HomePods, Siri and Apple TV

[Stephen Watson]

Hi all,

We have a pair of HomePods. I have an Apple Music subscription. If I say “hey Siri, play some David Bowie” Siri will oblige and play through the HomePods.

We bought an Apple TV HD and set the default sound output of said device to the HomePods. If I say “hey Siri, play some David Bowie” Siri will oblige and play through the HomePods ... but it seems, only if the Apple TV is connected. If for some reason, as was in our case, the mains plug was not in the Apple TV, what I got when asking was “now playing xxx by David Bowie. Silence. I’m sorry I’m having trouble with that, please try later.” My iPad would stream the same music with no trouble.

Once the Apple TV was reconnected to the mains, the same Siri request played through the HomePods.

This is weird behaviour to me. As HomePods don’t require an Apple TV for Siri to stream music over them, why does a connected Apple TV become a requirement for them to play? I would have expected the HomePods to simply stream as they would if we had no Apple TV.

Is there a way round this, or is it just the way it is?

Thanks for any help.

Stephen

You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it. ~ Carl Jung

[mac98aop]

Hmm, sorry to merely offer untested ignorance in reply, Stephen, as our Apple TV is too old for HomePods to connect to. Presumably, if you disconnect your Apple TV first, and then ask, Siri's more willing once again?  If so, and sorry to state the irritatingly obvious, but sounds like an iOS gremlin to me: having connected your HomePods to Apple TV, Siri is now (wrongly) trying to find said device before obliging, and as Siri can't, Siri won't!

Sounds like it's worth a trawl of Apple's forums and/or registering the issue. Do keep us posted and sorry I can't offer a real life test to confirm one way or t'other.

AP

[Stephen Watson]

Thanks for your thoughts. This isn’t an iOS (device) issue - it’s between Siri, Apple TV and HomePods.

I’m going to report it to Apple because, unless anyone knows a reason why it’s the way it is, or a simple workaround, it’s a bug to me.

Stephen

You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it. ~ Carl Jung

On 18 Jan 2021, at 12:28, mac98aop <adamp...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hmm, sorry to merely offer untested ignorance in reply, Stephen, as our Apple TV is too old for HomePods to connect to. Presumably, if you disconnect your Apple TV first, and then ask, Siri's more willing once again?  If so, and sorry to state the irritatingly obvious, but sounds like an iOS gremlin to me: having connected your HomePods to Apple TV, Siri is now (wrongly) trying to find said device before obliging, and as Siri can't, Siri won't!

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[Tony Crooks]

I assume that when you got the Apple TV you made the HomePods into stereo pair? In this case it’s likely that they are primarily paired to the Apple TV. Have you tried a Siri request in which you say 'play xxx on Lounge HomePod', that is specifying the device the request be directed to? In a slightly different case use I found this to work where two HomePods were linked to play from the same source. And, of course, checking the Apple Support forums might yield some help?

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Tony Crooks
tcr...@gmail.com
+44 7428 706227

[Toby Leighton]

I too am offering an unqualified perspective, but I do get Siri to play music and turn lights on and off.   One thing I remember when I was looking into HomeKit and setting all this up is that newer Apple TV’s are a HomeKit hub.  This is critical for the lights as when you are away you could turn the lights on and off, the Apple TV HomeKit enabled in your house is being the brain and makes all this integration work remotely.  I don’t have an Apple TV and I can only turn my lights on and off when I’m in the house - fine by me. 

Perhaps in your situation when the Apple TV is on everything in the house latches on to that, but when it’s turned off, instead of the speakers just talking to your phone or iPad like they normally would, they are not listening and just waiting for your Apple TV to come back before taking orders.  

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