HomePod HomePod mini Pair as Desktop Stereo Speakers

[leehawkins3]

I have 2. I HomePods, stereo for Apple TV. Perfect. I have a mini in the kitchen for Apple Music, streaming radio, cooking alarms etc. Perfect. I bought a second mini to get this big, old fashioned computer speakers off the desk. How naive i was to think a speaker made by apple would be compaywith its own compute! I have read every post in this thread, and tried a thousand different fixes. All I want is half an hour of YouTube at lunch, my system sounds and the Siri assistant. I don’t know whether I’m shocked or not that Apple didn’t first think ‘this will be the ideal Mac speaker, people will but it for that’ and make it work. This is such a ridiculous and embarrassing oversight from Apple. It is the very first thing I wanted to do with it, only to get told I’ve bought an ‘entertainment centre’, not a computer speaker. they Should have a big note on the bic that says ‘no, basically this thing won’t work with your Mac even though everything suggests it will’. Homepods are great speakers, but until they work prop with a darn Mac they will always be evidence of the lack of joined up thinking at Apple which we have become used to.

 

[Benz63amg]

I have 2. I HomePods, stereo for Apple TV. Perfect. I have a mini in the kitchen for Apple Music, streaming radio, cooking alarms etc. Perfect. I bought a second mini to get this big, old fashioned computer speakers off the desk. How naive i was to think a speaker made by apple would be compaywith its own compute! I have read every post in this thread, and tried a thousand different fixes. All I want is half an hour of YouTube at lunch, my system sounds and the Siri assistant. I don’t know whether I’m shocked or not that Apple didn’t first think ‘this will be the ideal Mac speaker, people will but it for that’ and make it work. This is such a ridiculous and embarrassing oversight from Apple. It is the very first thing I wanted to do with it, only to get told I’ve bought an ‘entertainment centre’, not a computer speaker. they Should have a big note on the bic that says ‘no, basically this thing won’t work with your Mac even though everything suggests it will’. Homepods are great speakers, but until they work prop with a darn Mac they will always be evidence of the lack of joined up thinking at Apple which we have become used to.

Do you think this will change when MacOS BigSur 11.3 comes out?

 

[ErikGrim]

Do you think this will change when MacOS BigSur 11.3 comes out?

No. Until the Mac fully supports AirPlay 2 outside of Music it will always be janky. I honestly have no idea what is stopping them from doing so, but it's clearly not trivial or it would work already.

 

[leehawkins3]

No. Until the Mac fully supports AirPlay 2 outside of Music it will always be janky. I honestly have no idea what is stopping them from doing so, but it's clearly not trivial or it would work already.

Agreed. As I mentioned above it’s just a complete failure by Apple to understand their customers needs. One option may be to move all system sounds to play via music. There might be lag, but if it’s solely a technical issue then this is a work around. But the fact is I can spend next to nothing on a speaker that will play everything playing from my Mac. The fact that making this work wasn’t the very first thing on Apple’s to-do list just shows how little the care about their computer users.

 

[Benz63amg]

^Wow! That’s insane. Thank you for the feedback guys. It means that getting a pair of the mini’s for Mac desktop usage is useless.

I really love the KEF LS50W (Did you guys check these out?), they have a USB port to use with the Mac as well but they cost a lot of money (1500+$) for a pair

 

[BSben]

Apple Seeds Third Public Beta of macOS Big Sur 11.3

Apple today seeded the third public beta of an upcoming macOS Big Sur 11.3 update to its public beta testing group, with the new software coming two weeks after the second public beta and a day after Apple provided the third beta to developers. Public beta testers can download ‌macOS Big...

forums.macrumors.com

It seems it does come.....

 

[SayCheese]

I know that at the moment having a pair to run from the Mac is not working well. However, does a single one work ok or is that not good either?

 

[leehawkins3]

No. I only have one. I try to watch YT using it. It will find the speaker and play fine for a couple of minutes before losing the connection and reverting to the internal speakers of my Mac Mini. I never get any system sounds via the homepod. Its annoying as I bought it specifically to be my main Mac speaker, and to enable me to better make use of the Siri assistant. As it stands its completely useless. As mentioned above I have 3 other hompods/minis, and they work great for Apple tv and as a stand alone in the kitchen, but as a Mac speaker it is less the useless. This is so hugely shortsighted of Apple. It didn't even occur to me that this would work before buying it, I merely assumed that Apple 'stuff' would work very well indeed with other Apple 'stuff'. The have missed a significant trick, especially when I think I could use an Alexa device as the main speaker for my Mac. I won't as I don't like Alexa and everything else I have is Apple. This is really, really significantly ridiculous. Apple should be working on an software update right away. How do we pressure them to do so? I have never really had to hit to forums on an issue like this before. Whilst I own a lot of Apple stuff I'm not really a fanboy, I just like an ecosystem that works without problems. Or in this case doesn't work at all for something 99% of people would think it would do with ease. It's just so stupid! I despair!

