HomePod 16.2 and still HomePods are broken

[stocklen]

So disappointing.

I had high hopes for 16.2 - especially with the new Home architecture.

Did all the updates to my 7 HomePods (2 stereo paired minis, and an OG HomePod).... updated the architecture...

Tried "hey Siri play some music everywhere......."

Responded with "working on it....." (NOT a good start)...
then when music started (notably slower than pre 16.2 frankly) it was missing from 2 HomePods. "everywhere" again didnt work everywhere!

Nothings changed at all!
Sigh.

Here's hoping 16.3 makes it work then.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Yes, I can echo these sentiments.

Absolutely squat improvement across Siri, HomeKit, music, you name it. It is now beyond a joke how pathetically inept the Apple developers are. The whole ecosystem is screwed and really Apple need to sack the whole lot of them, get some fresh blood in and start completely from scratch.

 

[zachz]

Same here, I have 2 minis and a bunch of Hue lights -- 16.2 seems to have done nothing with the upgraded architecture.

I still CANNOT create proper scenes -- I can adjust the lights and colors all I want, and when I set the scene, half the colors are wrong.

When I manually adjust the colors, half the time the color won't save. The quick-set color selector that has 6 presets when you go to adjust the lights also doesn't work -- I can save a color to one of the presets all I want and it will not change the light color, and instead just overrides what I want with what the previous color was... nearly impossible to use. This issue has been ongoing since 15, maybe longer and I can't remember.

The Hue app works flawlessly. Instant response, never once had any issues with the scenes or adjusting and saving lights.

I can't believe a company like Apple cannot get Home under control... it's quite pathetic (in my opinion)

 

[zachz]

Yes, I can echo these sentiments.

Absolutely squat improvement across Siri, HomeKit, music, you name it. It is now beyond a joke how pathetically inept the Apple developers are. The whole ecosystem is screwed and really Apple need to sack the whole lot of them, get some fresh blood in and start completely from scratch.

Maybe Timmy should've accepted Elon's demand of being CEO... only kidding, but I agree -- Apple really needs to smarten up and start fixing all of these issues that remain across various OS versions. It's not like they don't have the resources to do so, and I highly doubt a company like Apple cannot find the right workers who can make a flawless experience across all of their services/devices.

 

[B/D]

So disappointing.

I had high hopes for 16.2 - especially with the new Home architecture.

Did all the updates to my 7 HomePods (2 stereo paired minis, and an OG HomePod).... updated the architecture...

Tried "hey Siri play some music everywhere......."

Responded with "working on it....." (NOT a good start)...
then when music started (notably slower than pre 16.2 frankly) it was missing from 2 HomePods. "everywhere" again didnt work everywhere!

Nothings changed at all!
Sigh.

Here's hoping 16.3 makes it work then.

@stocklen

Apple Music (along with other Apple services) is currently down or having issues with skipping, buffering and such in many parts of the world, on IOS, Mac OS and tvOS alike. I suggest to wait a while. Most likely the Apple servers are misbehaving (once again).

Apple - Support - System Status

Estado de todos los eventos programados y no programados de los servicios de Apple.

www.apple.com

 

[dotme]

The quick-set color selector that has 6 presets...

That thing is an abomination of biblical proportions. How it EVER saw the light of day is beyond me.

It's never, ever worked properly over the years nor is it at all useful to have the ability to save so few colors as presets. It's not intuitive to use either when it comes to saving colors to it. I miss the original color wheel.

I honestly don't know how many of these UI decisions get made at Apple. The "new" Home app is pretty bad too, with the "tap on the left to toggle, tap on the right to adjust" causing so much confusion with users that I bet there are still many out there that don't know about it. There's no visual clue that a single button has different behavior depending on where you touch it.

 

[stocklen]

That thing is an abomination of biblical proportions. How it EVER saw the light of day is beyond me.

It's never, ever worked properly over the years nor is it at all useful to have the ability to save so few colors as presets. It's not intuitive to use either when it comes to saving colors to it. I miss the original color wheel.

I honestly don't know how many of these UI decisions get made at Apple. The "new" Home app is pretty bad too, with the "tap on the left to toggle, tap on the right to adjust" causing so much confusion with users that I bet there are still many out there that don't know about it. There's no visual clue that a single button has different behavior depending on where you touch it.

totally agree with the left/right tapping functions.

Its not explained... its not obvious... and its something that even when you finally work out how to properly use the buttons you often forget and turn things on/off when you meant to go into settings....

weird design choice.

