HomePod HomePod mini Pair as Desktop Stereo Speakers

[subjonas]

I mean there's a reason why wireless desktop speakers aren't a thing. The latency is unacceptable for anything you need sound to be not behind, like UI sounds or gaming. Video where you can avoid the delay by syncing to the latency and music are basically fine - but for anything else this is an extremely hard problem to solve. They haven't even solved this on the Apple TV yet with their hacky dedicating 20% of the bandwidth on top of AP2 to try and have the HomePods keep up with the UI sounds - and they still crackle.

It's an almost impossible problem to solve.

I was wondering how Apple got zero latency for the UI sounds on the ATV. Where did you see that tidbit about 20% of the bandwidth?

 

[ErikGrim]

I was wondering how Apple got zero latency for the UI sounds on the ATV. Where did you see that tidbit about 20% of the bandwidth?

The overhead is noticeable if you run speedtest before and after adding the HP as default speakers. You should see an approx ~20% decrease which is assumed to be what they need to get the UI sounds to play through with (almost) no lag. And yet still it fails a lot of the time with crackling or outright dropouts.

 

[subjonas]

The overhead is noticeable if you run speedtest before and after adding the HP as default speakers. You should see an approx ~20% decrease which is assumed to be what they need to get the UI sounds to play through with (almost) no lag. And yet still it fails a lot of the time with crackling or outright dropouts.

Interesting. I assumed the UI sounds (and game sounds) were being transmitted over Bluetooth—faster but lower quality. But who knows what voodoo is going on under the hood. It does feel kinda hacky though. When I ad hoc switch to tv speaker output and then switch back to default HP, the UI sounds continue coming through the tv speakers only. Buggy.

 

[medialook]

Why didn't you keep them as general purpose smart speakers?

I have a pair of large homepods in my living room. And to be honest Siri isn't smart. Will get one google speaker for my daughter's room. I need Spotify support for her.

 

[JuicelessMango]

Any updates on this? Am wanting to buy a pair to go with my new M1 iMac but don't want to bother if theres gonna be horrendous lag with Apple Music and Like Twitch and ****. Would rather just buy a pair of APM's instead

 

[Kylo83]

Any updates on this? Am wanting to buy a pair to go with my new M1 iMac but don't want to bother if theres gonna be horrendous lag with Apple Music and Like Twitch and ****. Would rather just buy a pair of APM's instead

Yeah don’t bother it doesn’t work as stereo pair properly

 

[JuicelessMango]

Yeah don’t bother it doesn’t work as stereo pair properly

Thanks! And yeah I ended up snagging a pair of Space Grey APM's

 

[vbctv]

Been using the HomePod mini as a stereo pair on my 2020(2018) Mac mini i5 since the macOS 11.3 beta. Loving it. As you can see in the picture, I wall-mounted them above my iPad so I can use them with my iPad Pro or Mac mini. I have zero issues with them, except the lag when hitting pause/play, other than that everything is in sync and they work great. I would recommend the Mini's Stereo pair as desktop speakers for anyone...

 

[subjonas]

Been using the HomePod mini as a stereo pair on my 2020(2018) Mac mini i5 since the macOS 11.3 beta. Loving it. As you can see in the picture, I wall-mounted them above my iPad so I can use them with my iPad Pro or Mac mini. I have zero issues with them, except the lag when hitting pause/play, other than that everything is in sync and they work great. I would recommend the Mini's Stereo pair as desktop speakers for anyone...

Glad it’s working well for you. But question: have you used them for video/audio editing or anything that requires zero lag response?

 

[vbctv]

Glad it’s working well for you. But question: have you used them for video/audio editing or anything that requires zero lag response?

