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.

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 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.

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.

I wholeheartedly agree. I have six paperweights arranged around the house. They sporadically work, then *blip* gone.

As consumers we shouldn't be required to jump through hoops in order to (try to...) get Apple products to work.

First I don’t think it’s wise to downplay hacking efforts these days and, contrary to your ideas, most people know that. Second we’re just trying to listen to music and shows on HomePods. If my solutions work then it’s obviously hacking efforts. Like I said maybe I’m lucky. I have a regular home cable WiFi router and modem from spectrum with a regular 500 speed. That’s all I know. I’d like to apologize to bgmeek for my comments on this post. I just hate hacking and people who downplay it.

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

In short, I have spent a fortune on HomePods and Apple TV, which they say have functionality, but I cannot use them because they do not want to solve the problem and, every time I use the Apple TV, every day, I have to pick up and select via AirPlay where I want to play the sound instead of setting it as the default output.

I don't know about you, but that seems like a bummer to me and anyone would protest at something like this.

My adventure continues tonight. I actually got 4 of my 6 speakers to play tonight (lately my iPhone will say that the speakers are playing but they are not...). All 4 played downstairs (2 in the kitchen and 1 each in the dining area and the living room); one or the other of them would fade out and then recover (par for the course...) but then, all 4 became badly out of phase and stayed that way, the worst I have yet experienced. Imagine a Bach fugue, out of phase.

Maddening. Apple has really come up with a winner this time.

apple tv airplay error: unable to connect to HomePod. You can switch to TV speakers in Settings

after using my paired HomePods as sole audio source for my Apple TV for quite some time, today my apple tv reports "unable to connect to HomePod. You can switch to TV speakers in Settings" error.

during the hour or so of troubleshooting, another error showed up at least once as well: "Apple TV couldn't make HomePod the default Audio Output. Try connecting your Apple TV and HomePod speakers to the same wireless access point, or enable IP aliasing on your router".

trouble shooting attempts:

-reset the HomePods

-Reset the apple tv 4K

-Reset my wifi router (Xiaomi)

reset my iPad reset my iPhone

« The two HomePod mini and the Apple TV are set in the same room on home app »

Also I tried to pair my HomePod Apple TV iPad iPhone ... to 5ghz wifi band, didn't work so I tried on the 2ghz, same story didn't work.

i tried to disable « private wifi networks on my iPhone and iPad » Setting -> Wi-Fi Name (i) -> Private Wi-Fi Address OFF, also didn't work.

my new IPad Pro, iphone, can stream to the HomePod pair with no problems.

I also tried to update to iOS 17.5 beta and tvOS 17.5, didn't work.

I can only use the two HomePod with AirPlay. All those problem started with the HomePod os 17.4 update.

thoughts? Any solution? They worked fine since 1 vear.

Solution by bgmeek worked for me. I worked for a month with Apple support online, on the phone and in store with no solution. Replaced my HomePod minis and still had the same problem. Tried bgmeek solution and voila!

Dave778778 wrote:

Wondering about having your passcode, WiFi password, Apple ID password and your phone cloned and getting private address turned off is the last hacker hurdle to jump

Read all about it. Provide ONE example of a hack related to using or not using a random hardware address on YOUR home network. Heck, one hack example on any public network? Just one?

Why so many posts about something you clearly don't understand? Are you a bot? If so, why?

I'd explain the tech to you, but why? Know this: There's absolutely NOTHING 'Private' about this so-called feature. It's simply a different MAC address on every WiFi SSID. It makes ZERO difference to security on your home network, and unfortunately, it doesn't affect your iPhone on ANY OTHER network. It shouldn't be anywhere near a HomePod, but it's there and it's broken.

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!

I read, "Apple, 'sell' us what gear we need to get this working."

Home pod is such a good product Idea, but lacks the software for a viable product. I feed bad for those, like myself that had trust in Apple to produce a plug&play product, which has cause countless hours of frustration. I don't want to reset my homepods for the X time... but here we go.