Airplay not working with HomePod Mini

Yes i have the same issues its driving me mad! You can ask the pods/Siri to play music but try connecting them over airplay from your ipad 12pro it never connects. I have reset them numerous times deleted them from home app and reinstalled still the same issues. What the **** is going on

I just purchased two mini’s and got the first one set up and am running into the same issue. The mini is connected to the network but when I try the Airplay functionality it says it’s unable to connect from my iPhone 12. I’ve also tried the handoff feature which doesn’t work from the mini to my phone or vice versa.

I am having this issue too ..... Mini works fine except the handoff feature does not work. Airplay, Siri, Wifi Connection, sound quality have all been as expected - but not the "hand-off". I have an iPhone 12 Pro updated to 14.2.1 and have updated the Mini to 14.2. I was on the phone with Apple Support several days ago making sure all of the settings were correct and he cold not resolve the issue. Apple Support has sent the diagnostics to Apple Engineering for evaluation. I am currently waiting for their analysis/evaluation. I am likely not to use the "handoff feature" much - but it is annoying nevertheless that I (and so far Apple) can not get it to work.

I opened my second HomePod mini and that one set up and connected just fine. I’m able to see it in the Home app and am able to connect to it. The other one still won’t connect via AirPlay. I’m able to use Siri but still won’t connect to any of our iPhones or iPads. All are updated with the latest software. I’ll be calling Apple Support soon.

hey thanks. I had the same issue.. my MacBook and iPhone both couldn't interact with the HomePod mini. I followed the above steps and still didn't work. I have 2 routers in my house, so I switched my iPhone to the other router and thereafter came back to my original router.. and suddenly it worked. Did the same on my MacBook and its working

I gave this method a try, but unfortunately the only result was me having to sign back in to all the little iCloud services, Apple Music, re-download GBs of music and add all my Apple Pay cards back to my phone AND watch. Numerous hard resets using the touch method and my MBP to no avail. All up-to-date with 14.2.1.

I will note that I am able to airplay to my HomePod Biggie, add HomePod Mini as a little tagalong, control both with airplay, with combined and separate volume control. THEN I can even uncheck HP biggie and play to only HomePod mini and tada! It works. I’m then able to use handoff. But this only last for a few minutes before I’m back to airplay and handoff not working.

The big feature loss, for me at least, is being able to control the HomePod with my phone as a remote. Specifically I want to control the volume without having to shout at it and interrupt playback of live radio, discretely DJ, etc. This is also not possible with the symptoms described.

I thought it might be related to my wifi 6 mesh network, but if it works even intermittently with 5GHz, then I suspect it’s something else. All other internet features work fine. Siri, HomeKit, Apple Music, etc.

Still stuck.

Well, I did have similar issues with the HomePod connecting to the airplay intermittently and not able to use the phone as a remote to control the music and the handoff feature wasn't working. 2 things that I realized; my house has a mesh network hence the iPhone would keep moving between the routers (SSIDs). I turned off the auto join feature of the network to which my HomePod mini is not attached, thereby ensuring that my iPhone sticks to the network to which the HomePod mini is also attached. One of the other things that I realised that the router to which my HomePod was attached, had issues with my other apple devices too like the appletv, few apps not opening on the iPhone, though browsing on the internet through the MacBook was never an issue. So I just replaced this particular router with a new single channel router and that was the key, now all the devices connected this new router works perfect including the new HomePod mini does everything that it is supposed to do including the handoff from the iPhone.

Interesting! Thanks!

I think this may have something to do with my woes, but I have so many other devices connected to this network that can talk to each other. If the solution really is “just reconfigure advanced settings of your router and/or replace equipment” for a device that has no visual interface (besides some LEDs) it REALLY takes away the magic. I feel like SO many people have mesh setups and will have a terrible experience like we have or just never get to use the features.

Both my router and the satellite use the same SSID, so would that cause an issue, especially if my phone and HomePod are both connected to the satellite? Like, it’s clearly connected to the internet. It’s also WIFI 6 dual band, and I know HomePod softball only has N, but I’ve read it’s compatible with the 5GHz band (obviously as this is the band it connected to).

Man it shouldn’t be this hard to set this thing up. Lol. I’m one return, 4 phone support staff, and 5 hours invested into getting this little guy to let me adjust the volume of of the radio.

I am almost certain it has to do with mesh networking at this point, but I don’t have a solution. I imagine Apple is going to have to address this with software or at least a support article explaining how to set it up as this is no doubt affecting many people.

Did u delete the HomePod from your list of devices and restored it? I actually signed out and signed back into my cloud. Also, in my case multiple SSIDs on my mesh network was making it more complicated. So now I have enabled only the auto join feature for the SSID to which my HomePod is hooked. For the rest, whenever am n those parts of the house... join those networks manually. Btw in my case, I had replaced my router too.. it had issues connecting with other airplay devices previously... so made sense... now 🤞🏾 every feature works

Hi I did what you suggested: removed the home pods from the home app and factory reset them, rebooted the home app, across all devices, deleted it and reloaded it at great cost of time as I have the hue lighting system so spent half a day reconfiguring all the lights, re booted the router and still no connection with airplay on all devices, phones and iPads. I can’t see how buying a new router will help except add considerable cost to get something to work!!!

One thing that does happen is that occasionally they connect but after a minute or so they abruptly stop and won’t reconnect. I run speed tests at this point with the device next to the pods and I’m getting 89MPS speeds so it’s not the download speed or connection issue