HomePod Mini keeps disconnecting

Same, from the jump.

For some context, I live in a small 650 sq ft apartment. There is no concrete or metal between my new, up-to-date wifi 6 Amplify Alien router and any of my HomePods.

I have two original home pods within 12 feet between our router, used as a stereo pair with a new Apple TV 4K in our living room area.

Our HomePod mini's are in our bedroom, on either side of our bed, maybe 30 feet max. They NEVER stay connected and this has been going on for several years and through multiple updates. I've tried what many have with static IPs, HomeKit Router Security on or off, you name it. Both have been restored via my iMac to restore their software. Didn't help.

Because of this issue HomeKit is unstable, If the pod that looses connection is also the hub at that time, it breaks everything.

I live in a city environment near a firestation. I suspect the radio interference in this area is to blame and the HomePods programming isn't robust enough to overcome these events.

Which seems crazy to me, given this company have labs designed for testing radio interference, the fact that they released a product that does not work, boggles the mind.

Anyway. Add my voice to the chorus here, I hope they fix it soon. I rely on HomeKit for some daily automations that cost money when they break.

OH! And if you are part of Apple's beta program you can submit feedback via their "Feedback Assistant". if you haven't already please go there, create a ticket and share your experience.

I'll have to give this a try, but I find it incredibly odd that a company like Apple wouldn't know their own feature would break their devices. This seems like a really obvious omission.

one other thing, why is this affecting (for me) the HomePod mini and not the original HomePods I have in my home?

Right after the recent OS updates that included the revised architecture I completely restored all of my HomePods and AppleTVs hoping to fix this problem, at the time "private address" was turned on. Sounds like I need to do that again, but I don't understand why it only affects one (mini) of my 4 speakers.

I hear you. Like I said, I don't understand Apple's decision to implement this feature, make it default, and fail to offer a global on/off switch (instead of only SSID by SSID).

The original HomePod may have elements of A8-compatible code that predate the Private Wi-Fi Address feature (just speculating).

I tried this the other day but it made things worse. All sorts of bizarre issues. Mind you I did not reset the HomePods afterwards. I always hesitate to reset them because they can be difficult to set back up again! I’ll try it again when I have a free day to go through this ordeal. I have 9; 4 OG, 2 Gen 2 and 3 minis. The stereo pair with Apple TV 4K is flawless. I’ve had them since they first came out and they were good until around iOS 13. Maybe I have too many of them?

Today my stereo pair got ungrouped after I did a smoke detector test. The left one out of the pair heard the alarm.

I’d really like to them working again. Thanks for your input.

Quick update: I appear to have resolve this issue for now by moving a IOT Air Quality sensor from Aqara about 4 feet alway from the speaker. previously it was sitting next to the speaker on my nightstand.

So... if you have any radio frequency based devices near your HomePod, consider spreading them out and see if that resolves your connectivity issues, I made the adjustment 3 days ago and these HomePods connections have not disconnected.

Can I just turn off private wifi on my iPhone?

then should I reboot my wifi for good measure, before resetting HomePods and setting up with iPhone in its new no PWA state?

I might try this later today because they’re acting up again.

What I don’t get is why they work so good using Apple TV 4K. Also it’s the best and ONLY way to AirPlay to multiple HomePods and choose which ones you want and increase volume individually. I used to be able to do that from my iPhone and iPad around iOS 12 but never the Mac. Except for some odd reason my Mac allowed me to just prior the the last MacOS update on 13.3. Then they went oops that wasn’t supposed to happen and removed it!

Yes they’re set as default audio. I have 2 Apple TV 4Ks. The thing is, I have morning music automations that are plying to several Pods and once “linked”, they’re stuck acting as a group and it’s extremely difficult to get them separated. Control other speakers and TV’s doesn’t work. Now my Mac is suddenly allowing me more than one HomePod from the music app. It was allowing all on my browser watching tv or Netflix, as well as the tv app. Not tested the tv app again to see if that suddenly decided to work.

Thinks for all your help. I’ll try it tonight once my company leaves. I might not do it all exactly as per your instructions but I’ll post back on what I did and what worked. I have 9 HomePods and there’s one OG that won’t reset properly, I’ll just restart that one.

Mostly I want my music automations to work again. They work some days and other days don’t trigger at all, while other days only some pods come on. The evening automation never fails. I did a test, thinking “it’s the playlist”. One playlist just seemed corrupted. I deleted it. So there’s that theory ….

My timers are atrocious.

Hey siri set a timer for 3 minutes

Timers can’t be set for a time of day, so I set your alarm for 3 AM. Not really important though.

Update x 2

I've reported this issue to Apple via Feedback Assistant.

Based on feedback throughout this thread I've been monitoring my HomePod's Mac assignment from my router and Home interface. I recently had to reboot one of my HomePods because it lost connection with the internet. Unplug for 5 seconds, plug back in. This was a near daily routine for my HomePod mini's paired in our bedroom. The original pair I have in our living room flawless.

I moved an IOT from Aqara that was near the problematic HomePod mini last week to 3 feet above the speaker an just to the left, avoiding it's line of sight to the router and its pair.

This improved the situation as HomeKit and our Shortcut routines became more reliable, going several days without a hitch. That is until this morning when the same problematic speaker disconnected.

