Unable to use AirPlay with HomePod

I have a few different Apple TVs, some of which are connected wirelessly and others that are hardwired. There has not been a behavioral difference between the two — they just work.

As for the network, when the HomePod connects it is connecting to the correct SSID. I can see it join and disconnect while watching the client list, and it gets its IP address from the DHCP server as it should. The HomePod is the weakest signal of any device on my network at around 60% (20 ft away), but that should still be well within the usable limits.

In case it helps any, I’ll describe the network topology a little:

• Core router defines three VLANs (internal, guest, and IoT). The internal VLAN is untagged and is the default. This provides the DHCP server as well.
• Access point broadcasts two SSIDs per VLAN, one on 5 GHz and one on 2.4 GHz. The HomePod is connected to the internal 5 GHz SSID. 2.4 GHz is very saturated here, so I try to avoid it.
• There is no QoS or internal firewalling aside from separating the three VLANs. Everything I care about is on the internal VLAN anyway.
• My phone I’ve been using to configure the HomePod does not have the credentials for any other SSIDs.

To follow up a bit in case it helps anyone else, I'm having a bit more success with it connecting to a different access point. I have a secondary one in a weak point in the house, and when it connects to that one, it has been working as expected.

Primary access point: Netgear R7000 (running DD-WRT)

Secondary access point: Ubiquiti UniFi AP-AC-IW

I don't know why yet, but I'll try to dig into it further as I've had no issues with any other hardware.

The HomePod working on the Ubiquiti access point was short lived. It works immediately after freshly rebooting the HomePod, but after I stop playback and wait some period of time, it will not play again until rebooted. This is after deactivating the Netgear to eliminate the possibility of any conflict causing it.

In addition to not responding to AirPlay, it also will not respond to any action from the Home app. I can tap the top of the device to toggle visibility of the volume controls, but that is the only action it will perform once it gets in this state.

I believe it is now working. There appears to be a bug where fully disabling Siri on it will cause it to fully disconnect from the Wi-Fi at some point and never reconnect. Only power cycling or re-adding the HomePod will get it to connect again.

In my case, I have no interest in using Siri at all and mainly wanted an AirPlay-compatible speaker that I could stream to from any device in the house. I disabled the voice prompt support via the Home app but have left on the touch invocation for the time being since that appears to be the only way to keep it connected.