HomePod Mini keeps disconnecting

This thread is older, but I wanted to chime in that as an Apple user of most tech products for 20 years I'll say that the HomePod Mini I own is the biggest disappointment I've had from Apple. It constantly drops out when watching videos, listening to music/podcasts, etc. It also completely disconnects if I need to add a Bluetooth device to my laptop for any reason and is a complete hassle to reconnect. Looking for a fix I've read countless forum advice, watched videos, and discussed in-person with Apple associates, and I have never identified a remedy. If anyone at Apple wants to help me, I welcome it... please.

On your iPhones/iPads, try turning the default "Private Wi-Fi Address" feature OFF for your Home[Pod] WiFi SSID(s). The feature as implemented can confuse peer-to-peer connections on many home networks (particularly mesh setups).

Settings --> Wi-Fi --> [Your Home(Pod) Network] > (i) > "Private Wi-Fi Address" = OFF.

NOTE: This will cause a "Privacy warning". You can ignore this. There's no risk; it's your network.

Next, reboot everything (including WiFi infrastructure) and reset your homepods so that they learn you've set Private Wi-Fi Address OFF for the network. This guy reports observing MAC address changes on his HomePod mini until he turned off Private WiFi Addresses and reset his homepod: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeKit/comments/rxkcqh/homepod_mini_private_address/. HomePods shouldn't use private wifi addrs, but they do get the network details from your iphone.

Background: Starting with iOS 14 (late 2020), Apple made iOS devices use a unique random MAC address by default on every WiFi network you connect to. They did this to prevent nefarious snoopers from tracking your iPhone hardware's WiFi MAC address across WiFi networks. I've never heard of any such snoopers or any exploits/hacks associated with WiFi MAC address tracking (although I've searched for examples). Seems like Apple's best example of a solution looking for a problem.

Please report back if this advice helps bring stability to your Home[Pods]. Or not. Thx.

APPLE: Is it time for a "recall" and acknowledgment that HOMEPOD is a fail??????

I’ve had the one HomePod 2 for a month maybe less, constantly so far all I’ve had is music being cut off because of it disconnecting. I’ve restarted router. Reset the HomePod and so on. Even changed its place to see if it’s wireless interference but nothing changes anything. I have had a horrible experience so far to say the least

I am now UNHAPPY to report that the problem has returned this evening. Dead in the water...again. I am tempted to assume there was an OS update from Apple that has FUBAR'd the mini's...again.

I am not going to jump through all of the hoops again only to have this happen again down the road. I declare my mini's to be now useless paperweights, and an unpleasant and expensive learning experience at the hands of Apple.

Why should we have to jump through all these hoops to try to find a solution that Apple themselves appear to be incapable of finding??

No more Apple for me.

I have a home full of 'pods, old and new. Sadly they do the same, totally unpredictable *except TV stereo duo always perform flawlessly* via 4K AppleTV. But all the others drop off from time to time when streaming radio or music content around the home. Not ideal to say the least. Clinging on to the hope that an update will resolve eventually.

I am happy to report that bgmeek's suggestion has worked for me. My first attempt failed (user error) because I wasn't clear on the difference between "restart" and "reset". After turning off the private wifi address setting, I removed all four homepod mini speakers from the MyHome app and reset them to the original factory settings. I then added them one by one as if setting them up for the first time.

I seems I now have a stable connection.

Many thanks to bgmeek.

Hello.

In our homes, I suppose normal homes, it is not necessary to have private MAC addresses, all devices go through the router with the same MAC address and the same public IP. Furthermore, I consider that it is a security problem that random MAC addresses are generated inside my house, since, in my case, I know the MAC addresses of all my devices, if there is a new device, or if they change, I find out. If they are random, I don't know if they are mine or not. Well, in this case yes, because a new one appears and I'm missing one of mine..., but the one that has changed stops being heard....

I don't understand why the HomePods and Apple TVs, inside my house, have to use random MAC addresses, except so that I can't block access to the access points and have less security.

I don't know if the reason they disconnect and reconnect, hearing one, another or none, every day, has anything to do with this or not, but it seems absurd to me.

On my iMac, iPhone, iPad,... and those of my family, I can choose between using private MAC addresses or not, obviously I have set it to not for my SSID and my network, and I have no problem recognizing them when scanning the network as my devices, with iNet Scanner for example.

