Download Homepod Software
Joseph Middlebrook
NO POWER: These make up 80% of my repair queue. 99 out of 100 cases it is the same faulty diode causing it. These diodes have a date code printed on them. 100% of the failed diodes have been date-coded 1746k or 1748k, in other words Week 46 and Week 48 of 2017. No one has ever confirmed a diode failure outside of this date range, despite a range of 1720k up to 18XXk being used. By my estimates, about 40-50% of the first gen homepods out there have this problem diode inside with no correlation to the homepod's serial number / production date to the diode's date code*.* My estimate can be greatly skewed though. It's unknown why these particular diodes from these two particular weeks do not last. But it seems that software updates put the diode under additional load which can exacerbate their failure. Repairs with any other dated diode do not fail again but I still replace them with beefier new ones. Second gens have of course long mvoed away from that particular diode, they have a much newer one and it's also larger.
DEATH FARTS: This one makes up the other 19% of repairs, I'm lumping in ones that have no bass since they are usually caused by the same problem. There are four ceramic capacitors responsible for filtering unwanted DC voltage from the analog audio signal before it gets amplified and sent to the speakers. For some reason, all it takes is one of these four filters to go bad for the whole system to fail. I must be missing something here because Apple seriously didn't spend $250 designing this just to be brought down by a $1 part, right?? Well anyways, another unfortunate side effect of this design is the fact that ALL ceramic capacitors naturally decay over time. Essentially this means all first gen homepods will eventually need a filter change to keep going. On the bright side, the "death fart" sound everyone talks about is the amplifier telling you the filters are now bad and out of spec! Neglecting them and continuing to use a homepod with death farts WILL kill the bass speaker. In general, most homepods filters will last for many years. Some of them die early. Can't tell why for certain. Replacements are holding up well so far. Only time will tell if the second gen homepod has accounted for this / redundancy unless someone with a big brain wants to take a poke.
Extra Thoughts: Ultimately I still believe this is the best speaker for the money, for what it does. I still haven't seen anything at this price range that provides place-almost-anywhere omnidirectional sound, and with such a good sound at that. I do not forsee Apple ever proactively killing these off as far as the functionality they currently support today, they just might not get any newer features in the future. I think Airplay 3 is on the horizon and will bring the much asked for multi-channel stereo configuration support with multiple homepods (gen2 and newer), but that will be the nail in the software suport coffin for the first gen and mark the first release left behind.
After working with Apple support on this we came to the conclusion that the homepod mini can airplay fine (my Apple TV too) ONLY when none of the satilites are powered on. Works for all the AirPlay from any device - once I have the satilite(s) powered on the AirPlay will not work. Apple said that is on the Netgear's seetings somewhere and contact them So any one ese have this issue?
If it helps, I have the same issue with airplaying. Sometimes it does work when the homepods and phone happen to connect to the same router / satellite. Hopefully they update the firmware and resolve this issue.
I have one of the original Homepods and I'm having the same issue. It works totally fine when the homepod is connected to the router, but does not work when connected to the sattelite. Has anyone found a fix for this? Is there a way to always have the homepod connect to the router rather than the sattelite?
Have:Restarted the stereo pair of homepodsReset both homepodsPowered off/on Apple TV and Homepods seperately and togetherTurned off router QOSToggled Sound Check multiple times in conjuction with restarts and resetsToggled on/off Automatic UpdatesRemoved both homepods from Home AppAdded back to Home App (after this, they worked with iPhone until they paired/connected to Apple TV)
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