Finding out what's playing on HomePod

Apart from asking Siri what's currently playing on my HomePod, is there a way of "seeing" what's playing from a Mac? Here's the scenario I have setup.


I have an iMac in one part of my house I use as a music server. I'm currently playing music from this iMac to the HomePod in my office via AirPlay, and I'd like to be able to see on the iMac in my office, what's playing on the HomePod. One clumsy way of doing this is to connect to the iMac downstairs via Screen Sharing and just look to see what's happening, but this isn't a particularly elegant solution. Before getting the HomePod I would play music from the server through the Music app via HomeSharing, and I could just keep the minimized Music app open in the corner of my screen. I could still do that, of course, by continuing to use HomeSharing and AirPlay to the HomePod from the iMac in my office, though that seems like a lot of unnecessary wifi traffic (Music Severs -> Office iMac -> HomePod).


My preference would be something on my Mac (like, Control Center) that would just show me what the HomePod is playing. independent of the source from which it is getting that content.

iMac 27″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Nov 30, 2020 9:44 AM

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Nov 30, 2020 1:05 PM in response to turingtest2

I just thought of another way you can sort of do it... In the scenario described above, you can do it from the Remote app on an iOS device. So, if I have my iPhone sitting on my desk I can see what's going on by waking up my phone. Theoretically, I think this also means you could run the Remote app on an M1 based Mac and always see what's playing on the remote Mac streaming music to the HomePod.

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Finding out what's playing on HomePod

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