I rebooted then checked my logs on the devices MAC address, as I have private IP set on the iPhone I used to setup the speakers up with, as previous replies suggested this feature could break things as it randomizes the devices MAC address to break tracking and improve security.

I have not changed this setting or reset my devices at this stage, I had previously completed a OS restore via Finder on my iMac, and as others have described changing this feature could wreak havoc elsewhere and I don't have time for that.

Today, following the reboot the MAC address remains the same, however my iPhone Home app says the speaker is "No Response" while my iMac HomeKit App says the speaker is "Paused."

Not sure what the issue is here, but it seems to suggest that my iPhone, connected to the same SSID is not seeing the status of this one HomePod for some reason.

I have long experienced issues with wifi devices on the same router with different active bands not finding other devices on the same network, either wired or wireless, if the other devices isn't on the same frequency it doesn't find it. This has been rare, but it's one of the reasons I avoid fencing my IOT devices off, it's complicated devices you don't want in that group to see what's happening in side it from outside the group.

I'm clearly not a network specialist, just an above average technical user.

I use a wifi 6 router from Amplify, it works well generally. I do not have its HomeKit router security enabled, as doing so limited the functionality of several temp triggers I need.

I'd continue to encourage people to reset their HomePods via USB, this provided some stability, then ensure there are no other radio frequency devices in between your problematic HomePod and your router. If you have a concrete or metal wall between your speakers and their router consider relocating the speakers for a short period to further identify possible disconnect causes. And if you live near a police station, fire station or other entity associated with secure or high powered radio frequency transmissions, you will continue to experience this instability when those devices are activated.

Don't forget to create a Feedback Ticket with apple and provide them with relevant use case details.

[Edited by Moderator]

After repositioning the several devices and hubs to avoid overlap my setup has become more reliable, but still not perfect. One of my homepod mini's, the one closest two my Aqara temp sensor still continues to looks connection.

I'm curious if anyone else has two HomePods separated by a king sized bed, with the speakers posited on their night stand, paired and used as default audio for their bedroom Apple TV?

This arrangement in a city environment with a lot of radio interference is very problematic, I wonder how common it is.

I'm about to create a new feedback ticket for apple, I'd encourage anyone reading this thread to do the same and provide more detail about your environment. It is VERY likely they know and for some reason this high-touch issue remains elusive for them to fix.

Hi Jason, my Homepod Mini's are separated by about 9.5 feet and have direct line of sight to each other. The Mini's are about 18 feet from the WiFi router. I do not believe there is any meaningful interference potential, we live in an apartment building of approx 100 units with only residential tenents. There is no other building within several hundred yards. Hope this info is useful.

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.

3:46am EST - I have set of 3: large pod centralized and minis on each side of bed. Not only do they drop out.. but they sometimes decide to play iTunes My Favorites I had been playing on way home or bopping to in the OR!

I use Portal to play soothing background noise because surgical ears need a break and sounds of the Pacific Ocean is my lullaby.. but I instantly wake up when HomePods cut out to silence or start blaring “Get Low” by Lil Jon & Ying Yang Twinz (don’t judge, some OR folk listen to ratchet rap while you’re blissfully snoozing for hours.. Death Metal too). These d*mn possessed HomePods I coughed up good $ for a little relaxing immersion nature surround sound are disturbing my precious sleep!!

Interference.. PLEASE!! Can Apple magically drop the “extend your car warranty..” calls I get all day making nurses/reps repeatedly shout out my random incoming numbers while I decide if I’d like to answer on speaker in front of entire OR staff?! DO RIGHT BY US HOMEPOD AND FIX THIS CRAP!

bgmeek, I tried your solution this evening and was quite encouraged...for about an hour. Then the connection died and the wifi disappeared...again. This has been happening only since the latest software update applied to the homepod minis. (These are new, by the way, just acquired in the past month.)

Now I have rebooted my modem for the nth time and have 4 lovely black little orbs around the house as a reminder to avoid Apple hardware in the future.

I cannot tell you how much Apple hardware I have personally seen off to the recycling dump which has failed just after the warranty has expired.

"It just works."

No it doesn't.

I have no problem with my mini stereo pair disconnecting. I have a small problem with them sounding tin canny when Dolby Atmos albums switch tracks. I fixed that by playing the Atmos albums on shuffle. Atmos albums or playlists on shuffle. But disconnecting? No. I keep home app options on Only People Sharing The Home and make sure sharing is always set up. I changed the names of homes and everything to jibberish. I have Spectrum and it has an app that can edit all the devices connected to my WiFi and I had to clean it up. My minis are dreams. They’re a little work because they stream WiFi themselves. But I’m very happy with the sound.

🧿🎶🧿

Was having exactly the same issue. Constant disconnects between my iphone, MacBok and the Homepod. Tried all the usual suggestions - resetting Homepod, changing Wi-fi settings etc....that's when I noticed that the HomePod was connected to a wi-fi extender 'disc' (UK BT Term for them) and my Iphone was connected to the main router.

I'm sure there is a setting for this in the router set up somewhere that allows me to configure the homepod to connect to the main router only....For now, I just tured off the wi-fi extender and everything instantly started connecting again.