HomePod Mini Stereo Pair with Apple TV 4K Not Working - Again.

Yeah I don’t have WPA3 enabled. I tried the HomePods at another location with a non eero router and the same issue arose. The minis don’t hold a 5ghz connection well. From what I understand though, the minis will default to whatever frequency your iPhone is connected to, which for me is always 5ghz and I’ve never had an issue with my two iPhones 12 on my network.

Hmmm…. Oh well. I see that someone marked @Skybkueallday’s recent post as “Solved”. Was this an accident, or does it suggest that things will be OK if you force the HomePod mini’s onto a 2.4Ghz 802.11n WiFi connection?

More details would be helpful. Have you setup your HomePod stereo pair as the ATV4K’s default audio output? Is your ATV4K setup as the [e]ARC sound output for your TV, or is it the 1st gen ATV4K that doesn’t support ARC? Have you verified that both your HomePods and ATV4K are running the latest *OS (v15.2 currently I think)? Have you reset everything including your Wi-Fi/router since getting things updated?

Intermittent failures as you describe can point to network issues. How confident are you about your Wi-Fi setup (WiFi frequencies are often crowded in some neighborhoods)? Can you cable-connect your ATV4K to your Internet router to minimize your local Wi-Fi traffic as a test?

I have a stereo pair of HomePod minis and the 1st-gen ATV4K and when I messed around with the default audio output feature everything worked well (but I use a spiffy Sony soundbar by default. I also read a thread in some forum by a guy who swore it was rock-solid for him for movies and “serious gaming”.

Believe me, I understand the frustration (I’m no Apple fan-boy). “It just works” doesn’t apply to the modern Apple ecosystem as I’ve experienced it, though it may have been an apt slogan in Jobs’ day.

The ARC question was mostly to learn your version of Apple TV 4K and if you’ve got other components in the mix that might complicate things since your initial post only said, in effect, ATV4K + HomePod stereo pair works but with way-too-frequent issues.

Anyway, AirPods use Bluetooth while the HomePods use WiFi for audio streams. Since your ATV4K is receiving a big AV stream via WiFi while simultaneously sending the audio to the HomePods by bouncing it off your Wi-Fi hub, you’re moving a fair bit of traffic around the house. I’ve never dug into it but I’m pretty sure that a stereo pair requires one homepod to retransmit the audio to the other (again through the WiFi hub). Lots of packets flying around all at once. If all your neighbors happen to be doing similar things… the spectrum gets very crowded and errors and retransmissions that normally would go unnoticed cause noticeable glitches.

The cable-to-ATV4K test might shed some light, but you may want to patiently get on the phone with Apple’s ATV4K support folks (if you haven’t already). I’d be curious to hear what they suggest.

I just read another thread here (referencing a Reddit thread) that gives hope that some of the reliability issues in whole-home HomePod airplay usage are getting sorted out in the upcoming 15.3 release. Perhaps this will help your situation 🤞🏻.

I have the exact same problem and it’s infuriating. LG C1. New Apple TV 4K wired to gigabit Ethernet up and down. Tried just using wifi but made no difference. My two HomePod minis (stereo pair) also lose connection to my eero pro 6 router once or twice a day. The router is 15 ft away with no obstructions. The connection on the minis just drops and Siri says it’s having trouble connecting to the internet. Every other device on my network is rock solid except for the minis.

@Skyblueallday, I was curious about your post and googled HomePod Mini + eero pro 6… Apparently you’re not alone in having connectivity issues with minis on modern mesh nets. I gather the mini, for some reason, only supports 802.11n at 2.4 and 5Ghz… On this Reddit thread, the only concrete suggestion was: “Had eero 6 pros. If using WPA3 don’t. It messes with homepods and other devices because it’s not widely adopted yet unfortunately.”

Yeah, my problem is definitely not solved. I already tested the HomePod minis with a 2.4ghz connection and I have experienced the same problem. It’s very frustrating.