homekit scene to play Pandora station (not Apple Music)

Question

Level 4

1,237 points

homekit scene to play Pandora station (not Apple Music)

I’m trying to create a new scene that plays a particular Pandora station on my stereo pair of HomePod minis. I’ve enabled/installed Pandora’s HomePod support and selected Pandora as the Default Service for audio/music.

When I try to create a scene in Apple Home that plays a Pandora station, the process hits a wall when I try to “Choose Audio” and a message immediately pops up telling me an [Apple] Music Subscription is required.

[Sigh] Although Apple’s trying to open up here and there, historic proprietary instincts persist. I guess the Home team didn’t get the memo where it says “HomePod mini is designed to work with Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, thousands of radio stations, and popular music services like Pandora, Deezer, and others, providing entertainment for everyone.”

So… how would I create a scene that plays my favorite Apple Podcasts selection?

The image sequence below shows the dilemma:

When “Choose Audio…” is tapped, one immediately sees the following pop-up:

Posted on Jan 20, 2022 5:00 PM

Reply

Answer 1

bgmeek Author

Level 4

1,237 points

Jan 22, 2022 12:25 PM in response to Eric--F

Well, I have now submitted feedback - but I’m also hoping for some discussion here… A subset/paraphrase of my feedback/feature request follows:

It occurred to me that the Home app should simply allow one to create a HomeKit Scene that executes a typed Siri command. Better yet, a series of Siri commands! “Hey Siri; play Khruangbin radio on Pandora.”; “Hey Siri; set the living room lights to 5%”… Obviously, the “Hey Siri” bit would be a given.

Enabling such a feature would add great value to the Apple HomeKit ecosystem and not require developers to jump through additional hoops for their customers to benefit.

Reply

Answer 2

Eric--F

Community Specialist

Jan 21, 2022 6:37 PM in response to bgmeek

Hello bgmeek,

We'd love to assist you with adding audio to your scene. It does in fact require an Apple Music subscription to add the audio to the scene. You can leave feedback on the process here: Product Feedback

Take care

Reply

homekit scene to play Pandora station (not Apple Music)

Similar questions