It’s almost laughable as I don’t know what to do anymore. Out of 10 tries, at least eight times I couldn’t AirPlay a song from Apple Music using the pair of HomePod mini and the original HomePod.

For an unknown reason, watching a YouTube video is very challenging as the sound gets choppy, and I have to use my TV’s speakers.

Sometimes, out of nowhere, one of the HomePod mini simply disconnects, and I need to restart both of them.

Although this pair is just great for experiencing Apple Originals or watching Netflix, I’ve been struggling with three specific situations: I mainly use the pair of HomePod mini with the Apple TV 4K, which means they basically work as my sound bar. While this should have stopped me from buying new HomePods, I decided I should add two HomePod minis to my house, and this is when problems regarding AirPlay reliability started to bother me. For a new (and sometimes even a used) HomePod on eBay, you’re looking at a price tag in the ballpark of $500. You might think you can turn to eBay and find a smart speaker from a reseller for a reasonable price. If your HomePod starts making popping noises, chances are it’s about to bite the dust.Īnd if (or when) your original HomePod dies, there’s no clear replacement option. (…) During the last several months, we’ve seen a growing number of reports of HomePod units failing completely, with a so-called “popping” sound now infamous among users. 9to5Mac’s Chance Miller addressed these problems in his article about the original HomePod’s demise being a slow and sad one:

Although I’ve covered a few stories here at 9to5Mac about users completely losing their smart speaker after a software update or for absolutely no reason, I never had this kind of issue. I’m a proud owner of the original model for the past three years. Unfortunately, there’s still a major issue Apple needs to address, which is AirPlay reliability when connecting multiple HomePods. While the original HomePod was discontinued last year, the company added new colors to the HomePod mini family in October and finally launched Lossless and Dolby Atmos support to these products. Apple has a strange relationship with its audio products.

How to airplay from mac to stereo