HomePod HomePods and Multi Room Music.... Ropey as.... Where to start here?

[dotme]

Anyone else having significant new multi room or stereo pair issues with iOS18?

Yep - I have OGs paired in several rooms, and used to be able to reliably airplay a local playlist to several rooms at once from my iPhone. Since iOS 18 I see the same behavior you do. Of interest is that I can still airplay to multiple targets from my Mac (still running Sonoma) without a random HomePod emitting static/fart noises.

Honestly I dread major OS updates these days. Every year, somehow, Apple breaks stuff that used to work perfectly well. I mean, why even mess with that code? It makes no sense to me.

Anyway, you are not alone. Hopefully 18.1 will fix it.

 

[stocklen]

Yep - I have OGs paired in several rooms, and used to be able to reliably airplay a local playlist to several rooms at once from my iPhone. Since iOS 18 I see the same behavior you do. Of interest is that I can still airplay to multiple targets from my Mac (still running Sonoma) without a random HomePod emitting static/fart noises.

Honestly I dread major OS updates these days. Every year, somehow, Apple breaks stuff that used to work perfectly well. I mean, why even mess with that code? It makes no sense to me.

Anyway, you are not alone. Hopefully 18.1 will fix it.

Ah great.

Condolences you have the same issues as me but it's heartening to know that the static/fart sounds are not unique to me and therefore theres no faulty speakers happening here.... (you never know!)

One thing that im both fascinated and irritated at is testing and quality control.
Apple has an extensive beta trial of all their software including the HomePods.... and yet with all these developers/public using the software for 3 months before public release... nobody has seen or reported these issues?
I mean, they shouldn't be found in public testing anyway they should have been uncovered way before...

Having said that I strongly suspect that the vast majority of 'beta testers' are no such thing and certainly don't add much value to the process and probably don't perform their intended function to put the software through its paces and report issues to Apple to be fixed.

Personally I don't hold out much hope for 18.1 as that too has been out in beta/public beta for a long time and I suspect any issues that persist have also gone 'unnoticed' and we are about to be saddled with them again.

 

[forzagaribaldi]

@stocklen My morning alarm will make you laugh I suspect. I order to have Radio 5 Live breakfast come on at 6am, I have a Robert’s DAB radio plugged into a Meross smartplug and then the automation for that scheduled in the Home app. Have to say it’s been rock solid for over a year now though!

 

[curdy]

For me, the crackling has now to spread to all my Gen 2 HomePods, and not just the one stereo pair I commented about earlier. I too am thinking about Sonos...

 

[stocklen]

For me, the crackling has now to spread to all my Gen 2 HomePods, and not just the one stereo pair I commented about earlier. I too am thinking about Sonos...

There are very few 'compromises' switching to Sonos.

Of course, Sonos fans will tell you that it's unsurpassed in sound quality and multi room music performance.... and at least one of those is true

From the 'HomeKit and home app' perspective there is literally no difference having Sonos vs HomePods. You can airplay from the iPhone to Sonos easily. You can also address Siri on the phone or iPad and it will play to multiple Sonos speakers.
The only downside is that you lose the 'siri' commands in a specific room i.e. 'turn off the light' and the HomePod knows what room its in and turns off the correct light.

Sonos is also not cheap - whereas HomePod Minis are a very acceptable sound quality and easy to hide away - Sonos tend to be larger and more conspicuous and more expensive. The cheapest option being IKEA Symfonisk Sonos speakers which sound good but are quite large.

I hate having to consider this as theres been quite an investment in hardware for HomePods but if they consistently fail to perform their basic function then you have to start thinking elsewhere.

Apple... please just fix this software - how do you not know how ropey it is??

 

[dotme]

Quick update - It's early days, but after installing 18.1 on all HomePods and my iPhone yesterday, I pushed a local playlist from my iPhone to multiple targets via AirPlay for over an hour and did not experience any audio glitches. First time since the release of iOS 18 that I've been able to do that without issues.

 

[stocklen]

Quick update - It's early days, but after installing 18.1 on all HomePods and my iPhone yesterday, I pushed a local playlist from my iPhone to multiple targets via AirPlay for over an hour and did not experience any audio glitches. First time since the release of iOS 18 that I've been able to do that without issues.

I am hopeful after every release both major and minor and yet for years have been let down again and again.

This time, 18.1 is installed but yesterday I heard the garble-farty-static sound from my stereo paired HomePods V2... this time it didnt result in a complete meltdown and silencing of the speakers but it still shouldnt have let out even the slightest of farts.....

So something still isnt right even with 18.1.

18.2 anyone?