HomePod Airplay 2 gets worse for me every year

[Rychiar]

When I first started buying HomePods I thought they were amazing and loved the whole home audio. Now they’re a lesson in frustration if they work together at all. Most of the times they go out of sync. I also have an AirPlay Mac mini which almost never will play at the same time as the HomePods and when it does it has to be started first which makes no sense… any time I’ve complained about this people blamed my eero mesh wifi network so I just junked that and bought a new deco wifi 7 setup and nothing has changed at all

 

[kitKAC]

I'm assuming the Deco is also a Mesh network, as an experiment what if you disable the other access points and let everything connect to just one? See what happens?

 

[Rychiar]

I'm assuming the Deco is also a Mesh network, as an experiment what if you disable the other access points and let everything connect to just one? See what happens?

It’s not. I only bought one and the house is small

 

[erihp]

Hate to say this but it has to be your wireless network. Synced audio works great for me across multiple homepods and airport expresses at the same time.

If your airspace is flooded, it doesn't matter which wifi solution you buy.

 

[Itinj24]

I swapped out my eero Pro 6 system for a Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Wall Router with PoE hardwired U6 In-Wall AP’s throughout the house. While Siri is still dumb and I still have issues with simple commands here and there, I must say that AirPlay2 whole home audio (19 HomePods with a mix of OG and Mini stereo pairs and solos) has been flawless. Playing for hours without a hitch.

With UniFi, you can lock clients to specific AP’s so I don’t have the issue of HomePods connecting to an eero on the other side of the house anymore. It’s been a game changer.

 

[pappl]

Check your router settings, there are posts which settings to enable/disable to get Airplay fixed.

 

[Rychiar]

Hate to say this but it has to be your wireless network. Synced audio works great for me across multiple homepods and airport expresses at the same time.

If your airspace is flooded, it doesn't matter which wifi solution you buy.

Must be the plaster walls, I dunno, I guess It’ll always be hit or miss then