I use the built-in speakers on my LG Ultrafine or my AirPods Pro when using Final Cut Pro. That is the only issue I've had with the HomePods. But it's small solvable issue that isn't a deal-breaker for me. I have no issue if using LumaFusion on my iPad Pro. If they would ever upgrade the system AirPlay from 1 to 2 on the Macs, that issue would go away. Assuming it will come to macOS 12 or 13 since they finally brought stereo pairs on macOS 11.3

 

[subjonas]

I use the built-in speakers on my LG Ultrafine or my AirPods Pro when using Final Cut Pro. That is the only issue I've had with the HomePods. But it's small solvable issue that isn't a deal-breaker for me. I have no issue if using LumaFusion on my iPad Pro. If they would ever upgrade the system AirPlay from 1 to 2 on the Macs, that issue would go away. Assuming it will come to macOS 12 or 13 since they finally brought stereo pairs on macOS 11.3

Ah ok. You use wireless speakers with your iPad for lumafusion? As far as I know there is no truly lag-less wireless audio, not good enough for things like audio editing. They might be able to do it if they lower the bandwidth/quality.

 

[Bojack Horseman]

I bought a pair Minis to use as a stereo setup with my Macbook Pro. I found the pause/play delay very annoying on my Macbook when watching videos. The audio never seemed to be out of sync with the videos when actually playing which was good. While it wasn't as bad with just music, or when connected to my iPhone, it was still noticeable. I already got the pair boxed up after just a few hours of use to return. Disappointing as I really wanted this too work.

 

[Alicia1]

I was going to pick up a pair of minis to use as speakers for my new M1 iMac, now I am happy I haven't after reading this. I wonder will the issues ever be fixed.

 

[vbctv]

I was going to pick up a pair of minis to use as speakers for my new M1 iMac, now I am happy I haven't after reading this. I wonder will the issues ever be fixed.

I don't think Apple can fix these issues because the Mac at system level is still AirPlay 1. Only catalyst apps like Apple Music, Apple TV & Apple Podcasts use AirPlay 2 and only if you connect from inside those apps. Personally I just have the patients to put up with the pause-play lag. I love having the dual homePod minis as my Mac speaker and my monitor has built-in for me when I video edit or do something I can't use the HomePods for.

EDIT: Apple CAN likely fix it but I think Apple would have to do away with updates to the Intel Macs and then they would rewrite macOS ONLY for the ARM processors and put AirPlay 2 at system level. But I think we are a good 5 years away from them cutting updates on the Intel machines.

 

[dyzfnctional]

still following this thread.... will Monterey fix this? I still want to be able to pair 2 hompad mini to my MacBook Pro as desktop speakers. sigh

 

[Bojack Horseman]

I bought a pair Minis to use as a stereo setup with my Macbook Pro. I found the pause/play delay very annoying on my Macbook when watching videos. The audio never seemed to be out of sync with the videos when actually playing which was good. While it wasn't as bad with just music, or when connected to my iPhone, it was still noticeable. I already got the pair boxed up after just a few hours of use to return. Disappointing as I really wanted this too work.

Wondering if MacOS Monterey will possibly fix this with the new Airplay to Mac? I'll try to test this and post the results here if I ever get around to actually do it when Monterey comes out.

 

[vbctv]

Wondering if MacOS Monterey will possibly fix this with the new Airplay to Mac? I'll try to test this and post the results here if I ever get around to actually do it when Monterey comes out.

Currently MacOS Monterey breaks HomePods if running HomePod OS 15. It's a bug that will hopefully be fixed but besides the HomePod Minis keep disconnecting from the internet (which is another beta issue), when connecting via system (menu bar) Safari, YouTube, etc... is on a 10 second audio/video delay. Also when connecting via AirPlay 2 in TV, Music app, it will play 5 seconds and then go silent.
These are beta bugs and have been reported, hopefully they will be fixed. No idea if they are caused by macOS Monterey or HomePod OS 15.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Spend $70-100 at Costco/Amazon/etc for a Klipsch ProMedia 2.1
(on sale all the time off/on)

Absolutely annihilates a stereo pair of HPM's

 

[coffeeplease]

There seems to be mixed responses about delay in non-Apple apps. If I'm watching videos on YouTube or Netflix, is the audio and video out of sync, or is there only a delay when you click play/pause? I can deal with the latter, but out of sync AV is a deal breaker.

