Original Home Pod Issue - Fart and Popping noise resulting in the home pod restarting

I didn't see that anyone had a solution to the original post (copied below) from 1/11/21 by RDNC1989.

At approximately 2 years of age on my Home Pod, started exhibiting the exact same problems. I worked with the Apple Support/Engineers and they had me log the issue. I experienced 10 "farts"/restarts in a 60 minute window. This has rendered the home pod useless.

Does anyone know of any follow-up actions that can be taken to resolve this?

--- Original message by RDNC1989 ---

I have 2 of the original Homepods, one of them was bought on launching day and the other one several months after. The one I got first has been making a popping sound when it is iddle for a while, but as other people have reported, it is happening more often since late October - early November 2020 and in my case, even more when I use it in a group with my other Homepod.

I took mine to the Genius bar, and of course, they did not know the issue, told me they could not repair it and that the replacement fee was $279 (before taxes and just a 90-day warranty) since it's out of warranty, which is insane, since it is $299 new and before they launched the Homepod Mini, you could find the original one for $199 at Best Buy or Target from time to time or $249 at any time.

I asked if an exception could be made but they told to call Apple Support, so I did it but they said the only way to make an exception is if you reported the issue during the original 1-year warranty period. But again, how can you report something that only became a very constant and noticeable issue AFTER that period?

My main concern here is once the issue has started to be a constant one, it gets worse, as seen in videos like these:

1.- Youtube video from 06/19/2019

2.- Youtube video from 08/05/2020

(It has even been reported in websites like AppleInsider)

IMO, the issue could be a hardware issue, maybe caused by a cheap component Apple is using in Homepods and it degrades in a very noticeable way after 1 or 2 years, depending on how much use it gets. I read it is probably the microphone and that's why when you disable Siri, the main feature for getting a Homepod in the first place, the issue seems to stop.

A pattern I see in other posts/threads is a lot of these homepods that are failing were purchased on launching day, so Apple probably made us their guinea pigs.

My question is, what's the proccess for Apple to start an out-of-warranty replacement program? Could filing a complaint to the DCA (Department of Consumer Affairs) take us somewhere? (For context, I live in the US)

I know some people might say something about it being out of warranty but if some homepods were set to fail when they were manufactured due to deffective/low quality parts, it is not the customer's fault and Apple should start a replacement program like others they have when they know they used faulty parts. I did not know the Homepod was meant to last just 1-2 years.