HomePod Mini Internet Connectivity Issues

Like I said a week ago, return the damm items to where you purchased them. A $99 item is not worth the time and effort most of you have invested. Wait until Apple gets their engineers to review what all of you have done to help trouble shoot the issue and fix it. I know they have been reviewing this forum and there is still no resolution.

Return the product and do you social media duty and let your followers know about Apple’s lack of resolution on the new Mini Pod. Once YouTubers get a hold of this it will go viral and then see how quick Apple will resolve the issue.

I have diverted at least 6 of my peeps from purchasing the Pod since they heard mine on Thanksgiving Day. Cheers. Bob

Have you tried this. I’ve posted it at least half a dozen times.

go to the home app on device associated with homepods.

tap on the little house top left.

go to home settings.

tap on your picture, or if no picture, on your name.

turn off, then turn on “recognise my voice” follow very quick set up feature and this might fix it. It worked for me and I did inform Apple. I’m ****** off that no one appears to even try this that cleared my problem up immediately.

It’s only been a few days since the newest iOS upgrade but for me it is working like normal now. Before it would guarantee break every day, it’s been about three straight days and it’s been working fine every day. Fingers crossed it stays that way as I know some users are still having issues after the update. I check every morning just to see if it’s working, it shouldn’t have to be that way.

IOS upgrade (14.3) did not help me. Have ordered new modem from ATT. We will see if that helps in a couple of days. I tried modem at 2.4 GHz for 6 hrs & 5 GHz for 6 hrs. For me it doesn’t make much difference. Still homepods & mini,s drop internet connection while they have a strong WiFi signal. Phone & iPads are getting dropped also now....maybe the new modem will do the trick. This is my last shot before returning all 3 of my mini’s. Apple I am disappointed.....first time I have had any trouble with your products & I have many.

I have been having similar issues. Today I really dug into it and hope this helps. I think the issue for me was a lot of the 5ghz networks in my building were all on the same channel. I found a channel that was not being used by anyone in the 80mhz band and so far haven't lost either speaker. May be worth giving that a try. Will update if I run into anymore trouble.

Just want to add more information. So after I changed channels, things were going well and then suddenly one side dropped out again. Once I get them synced again, I threw on YouTube and connected to them via AirPlay from my XS Max. When watching YouTube, my phone does not go into sleep mode. So far after like 3 hours of YouTube, no drops. But when I listen to Apple Music with AirPlay, it will go into sleep mode. I'm going to test my new theory that the connection issues happen when the controlling device goes to sleep.

To expound on this a bit more... (please keep in mind I'm new to Homepods), I am thinking that when you listen to something like Apple Music there is some prebuffering that occurs in the minis. Then when the phone goes off, it seems fine, until it reaches the end of the buffer. Then that's when the syncing issues start. Again, all theory at this point.

Just a follow up. I changed out my modem today and all my problems went away. Have my fingers crossed. This has been quite a journey. All 5 homepods (2 paired HomePods & 3 mini’s) working great all over house. 👍

@morro11, mind if I which modem you have? I'm on AT&T Fiber and we are only allowed to use the Arris BGW210-700. I have considered getting a second router to use a new access point and then pass it through to the Arris for actual internet connectivity.

Having been struggling with the issue of HomePod minis repeatedly losing connection, and the two software updates not fixing it, I think I may have discovered the cause, at least in my situation.

The issues I’d been seeing were with my Minis in my living room, which are a stereo pair and are the farthest away from an access point (I have multiple APs throughout the house), is they would regularly lose the internet connection. This would cause issues ranging from the stereo pairing breaking, to Siri saying she was having trouble with the connection, and it would cause issues with my HomeKit setup and give me disconnected notifications for my HKSV cameras, when one of the Minis had been acting as the HomeHub.

I have a 2.4GHz / 5GHz network using the same SSID (WifI name) on both networks so devices can seamlessly pick the better band without having to provide multiple connection passwords.

What appeared to be happening is my Minis were flip flopping between the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, losing connection each time before eventually reconnecting. No other devices in my house appeared to be having this issue, as modern WiFi devices are designed to cope with this setup.

However, what appears to have been causing the disconnection issues was a feature called “band steering”, referred to as “Smart Connect” on my Netgear APs. This is a feature where the AP will try to push the device onto the “better” WiFi band to improve the connection. However, in the case of the Minis in my living room, they weren’t dealing with the band steering tidily (for whatever reason) and this was causing them to lose the connection.

Having disabled band steering (Smart Connect in my settings) things have settled right down. I’ll admit it has only been around 35 hours since I made this change, however we have not encountered connection issues with the Minis and I’ve stopped receiving HKSV camera disconnected notifications, where I had been receiving around 10 to 15 per day, previously.

Your mileage may vary, but if you’re having connection issues with your HomePods and your router has a band steering feature, I would try disabling this to see if it helps.

So what I learned so far for an installation in Germany.

Home Pod Mini ist not working reliable with a "Telekom Speed Port Smart 3"-Router, but it seems to help to turn of Wifi AC Protocol. Switch it to N.

Same Home Pod Mini seems to work fine with a Router "Fritz!Box 7590"

Webguy 1979, I also am on AT&T Fiber and use the Arris BGW210-700 modem/gateway. I replaced my “Old (same model- had approx. 5yrs) with a new one (SAME MODEL).....no other choice with AT&T. This was a desperation move as I had tried (posted above), numerous other fix tries....& nothing worked & I was on my last straw. Don’t have the slightest idea why it worked but now everything works smooth with low latency 👍.  If you do go this route with AT&T: 1) Make sure to download AT&T’s “Smart Home Manager” App.. as it will walk you through the changeover & transfer your settings - you keep same previous router ID & password & saves you a lot of time reconfiguring.  2) However, before you go this length I suggest you look at Cardo’s recent hypothesis and ask your Att tech support rep to try a remote router reconfigure to modify (eliminate) the “smart connect” feature.....it’s worth a try. If it does work please post your good news. I am really curious as this “rings a bell” in my mind that connects a lot of dots from previous fix tries that worked but had short duration. I think Cardo is on to something & my fix may be related to mfg upgrading this feature?

morro11: Interesting. I have AT&T but I have it in Bridge Mode and I let my Airport Capsule handle routing. My connectivity issues on HomePod Mini were solved when I added an Airport Express under my desk where the HomePod Mini was located. Prior to doing that I had the WiFi connectivity issues. Before adding the Airport Express the HomePod Mini was 60-65 feet away from the Airport Capsule. So, does this mean the Airport Capsule also has some sort of "smart connect" feature also???

Keep in mind my iMac and printer are on my desk also and for years never had a WiFi connectivity problem.

It’s now been three days and we’ve not had any further issues (touch wood). I’m fairly confident that at least in my case, it was band steering that was causing the issue. I don’t know what the specific issue is (the Minis struggle with certain frequencies, perhaps?) that causes the issues, but disabling band steering has stopped the issue from manifesting, in my setup.

Got the problem as well since day one after release/shipping. Still hoping for a fix, did not contact support yet. I'm using 2.4ghz and 5ghz with the same SSID, band steering enabled, all other devices (smarthome, smartphone, pc, laptop, console) are connecting successfully. Ive lowered the DHCP lease time from 7d to 1d (lowest possible value in my router) but still got the issue.

You guys think Apple will fix it? Not sure if I should return the device then ...