Want home pods as default speakers for my mac

Tech Support
1

Set up a brand new pair of homepods (minis) that I have put in a “stereo pair”. However, my Mac mini is reluctant to use them. I have them selected in Settings > Sounds as the output device under their paired name “My Office”. but they speakers play something from Apple Music rather than the Netflix web site (or any site or Mac program).

What am I doing/have done wrong?

Edit: For the moment a reboot (after upgrading to macOS 15.5) seems to have resolved the issue — but maybe only for now.

2

I use sound source and airfoil for this

That said be aware there’s going to be a horrendous 1.5-2 second lag time

3

Have installed sound source but it is not consistent in sending audio from my Mac to my HomePods. Very much hit-and-miss. More miss than hit.

4

SoundSource is not that great for transferring music to Homepods.

Use Rogue Amaeba “Airfoil” app for that.

5

Are you sure? Didn’t Airfoil make your Mac become an AirPlay receiver ?

6

Maybe. However, I use Airfoil to send audio from my Mac.

7

Then I’m wrong, for sure :stuck_out_tongue:

8

Seems to work for me although I find the Airfoil user interface utterly confusing.

9

I used to run Rogue Amoeba | Airfoil: Wireless audio around your house on my Mac and Rogue Amoeba | Airfoil Satellite: Stream audio to many devices, from any Mac on my iPhone. I had AirPort Express - Wikipedia base station devices scattered around with powered speakers connected. (I have no idea how one would get Rogue Amoeba software on HomePods.) Worked pretty well for a while.

But Apple changed AirPlay and dropped support for their network hardware and my setup became unreliable so I abandoned it.

Now (like an animal :slightly_smiling_face:) I run an audio patch cable through a hole in the wall from an old Intel Mac mini to my home stereo system connected by wire to speakers in two rooms in my small house. The Intel Mac mini plays all my music. It has all my ripped CDs and purchased music downloads on it and sits on my desk next to my main Mac, an M4 Mac mini. My M1 MacBook Air floats around the house wherever I need it. I’m not much of an iPad user.

10

The HomePods are okay for use as external speakers for my iPhone but I want speakers for my Mac mini. Now thinking that a pair of Beats Pills (connected by USB-C cables to that Mac) might be the solution.