By the way, I have bought 3 AirPort Extreme 802.11 AC. Everything is Apple now. There is no Mesh network. The problem remains the same.

This problem has been around for a long time. It is reported in all the forums. I personally have open incidents to which they no longer respond. Not even the support is what it was years ago.

I wait for each new update as if my life depended on it, and there are a few, but nothing.

I don't understand why Apple doesn't provide a solution to this after so much time and so many complaints.

The issue of HomeKit and the Home App would have to be dealt with separately. The Home App eats up batteries without using it. I have had to remove the entire family and only I use it.

He also responds when he, or she, wants. You always have tons of devices (all of them ZigBee) across three hubs, all of which are unresponsive. With Alexa if they respond.....

I had to remove all the Eve devices, which I also had. With thread they disappeared and appeared when they wanted. With HomeKit they worked more or less well, from the update to thread, a disaster.

After about 20 years, I'm starting to go from love to hate with Apple stuff.

They were a little expensive devices, but very good, the first ones I bought still work. Now they are very closed devices, very expensive, and their operation is not the same.

I still have a Power Mac G4, upgraded with as much RAM as possible and an SSD via an adapter, running Office perfectly!!!!!

Now, what I buy, logically removing iPhones and iPads, in addition to being very very expensive, I know that it will only have a couple of years of life without any possible update.

Apologies for all this, but I have had these problems for more than a year and several open incidents without any response.

Thanks

FWIW: I have 6x HomePods Mini and 2x HomePods 2nd Gen (setup as stereo). I have Apple TV Latest Gen (MN893LL/A) connected straight to my WiFi router using hard wire! My WiFi is 6x Amazon eero Pro 6 mesh Wi-Fi 6. I use an Apple MacMini M1 as entertainment system also hard wired to same WiFi Router.

My Fiber connection is so fast that my Apple TV never skips a beat, and despite all this, my one HomePod just stops playing. Mostly (80% of the time) the right one. Both are less than 6ft from the WiFi/TV/Apple TV/Apple MacMini M1.

I have figure out that if I open the Control Center, click on Audio, and then click on the connected HomePods (stereo paid), it then unclicks itself for a second or two, then clicks itself back, and when I exit, the sound is back.

... but come on, surely this could be fixed:

• Pause whats playing (optionally) until the sound is back.
• Instead of waiting for action, keep trying to get reconnected and the sound back.
• Apple, tell us what gear we need to get this working.

Thank you so much.

4 * Apple TV 4k -> 189€ * 4 = 756€

9 * HomePod Mini -> 109€ * 9 = 981€

2 * HomePod 1ª Gen -> 325€ * 2 = 650€

Total -> 2380€

A good investment, and as is rightly said, it still doesn't work, now with version 17.4

I have a lot of nice paperweights and I end up using TV speakers or Alexa.... via bluetooth.

AirPlay also doesn't work properly.

I do not recommend buying HomePods at all. There are better and even cheaper sound solutions on the market.

HomePod mini is the absolute worst product ever. Asking it to play music results in awful music selection. Even if you ask it to play a particular artist, it results in playing that artist's worst songs. Trying playing music from your phone or computer results in it DISCONNECTING after playing a few songs. Amazon devices and music app is SO MUCH better than Apple. Apple so-called services are just the bottom of the barrel

Oh my god I had connection issues with one of my HomePods for months… I‘ve tried everything: rebooting, reseting factory defaults, even tried to delete and configure all my devices from scratch and nothing helped. I spent hours trying to fix it and only your solution helped. Thank you some much!!!

So this is weird, but works. If I open the home app on my mac and go into the settings for the ihome mini and just leave it open, it does not disconnect. The minute I close out the setting for the speaker, it starts losing connection again. Not a very good fix, but at this point I will take it. Please either do an update or make a better speaker.

It can be incredibly frustrating when devices keep disconnecting at random intervals. One day they may play for hours, while other days they only last for seconds or a few songs. It's even more disheartening when you believed you were making the right decision by switching from Alexa to Homepod. As I was writing this response, the music suddenly stopped!

They're just speakers! Apple can't rationalize to me they require this much consideration, deliberation, research, or fixation to just make them work.