 

[jazz1]

My pair of HomePod Mini's really are a disappointment for use with my M1 MacMini. I have to reboot the computer several times a day to get the speakers to synchronize with YouTube, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Hulu videos.

If I pause the video, the problem happens 90 percent of the time.

I really thought Apple would have this fixed by now. I'm probably going to retire the HomePods to solo single use, and put my Bowers & Wilkins now discontinued MM1 computer speakers back to work.

 

[vbctv]

My pair of HomePod Mini's really are a disappointment for use with my M1 MacMini. I have to reboot the computer several times a day to get the speakers to synchronize with YouTube, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Hulu videos.

If I pause the video, the problem happens 90 percent of the time.

I really thought Apple would have this fixed by now. I'm probably going to retire the HomePods to solo single use, and put my Bowers & Wilkins now discontinued MM1 computer speakers back to work.

Are you running Beta, because I had a lot of these issues with the macOS 12 beta. But most have been fixed on my M1 MBP. The only problem I'm still having is cutting out issues. But it was a mess on the first few betas with out of sync issues, static, cutting out. I can't even recall the amount of issues I reported with Apple. Even had to do a video to show them because they claim they couldn't duplicate the issues, but yet they all got fixed except the cutting out.

 

[jazz1]

Are you running Beta, because I had a lot of these issues with the macOS 12 beta. But most have been fixed on my M1 MBP. The only problem I'm still having is cutting out issues. But it was a mess on the first few betas with out of sync issues, static, cutting out. I can't even recall the amount of issues I reported with Apple. Even had to do a video to show them because they claim they couldn't duplicate the issues, but yet they all got fixed except the cutting out.

I’m not running beta. Thanks for the response! Maybe I should figure out how to reset them.

 

[Ansath]

I’m not running beta. Thanks for the response! Maybe I should figure out how to reset them.

Reset HomePod or HomePod mini - Apple Support

Learn how to reset your HomePod or HomePod mini to its factory settings before sending it in for service, selling it, or giving it away.

support.apple.com

 

[ascender]

Bit of a thread bump on this one... I've been trying to use a pair of HomePod Minis as speakers alongside my Pro Display XDR with mixed results.

• The Mac seems to keep "losing them" if they're not used for a bit. Music seems to be good at keeping the connection, but after a while, sound will start coming out of the Mac Studio's internal speaker again. Looking in control centre, its lost them as an airplay source.
• Audio can still get out of sync for things like YouTube, Teams, Zoom etc. Seems random, but does happen and it's noticeable. It seems to fix itself, but is very annoying.
• Sound quality is very good. Its nowhere near as good as a pair of HomePods for music, but they're pretty damn good for a set of desktop speakers and compare very favourable to those priced similarly (without subs).
• Having Siri in there is a bonus and does seem to work much more reliably and responds quicker than the OG HomePods.
• Speaker "passthrough" doesn't work when using Windows in Parallels either. Which I guess makes sense.

I'm just baffled as to why they don't work better with macOS. It's very frustrating.

 

[vbctv]

Bit of a thread bump on this one... I've been trying to use a pair of HomePod Minis as speakers alongside my Pro Display XDR with mixed results.

• The Mac seems to keep "losing them" if they're not used for a bit. Music seems to be good at keeping the connection, but after a while, sound will start coming out of the Mac Studio's internal speaker again. Looking in control centre, its lost them as an airplay source.
• Audio can still get out of sync for things like YouTube, Teams, Zoom etc. Seems random, but does happen and it's noticeable. It seems to fix itself, but is very annoying.
• Sound quality is very good. Its nowhere near as good as a pair of HomePods for music, but they're pretty damn good for a set of desktop speakers and compare very favourable to those priced similarly (without subs).
• Having Siri in there is a bonus and does seem to work much more reliably and responds quicker than the OG HomePods.
• Speaker "passthrough" doesn't work when using Windows in Parallels either. Which I guess makes sense.

I'm just baffled as to why they don't work better with macOS. It's very frustrating.

macOS still runs only AirPlay 1 which is why the out of sync and delay issues happen. The Sonos Roam is a better solution in my opinion since it's both Bluetooth and AirPlay.