 

[zachz]

That thing is an abomination of biblical proportions. How it EVER saw the light of day is beyond me.

It's never, ever worked properly over the years nor is it at all useful to have the ability to save so few colors as presets. It's not intuitive to use either when it comes to saving colors to it. I miss the original color wheel.

I honestly don't know how many of these UI decisions get made at Apple. The "new" Home app is pretty bad too, with the "tap on the left to toggle, tap on the right to adjust" causing so much confusion with users that I bet there are still many out there that don't know about it. There's no visual clue that a single button has different behavior depending on where you touch it.

Agree 100% — nothing about any part of the app is intuitive. It’s sad when the only “feature” I like (and that works 100% of the time) is the ability to change the background… so my home background matches my wallpaper lol

I’m not sure why there’s no way to change the presets individually so that they actually save, and without having to change the light and then attempt to tap your way into having it hopefully save.

What was the original color wheel?

 

[dotme]

What was the original color wheel?

Hands-on: iOS 10 + watchOS 3 Home app for HomeKit on iPhone, iPad, & Apple Watch - 9to5Mac

HomeKit, Apple’s smart home accessory framework, is gaining some much needed attention in iOS 10 and watchOS 3 thanks to...

9to5mac.com

That's a blast from the past. You still only got 6 presets, plus the "active" color in the middle... but there was a plainly labeled "Edit" button. It was understandable, and most importantly it was easy to use and worked. Lately the Home app is guesswork... you never know quite what's going to happen when you press something. That's a UI fail in my book.

To @stocklen - Sorry for pulling this off topic. FWIW I haven't updated to the new architecture yet, but for music I run two amps connected to AirPort Express units, plus 14 HomePods (5 Minis, the rest OGs) with most of them stereo-paired. I'll admit I haven't tried to push AirPlay to all of them at once but I can play to 5 stereo pairs plus the two Airports on the regular from an AppleTV accessing my iTunes library, and I have no trouble. I used to though... I didn't have enough WiFi access points and I experienced things like only one speaker in a pair playing audio, some silent (but lit up), some out of sync etc.

Have you tried bypassing Siri and just pushing an AirPlay session from your iPhone or other device to all your HomePods? If that works well with no issues, the trouble probably lies with Siri. If you see the same trouble though, then it "could" be the network. AirPlay is used any time you try to cast to multiple end points and it's a VERY chatty protocol. A lot of back and forth between each unit to make sure they're all in sync. At that point, it might be time to look at the WiFi network and see if it might be getting taxed trying to play to all those targets. Hope this helps!

 

[stocklen]

Hands-on: iOS 10 + watchOS 3 Home app for HomeKit on iPhone, iPad, & Apple Watch - 9to5Mac

HomeKit, Apple’s smart home accessory framework, is gaining some much needed attention in iOS 10 and watchOS 3 thanks to...

9to5mac.com

That's a blast from the past. You still only got 6 presets, plus the "active" color in the middle... but there was a plainly labeled "Edit" button. It was understandable, and most importantly it was easy to use and worked. Lately the Home app is guesswork... you never know quite what's going to happen when you press something. That's a UI fail in my book.

To @stocklen - Sorry for pulling this off topic. FWIW I haven't updated to the new architecture yet, but for music I run two amps connected to AirPort Express units, plus 14 HomePods (5 Minis, the rest OGs) with most of them stereo-paired. I'll admit I haven't tried to push AirPlay to all of them at once but I can play to 5 stereo pairs plus the two Airports on the regular from an AppleTV accessing my iTunes library, and I have no trouble. I used to though... I didn't have enough WiFi access points and I experienced things like only one speaker in a pair playing audio, some silent (but lit up), some out of sync etc.

Have you tried bypassing Siri and just pushing an AirPlay session from your iPhone or other device to all your HomePods? If that works well with no issues, the trouble probably lies with Siri. If you see the same trouble though, then it "could" be the network. AirPlay is used any time you try to cast to multiple end points and it's a VERY chatty protocol. A lot of back and forth between each unit to make sure they're all in sync. At that point, it might be time to look at the WiFi network and see if it might be getting taxed trying to play to all those targets. Hope this helps!

yes - using the iPhone and air playing to all the speakers will, 100% of the time work.

No issues whatsoever.

However... this isnt the point. We are talking about using siri on HomePods to "play music everywhere"....., thats the problem.

Sure theres a 'manual' way to so it! but i want to be lazy.

