HomePod Setting up HomePods for family

[pit29]

Hi ya'all,

We're pretty excited as we are expecting 4 HomePods next week. To prepare for the big day, I'm trying to find out how to best set them up. We are a family where everyone has her/his own AppleID and we use Family Sharing (incl. the Apple Music Family thing).

Today, I've set up a home in the Home app and invited all family members to this. Once we have the HomePods - should everyone set them up on their device/AppleID and add to the same home (assuming that you can add devices to a home where you are a member of and which you don't 'own'), or should I set up all HomePods under my account and then give everyone permissions to 'their' device?

Surprisingly hard to find out on the internet, though I assume it's quite a common use case. Our preference would be for each of us to set the HomePod up individually and add to the same home, but of course we all want to use Intercom so that has to work!

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[malcky77]

I have 4 HomePods in my house and they are ALL registered under my own Apple ID and so is HomeKit.......even though there are 6 of us in the house with individual Apple ID's (2 adults & 4 kids)....I also have family sharing set up and the family Apple Music Subscription too....Everything works as expected for our house, as in ANYONE in the house can ask Siri to play music on any of the HomePods, give Siri any lighting commands for the Philips Hue lights, give Siri heating commands for the Tado° heating system.
Intercom works as expected, although it is only myself that really plays about with it, so its not fully tested in my house.

The other thing that is NOT tested by any of us is things like sending a text message to someone or making a phone call to someone using the HomePod.....usually always have a iPhone nearby so its easier to just use that for those tasks.

 

[Langsang]

I’m also curious about this, my wife and I have different iCloud accounts (duh) and I can’t pair my HomePod to the same home as her AppleTV. I’ve invited her, given « add » rights, and vice versa. Nothing shows up to combine them.

I ended up unpairing the HomePod from my iCloud account to try to add it as guest in her « home ». Here I got the message that only the owner of the home can add it.

So it looks like if I want to use the HomePod with my wife’s Apple TV, I can’t have my own iCloud credentials, messages and all of iCloud..

Beautiful progress, reminds me of Sidecar on iPad which also works with only one iCloud, in spite of being on the same network. Basically, I can’t borrow my wife’s iPad. Now we’ll need two ATVs?

 

[Itinj24]

If you have voice recognition set up for each member, even if all HomePods are under your AppleID, then each member will have a personalized experience. Occasionally Siri asks, who is speaking, but the person speaking just has to say their first name and then Siri will recognize it.

 

[Itinj24]

I’m also curious about this, my wife and I have different iCloud accounts (duh) and I can’t pair my HomePod to the same home as her AppleTV. I’ve invited her, given « add » rights, and vice versa. Nothing shows up to combine them.

I ended up unpairing the HomePod from my iCloud account to try to add it as guest in her « home ». Here I got the message that only the owner of the home can add it.

So it looks like if I want to use the HomePod with my wife’s Apple TV, I can’t have my own iCloud credentials, messages and all of iCloud..

Beautiful progress, reminds me of Sidecar on iPad which also works with only one iCloud, in spite of being on the same network. Basically, I can’t borrow my wife’s iPad. Now we’ll need two ATVs?

The devices in question (HomePod and AppleTV) have multi user capabilities and in my experience, it works perfectly fine. Have you not thought about just making one HomeKit Home and combining everything? All four of us have our own AppleID, under one Home and we each have a personalized experience with these devices.

 

[pit29]

Thanks all for the thoughts! I guess I'm pretty confident that multi user and things like this will work. But I know for the kids it'd be nicer if they set up their own HomePod with their own device (though add it to the same home). Though if that doesn't work, we'll be fine with me setting things up and then assigning right, default users and all.

 

[Langsang]

making one HomeKit Home and combining everything?

Thanks for the reply. I tried this by joining my wife’s « home » (ATV) as guest with « add device privilege » However when I ad the reset HomePod I get the message that only the owner of the home can add it. If my wife added it to her “home” it would be considered hers and get all her iCloud settings..
I must say I don’t find post-Jobs Apple to be so sharp on interface logic..

edit: if personal requests do work we could create a new common iCloud account to link the devices to. This might break my wife’s subscriptions on the ATV though.

 

[zhenya]

Thanks all for the thoughts! I guess I'm pretty confident that multi user and things like this will work. But I know for the kids it'd be nicer if they set up their own HomePod with their own device (though add it to the same home). Though if that doesn't work, we'll be fine with me setting things up and then assigning right, default users and all.

Just set them all up under your account. Make sure that all users voice recognition is set up (Apple has extensive documentation on everything that needs to be in place for this to work). Test this by having each family member ask Siri ‘What’s my name”.

Within the settings of each HomePod there is also a setting where you can choose the Primary User for Music and Podcasts for each HomePod. This has a given HomePod default to a particular user if it’s not clear who is speaking (for music and podcasts the default is for Siri just to respond even if it isn’t sure who is speaking, so if you care about separate libraries, this setting is important).

 

[sclawis300]

Thanks for the reply. I tried this by joining my wife’s « home » (ATV) as guest with « add device privilege » However when I ad the reset HomePod I get the message that only the owner of the home can add it. If my wife added it to her “home” it would be considered hers and get all her iCloud settings..
I must say I don’t find post-Jobs Apple to be so sharp on interface logic..

edit: if personal requests do work we could create a new common iCloud account to link the devices to. This might break my wife’s subscriptions on the ATV though.

I don’t understand why you are trying to force the HomePod to be “yours”. If you are added to her home app and she adds the HomePod to her home you will both get the same experience.

 

[Langsang]

I don’t understand why you are trying to force the HomePod to be “yours”. If you are added to her home app and she adds the HomePod to her home you will both get the same experience.

Because we don't want to have one of us who is the admin boss of the gear. It is not her or my home, it is the home of both, and that doesn't exist with Apple. So we ended up creating a common Apple ID for some extra mess.