HomePods configured as stereo pair do not function as expected relative to AppleTV media player integration

[mcleanrs]

The problem

I have multiple HomePods, most are set up as "singles" and one set as a "stereo pair"

For the singles - things like the state (idle/playing), title, volume, etc. are all reported accurately and quickly.

The stereo pair are wonky. The "pair" does not show as an option to add into Home Assistant, but rather, the individual left and right homepod.

Although I can bring in the individual homepods that comprise the pair, the state attributes do not update correctly. For example, the left homepod always shows “standby” and the right homepod always shows “idle” even when media is playing. The "Title" attribute stays up-to-date when something is playing, but without an accurate status state - I can't include these homepods in certain automations.

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

core-2023.12.3

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

No response

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant Supervised

Integration causing the issue

Aple TV

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/apple_tv/

Diagnostics information

No response

Example YAML snippet

No response

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

Happy to provide more information/logs/etc, just not sure what action(s) if any would be helpful to perform in association with those logs.

[home-assistant[bot]]

Hey there @postlund, mind taking a look at this issue as it has been labeled with an integration (apple_tv) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

Code owner commands

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[postlund]

Yes, this is not really tested nor supported. I don't have any ETA for doing so either at the moment.

[codyc1515]

Are these stereo HomePods also connected to an Apple TV? Using eARC?

[protomota]

I have just run into this problem as well trying to integrate into the media_player functionality. I have mine set as a stereo pair for music listening, not connected through eARC to an Apple TV or anything like that, so it seems that the issue exists in all cases of stereo pairs. I am sure stereo pairs is a fairly common use case and several people were posting about this issue. I personally use two stereo paired HomePods for mainly media/music playing and use other single HomePod minis around the house mainly for HomeKit commands.

I am sure it would be much more complex to get both HomePods to somehow act as a "pair" in HA, if they remained as individual entities like they currently are, that would probably be more "correct" and then just fix the issue with them not correctly reporting their statuses. It is clearly partially working with title and album art, so hopefully it is a minor bug fix to get the play/pause/idle statuses reporting correctly.

Appreciate any help getting this to work.

[hoppel118]

I am in the same situation. I have a stereo pair that doesn’t work in HA.

[jubudu]

Same situation here: Mono Homepods work, stereo pairs produce a time-out error in HA.

[rwfnf]

Same issue here. I believe Airfoil (Rogue Amoeba software) had this same issue at one point and resolved it as of Apple Homepod version 15.4. Perhaps this could lead to some hints as to how to solve it.

[voxmatt]

Same issue. Happy to help with any repro steps or logs that might be helpful.

[Figumari]

Same issue here. All my stereo pairs are not working. I assume there are no solutions for this yet?

[thedracus]

Just spent days banging my head into a wall, trying to figure out why this wasn't working....yes...still an issue.