Home App / HomePod / Airport Express

Greetings,

Per the instructions below from the Apple Help site, I should be able to add my Airport Express units (with most recent version: v7.8.1) to the Home App on my iPhone X.

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To add speakers connected to an AirPort Express 802.11n (2nd Generation), update your AirPort Express to the latest firmware

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However, per those instructions when I select 'I don't have a code or cannot scan', the instruction state I should then see 'add speaker' and the available Airport Express is supposed to show up. Since I don't get an 'add speaker' screen, how is it supposed to be found?

The other issue in the same vein is whether on my Mac or my iPhone, I can toggle between either my stereo HomePods or my Airport Express which is connected to a receiver. It won't let me do both at the same time.

Anyone having a similar experience or know how to resolve?

Thanks

iPhone X, iOS 13

Posted on Jan 1, 2020 1:26 PM

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1 reply

Tesserax

Level 10

157,818 points

Jan 2, 2020 9:56 AM in response to Gary Willard

Honestly, I have found the 7.8.x firmware problematic overall for the AirPort Express base stations with a "sorta works sometimes" relationship ... and I'm not alone with this finding. Looks like you are experiencing the same thing here. Downgrading back to 7.6.9 or 7.6.8 resolves the issue, but it disables AirPlay 2 which you will need for the Home app. Sorry, at this point, I don't know of any workaround. In addition, with Apple out of the networking hardware business, getting support for the Express become more difficult going forward. I'm sure you are aware the firmware updates have been very slow coming.

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Home App / HomePod / Airport Express