How do I stop my HomePod from turning on randomly?

I'm also suffering this annoying behaviour.

I've long ago set the HomePod Settings *not* to respond to Siri commands, yet at random times "Siri" will ask - from this HomePod - "how can I help ...."

On my two iPhones and on the HomePod itself I have disabled Siri wherever possible.

But the most annoying behaviour is my HomePod spontaneously playing a random track from my music, at totally random times - without being touched by anything ... and I have done everything feasible in HomePod Settings to 'desensitise' it to (non-existent) touches or to any imagined Siri command.

My local Apple Store - impressive in every other respect- had no magic solution to offer me except to suggest I buy a second HomePod ... without being able to assure me it would not suffer this same dumb behaviour.

I take small comfort from seeing this question pop up here from other people every so often, so if anyone knows of a trick or a Shortcut guaranteed to stop this happening it would be much appreciated and applauded by many.

Similar problems here from Hong Kong. From few weeks ago, it speaks, plays music and adjusts volume pairing with Apple TV without any prompt. Went to Apple this morning and the only solution is to pay almost full cost for a replacement as warranty expired. The staff said there has been quite a lot similar reporting recently but unless Apple rolls out recall program, I will have to pay as said. Clearly their quality issue as HomePod will just sit in everyone’s home and I can’t see any user abuse possibilities. Apple must listen to customer and stand behind their quality. Not fair that such expensive speaker can only use 2 years, ridiculous, and why would I pay another full cost for a speaker that possibly can only be used for short

As for the times Siri randomly turns on, something you could try is enabling "Siri or Hey Siri". Every HomePod in my household uses this and we rarely have Siri false trigger. I have it on my iPhone as well. To enable it, go to the Home app, tap on your HomePod, then tap the gear in the bottom right corner scroll till you see the Siri section. "Under Listen For" enable "Siri or Hey Siri". If you have multiple HomePods, it should give you an option to toggle it for all of them.

For the HomePod's playing random tracks, do you have any automations set up in the Home app that could be causing that? You can check by going in the Home app, then tapping Automation in the bottom.

You can also try restarting your HomePod if the issue is persisting. To do so, go to the Home app, then tap on your HomePod, then scroll down to the bottom, you will see a "Reset HomePod" button. Tap on that, then tap on the "Restart HomePod" button. This will restart (not reset) your HomePod. You should see a glowing white circle to indicate that on top of your HomePod. After a few minutes, you should be good.

Hope this helps!

When you say it turns on randomly, what do you mean? Is Siri initiating or is it just playing music out of the blue?

Unfortunately they haven't solved the problem yet, I hope the release of HomePod 18.4 solves it, in the meantime I have an unusable device disconnected from the power. 😩