I have a HomePod setter pair and a SONOS in a different room....they do not play in sync with each other when Airplaying audio. Something I have been wanting to troubleshoot, but I just thought for now I would say that it is a problem for me also.
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HomePod Sonos and HomePods latency issue with AirPlay 2
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I have an Apple TV 4K and a HomePod and I picked up four Sonos One's as soon as the AirPlay 2 update was released, but unfortunately I'm also having latency issues with them. When the HomePod and Apple TV are playing audio they are so perfectly in sync that it's hard to tell where the sound is coming from. When you add Sonos into the mix there is a slight delay that causes an echo. I've also noticed that if I play to the HomePod and two or more Sonos devices the Sonos speakers lose their place entirely and are sometimes 2-3 seconds behind.
Currently I have the two Apple speakers on the main floor and two of the Sonos speakers on the second floor. You can't really hear them both at the same time except for on the stairs, but the plan was to fill out the main floor with the other two speakers and add another HomePod to the second floor eventually. I'm not sure what to do now. Two of the Sonos speakers are going back for sure because I clearly can't use them anywhere that you can still hear the HomePod, but I'm not sure if maybe I should just return them all and go all in with the HomePod.
It's disappointing that the Sonos experience is not as seamless as it is with Apple.
Currently I have the two Apple speakers on the main floor and two of the Sonos speakers on the second floor. You can't really hear them both at the same time except for on the stairs, but the plan was to fill out the main floor with the other two speakers and add another HomePod to the second floor eventually. I'm not sure what to do now. Two of the Sonos speakers are going back for sure because I clearly can't use them anywhere that you can still hear the HomePod, but I'm not sure if maybe I should just return them all and go all in with the HomePod.
It's disappointing that the Sonos experience is not as seamless as it is with Apple.
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My experience has been the opposite: Sonos (Beam + 2 Play:1s) and HP in perfect sync but APTV 4K and HP NOT in sync
That’s weird. Last night I bought a second HomePod to try out and it syncs up perfectly with the first one and with my Apple TV. I’m thinking now about saving up for a third one.
I’m using an AirPort Extreme.
Interesting... maybe I’m just too sensitive to it. There’s a very slight delay between my HomePods and Beam, but once you hear it you can’t unhear it.
I'm sorry but where exactly are you getting from that AirPlay 2 is supposed to act like this?
The HomePods and Apple TVs show up as separate tiles in Control Center because they have access to Apple Music aswell as your iCloud Music Library in the Cloud (given that you have a subscription on the account they are logged in with); in this case, the added tile aswell as iTunes can act as a remote control for this native playback, but this has nothing to do with AirPlay 2 anymore, it's because your Apple TV and HomePods have the capability to stream music right from Apple's servers. Try playing something via the HomePod tile if you don't have an active Apple Music subscription, it won't work because the HomePod cannot stream from Apple's servers in that case.
AirPlay 2 on the other hand is a wireless streaming protocol, just like AirPlay 1 was, and it was never advertised as anything else (to my knowledge – if you believe differently, feel free to link me to where Apple says so, but I'd be highly surprised). It's a means of streaming audio from one device to one or multiple others via WiFi and it was advertised as such right from the beginning, it was never promised that it would magically give any AirPlay 2-supported speaker the ability to access Apple's Apple Music servers and stream their music from there when they couldn't do that before. And for that, it's actually a huge step-up from AirPlay 1 with several advantages, but it still requires (at least) two devices, one as the source and the other one as the receiver. The speaker won't magically get the audio signal it's supposed to be playing out of nothing.
If Sonos ever claimed their speakers could stream directly from Apple Music out of the cloud (which I don't think they did) and if their speakers can't do that, then it would be on them for overpromising a feature that they can't deliver. Apple didn't overpromise anything in regards to AirPlay 2 (except for when it's gonna be released).
Having said all that – I understand your frustration if that's what you expected. But I think it's clearly misdirected and it's not AirPlay 2 you are really upset about, it is (if anything) a shortcoming or overpromise on Sonos' part or a misunderstanding with what they advertised. I'm mostly content with both my HomePods aswell as with AirPlay 2, and I'm glad it's coming to more speakers.
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To be fair, they literally showed an iPad with multiple cards on stage, and that's what I was going off. https://www.aquaiver.com/airplay-2-coming-to-homepod-rival-sonos-one-in-july/
All the ingredients are there. Sonos devices already stream Apple Music directly from the internet. In a way, that's the whole point of them. They've always been more than dumb receptacle devices.
I snagged an Airport Express that supports Airplay 2. I find that my ATV and AE also seems to have issues staying in sync… and here I was ready to blame the AE and your comment makes me think it could be a problem with the ATV.
