no longer work as standalone, meaning that if you want to airplay music from an iphone or mac to homepods you have to airplay it to Apple TV instead and that turns on the Apple TV as well.

The ideal behavior would be that when you turn on the ATV it automatically sets the homepods as the default audio output, and when you put it to sleep it detach them and revert to your TV speakers.

Sure, you can switch back to your TV speakers as default audio output when you finish using the ATV manually, but it should be automatic.

 

[mallbritton]

Hm. I'm AirPlaying music now to all the HomePods in my house from Music, including the ones being used as the default audio for the ATV, and the ATV is not on. That's not to say the AirPlay menu in Music isn't a mess. It is. And I had to fiddle with it to get it to work properly, but I did get it to work.

 

[mallbritton]

Just did it with my iPhone as well, which is running iOS 14.2. ATV didn't wake up.

 

[B/D]

Just did it with my iPhone as well, which is running iOS 14.2. ATV didn't wake up.

Could guide me step by step in how you are doing it?. That is, in the airplay menu when you select the Homepods that are set as the default output of the ATV they now appear with an Apple TV icon by their side , right?. If you choose it, the ATV doesn´t turn on?.

 

[mallbritton]

This is the AirPlay menu in my copy of Music, running on my laptop. As you can see it is a mess. And the stereo pair HomePods are actually duplicated and you can’t tell which is the right one. So what I had to do was just choose one or the other until it worked.