Home pod mini airplay issues

I recently got an orange home pod mini, and instantly noticed a lot of issues when trying to play music.

It seems to be really buggy and I have had the worst possible user experience with this product.

I tried a lot of online solutions, but nothing works. ( even updated the OS to 15.6 and it is still the same)

The main problem is airplay when trying to play from my iPhone on the pod.

It almost never works (the bringing it near function also doesn't work correctly) and the song just stops after a few seconds, but it shows as playing on my phone.

If I try to switch to Spotify, the output voice is so bad and distorted, same for other music apps when I try to play from them.

I don't know what to do with it, seems like money gone to waste...