So last night at 1:14am, we were all in bed, fitfully sleeping when one of our homepods started madly making noise and announcing “Fire Alarm!” over and over. I jumped out of bed, madly scrambling around in a half-awake stupor, turned off the alarm by tapping the top as usual, and then looked around for a fire for about 2 minutes before I realized there’s no possible way the homepod could know there was a fire, even if one existed (which it did not); after all, there’s no detector for fire in a homepod, and we have no smarthome fire alarms. I checked the other homepods and one was playing music, the other sitting silently as expected.
Does anyone know what could possibly have caused that? I wound up unplugging all the homepods in the house because I was worried it’d happen again, and I’m worried it may happen tonight. My hompods have now made me paranoid. I’ve had homepods for years now, and this hasn’t ever happened.
Possibly someone driving by and using Airplay. in the Home app, check your Home Settings and make sure “Allow Speaker & TV Access” isn’t set to Everyone.
To be extra safe, if you have an Apple TV, you may also want to check Settings - AirPlay and HomeKit - Allow Access. Make sure Allow Access isn’t set to Everyone and maybe even turn off the “Also Allow Nearby to AirPlay” setting.
I recently had a security code pop up on my Apple TV from a stranger”s phone. Turned out my Apple TV settings were set to allow nearby people to stream and I’m guessing someone at the closest neighbor’s house was trying to stream and picked the wrong device. My ATV is just named “Family Room” so not surprising one could be mistaken for another.
I guess disabling the intercom feature could also be a safeguard if there’s a bug in that part of the code.
Nope. But random weirdness from HomePods is not unusual. Mine recently started playing a podcast or something, at full volume, that had me thinking a bunch of drunks were outside of my apartment.
And I’ve found other reports of HomePods suddenly playing music or other sounds, etc. I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it. Maybe Apple will release Therapy Services for Siri ($9.99/month)
Thank you for your thoughts. Sadly, I checked and the Home settings are restricted to allow only this home, which I assume is only the people I designated, i.e. my wife and I. it’s pretty locked down here–I don’t belive it could have come from outside the house, however much that makes the most sense. I guess maybe I’ll unplug them unless they’re in use, I dunno. It’s just so weird. I didn’t even know HomePod COULD announce a fire alarm.
Yes it does. But my HomePods have exhibited similar behavior so I have a different opinion.
Your suggestion of changing passwords is a good one. I have a Due reminder to change mine every few months and use 1Password to create them. You can’t be too careful these days.
That’d be a minor miracle, given I have no such device. Another weird thing about it is that I don’t use the default siri voice (use British male–makes me feel like Iron Man), and that’s the voice it used. I’d have thought a prank wouldn’t leverage my personal settings.
Seems like a network password rev is in order. I’ll start there and see if it solves the issue. Thank you to all for the thoughts!
is it possible that someone set a single instance alarm on your homepod, it will speak the alarm title if you give it one. My kids have done this a few times, very annoying.
Seems most logical, but I can’t imagine how it could have happened. The only person other than myself with HomePod access in the house is my wife, and even assuming she’d set such an alarm (which she never does) she absolutely wouldn’t have set anything with “fire alarm” as a title. It’s really good suggestion, but I can’t see how it’d be possible in our house.
FWIW, I’ve been away for a bit and plugged everyone back in with a new password in play and have had no issues so far. I suppose it was just some kind of fluke.
I briefly googled around and saw mention of this feature of iOS 14:
The Sound Recognition feature can detect a variety of noises, including a fire alarm, siren, smoke alarm, a cat or dog, an appliance, a car horn, a doorbell, a knock on the door, water running, and a baby crying. The idea is that even if you can’t hear the sound yourself, your device can. When it hears a specific sound, it will then display a visual notification to alert you.
I wonder if there’s a bug or other odd event that triggered Siri sensing that it heard a fire alarm?
Yes, I seem to recall you had some repulsive music happen at an ungodly hour without a by-your-leave. Your suggestion makes the most sense of any so far, although being the middle of the night, I wonder what the HomePod thought it was hearing to warrant a fire alarm. If that’s a bug, it’s a good one. Box hears some rumour it believes and then trumpets it to the house. It’s like living with a conspiracy theorist.
So far, the incident has not recurred, so I remain cautiously optimistic that it’ll be ok going forward. Thank you for your thoughts!
This EXACT thing happened to us last night, except it was about 3:30. And the “alarm” stopped when we went downstairs to see what it was doing.
It played an alert song (not one I’ve heard before but very similar to its timer sound) interspersed with a very calm “fire alarm” in the voice we use. So, so weird and I can’t find anything else about it anywhere.
Well, for what it’s worth, I’m grateful to not be alone in this particular weirdness. I never did get to the bottom of it, but it’s never recurred, so I am going to assume it was some kind of odd spoof.
Another weird thing about it is that I don’t use the default siri voice (use British male–makes me feel like Iron Man), and that’s the voice it used. I’d have thought a prank wouldn’t leverage my personal settings.
