Do Not Want HomePod for Calls

Hi Community,

It is extremely frustrating that there is no way to disable HomePod appearing as an option when making or receiving a call on the press of speaker icon.

My HomePod is kept at my bedside and I only want to use it to listen to music when I want but it appears in the speaker list for not only my but each family member in the home. When any one of us making or receiving a call and want to activate phone speaker, it shows HomePod in the list and it is an extra click to select phone speaker to diver there call. Prior to HomePod, pressing speaker button in a call would redirect the call straight to the phone speaker.

I have read many posts where you can disable it in settings and set a password for anyone wanting to connect to it but it makes no difference even after making that setting so is there something else I can and is anyone else facing same issue?

Thanks

Z