 

[mpainesyd]

I had a Homepod Mini set to loop a waterfall sound track (via a scene in the Home app). Worked well under 16.1. After updating to 16.2 there is now a 2 second pause before the track starts again. This makes it useless for sleep therapy.

Also... I can no longer check the HomepodOS version number with the Accessory Details window in the Home app.

 

[stocklen]

I had a Homepod Mini set to loop a waterfall sound track (via a scene in the Home app). Worked well under 16.1. After updating to 16.2 there is now a 2 second pause before the track starts again. This makes it useless for sleep therapy.

Also... I can no longer check the HomepodOS version number with the Accessory Details window in the Home app.

sure you can - the version is still at the bottom of the accessory details pane....
why do you think its gone?

 

[dotme]

We are talking about using siri on HomePods to "play music everywhere"....., thats the problem.

Sure theres a 'manual' way to so it! but i want to be lazy.

A reasonable expectation... I don't know how Apple keeps messing this up. They've had years to perfect it.

Are you an Apple Music subscriber? (I am not...) - If yes, as a workaround, could you try creating a scene that activates all HomePods, sets volume levels and plays a playlist? Then tell Siri to set the scene? I'm grasping at straws here... but would be interesting to see if invoking a scene is more reliable - at least to get them all playing. Changing the music after that might be easy enough via another Siri command....

 

[stocklen]

A reasonable expectation... I don't know how Apple keeps messing this up. They've had years to perfect it.

Are you an Apple Music subscriber? (I am not...) - If yes, as a workaround, could you try creating a scene that activates all HomePods, sets volume levels and plays a playlist? Then tell Siri to set the scene? I'm grasping at straws here... but would be interesting to see if invoking a scene is more reliable - at least to get them all playing. Changing the music after that might be easy enough via another Siri command....

I think you are right.

Credit where it is due to Apple for many things... but also we have to call them out for things that are very flaky!

They make and sell HomePod Minis... they market them showing features... and one of the main ones being multi room music. This is why I have thrown hundreds of £ in apples direction to fill my house with HomePods... for that intended multi room experience.

However, 2-3 years later... after many iterations of both the HomePod software and the HomeKit app too... and still it is just plain unreliable.

To be fair... when it works.. it works. But when it doesnt its a pain in the rear end to diagnose, and fix. At least when I had a house full of Amazon Echo devices (that I ditched for the HomePods!) whenever they went wrong.. which to be fair they DID indeed.... it was always just a case of turning them off and on again (with a more accessible power cable than the HomePods).

Your suggested solution may work, I don't know - its a but much to set up. And yes im on Apple Music.
But as I said before... when they advertise it as being Siri controlled and you can ask for music 'everywhere' then that should just work as well as every other apple 'just works' thing.

At the moment, it's ropey. It's gone through iterations of more... and then less reliable - depends on the prevailing software. When I ask for everywhere maybe one or two remain silent.... I can then say "hey Siri add the kitchen" and eventually it will end up playing everywhere. I can also easily open Apple Music and tap the airplay menu and select all the speakers - as I said earlier this works flawlessly - they all CAN work well together!
What I don't understand is that how is "hey Siri play music everywhere" not seen as the same command as that manual flawless method and work just as well - after all it seems to understand that.

but no... you still Get quirks... the "on it".... or dead speakers... when using Siri.


I still keep the hardware as I have faith someday it will be more reliable. When it works it's great... and hey I can do it manually for sure. However for now id say the Siri controlled success rate is about 50% and thats nothing for Apple to be proud of!

 

[mrwizardno2]

I had a Homepod Mini set to loop a waterfall sound track (via a scene in the Home app). Worked well under 16.1. After updating to 16.2 there is now a 2 second pause before the track starts again. This makes it useless for sleep therapy.

Also... I can no longer check the HomepodOS version number with the Accessory Details window in the Home app.

This. Our HomePod in the master bedroom has been used for YEARS to play "The Best White Noise" track all night long. After 16.2 it skips, stutters, and occasionally just plain stops playing. It has excellent wifi signal, our internet connectivity shows no signs of degradation. This has happened before, but was fixed. Now it's back. I'm about a hair away from switching to ANYTHING else that works. How does this make it out of QA?

 

[mpainesyd]

sure you can - the version is still at the bottom of the accessory details pane....
why do you think its gone?

Ahh - the version and other details were not showing with OS 16.1. They are there now I have updated everything to 16.2. Or else it might have something to do with the Homepods checking for updates.