 

[Benz63amg]

No. I only have one. I try to watch YT using it. It will find the speaker and play fine for a couple of minutes before losing the connection and reverting to the internal speakers of my Mac Mini. I never get any system sounds via the homepod. Its annoying as I bought it specifically to be my main Mac speaker, and to enable me to better make use of the Siri assistant. As it stands its completely useless. As mentioned above I have 3 other hompods/minis, and they work great for Apple tv and as a stand alone in the kitchen, but as a Mac speaker it is less the useless. This is so hugely shortsighted of Apple. It didn't even occur to me that this would work before buying it, I merely assumed that Apple 'stuff' would work very well indeed with other Apple 'stuff'. The have missed a significant trick, especially when I think I could use an Alexa device as the main speaker for my Mac. I won't as I don't like Alexa and everything else I have is Apple. This is really, really significantly ridiculous. Apple should be working on an software update right away. How do we pressure them to do so? I have never really had to hit to forums on an issue like this before. Whilst I own a lot of Apple stuff I'm not really a fanboy, I just like an ecosystem that works without problems. Or in this case doesn't work at all for something 99% of people would think it would do with ease. It's just so stupid! I despair!

It truly is insane.

 

[Ansath]

I know that at the moment having a pair to run from the Mac is not working well. However, does a single one work ok or is that not good either?

Works perfectly fine just using one. My other Mac, running the beta, plays out to stereo HomePod minis, but there’s currently a 2 second delay when watching video.
I suspect that will be fixed before release.

 

[Benz63amg]

Works perfectly fine just using one. My other Mac, running the beta, plays out to stereo HomePod minis, but there’s currently a 2 second delay when watching video.
I suspect that will be fixed before release.

so are you saying that whatever leehawkins3 said above is in fact incorrect?

 

[kylew1212]

Has anyone experienced audio dropping out when set as the output speaker on big sur? My HomePod mini will stop playing music and I’ve never heard a system sound come through. 2015 MBP

 

[Ansath]

so are you saying that whatever leehawkins3 said above is in fact incorrect?

Aye

 

[Benz63amg]

Aye

What's that supposed to mean?

 

[Ansath]

What's that supposed to mean?

It’s a word. ? Google, and learn all about it.

 

[dredlew]

No. I only have one. I try to watch YT using it. It will find the speaker and play fine for a couple of minutes before losing the connection and reverting to the internal speakers of my Mac Mini. I never get any system sounds via the homepod. Its annoying as I bought it specifically to be my main Mac speaker, and to enable me to better make use of the Siri assistant. As it stands its completely useless. As mentioned above I have 3 other hompods/minis, and they work great for Apple tv and as a stand alone in the kitchen, but as a Mac speaker it is less the useless. This is so hugely shortsighted of Apple. It didn't even occur to me that this would work before buying it, I merely assumed that Apple 'stuff' would work very well indeed with other Apple 'stuff'. The have missed a significant trick, especially when I think I could use an Alexa device as the main speaker for my Mac. I won't as I don't like Alexa and everything else I have is Apple. This is really, really significantly ridiculous. Apple should be working on an software update right away. How do we pressure them to do so? I have never really had to hit to forums on an issue like this before. Whilst I own a lot of Apple stuff I'm not really a fanboy, I just like an ecosystem that works without problems. Or in this case doesn't work at all for something 99% of people would think it would do with ease. It's just so stupid! I despair!

Given that stereo HomePods work fine connected to AppleTV and given that you can set the Mac’s sound output to be played through AppleTV, wouldn’t this work as a proxy?

 

[jagooch]

Given that stereo HomePods work fine connected to AppleTV and given that you can set the Mac’s sound output to be played through AppleTV, wouldn’t this work as a proxy?

How so? I don't own an Apple TV but own Homepods.

 

[dredlew]

How so? I don't own an Apple TV but own Homepods.

The person I responded to owns an AppleTV.

 

[Take Flight]

Did the latest beta help with this topic??

Looking for a set of desktop computer speakers, and most of the desktop speaker landscape out there looks like leftover inventory form circa 2000.

2 HomePod minis seems like a practical solution (in theory), that doesn't look hideous.

 

[jazz1]

I am eagerly awaiting the official OS release that will finally let me use my two HomePod Minis, in stereo, with my M1 MacMini. In the meantime, just using one HomePodMini with the MacMini is a pain. Half the time the sound output wants to revert to my USB-A connected headphone amp. and I have to re-choose one of the two minis for sound out of the MacMini.

 

[SayCheese]

I've just purchased a single homepod mini. Mainly to see if I like it as I've never owned a homepod before. If this works well for me I'll buy a second once 11.3 is out and stereo sound works.

 

[Kylo83]

still bad with latest beta, delay and lag don't understand why

 

[jazz1]

Kylo83, is the "bad" the lag only, or are their other issues? In the interim I've been using the stereo pair with my iPhone 11 Pro with Apple Music. Just as a stopgap. And the is also flaky. When I command it to play all music, Siri fails about half the time, giving me a verbal warning that it isn't working. I truly prefer the pair of HomePodMini's to work with my M1 MacMini in stereo. Also, I even have issues using one of these speakers with my MacMini, which I've previously posted.

 

[Kylo83]

Kylo83, is the "bad" the lag only, or are their other issues? In the interim I've been using the stereo pair with my iPhone 11 Pro with Apple Music. Just as a stopgap. And the is also flaky. When I command it to play all music, Siri fails about half the time, giving me a verbal warning that it isn't working. I truly prefer the pair of HomePodMini's to work with my M1 MacMini in stereo. Also, I even have issues using one of these speakers with my MacMini, which I've previously posted.

It’s a full mess airplay is laggy and stereo homepods on macos is no where near ready

 

[Ansath]

It’s a full mess airplay is laggy and stereo homepods on macos is no where near ready

Stereo airpods on the Mac is the same as iPhone for me. It’ll suddenly only come out of 1 speaker for a minute, then come back, the out the other only for a few minutes.

It only lags for me if I use the AirPlay from the sound menu. If I do it from an app, it’s not laggy.