Some Apple HomePod mini users are reporting Wi-Fi connectivity issues with the smart speaker, and the current solution suggested doesn’t appear to be a permanent fix. The HomePod mini was announced in October, and it went on sale globally in November, including in India, where it is priced at Rs. 9,900. A smaller and more affordable version of the HomePod launched in 2018, the HomePod mini uses Apple’s Siri voice assistant. Various smart speaker features, including music streaming and personalised responses, are supported.
The Wi-Fi connectivity issues, reported by 9to5Mac have been detailed both on the company’s official support forum, as well as through posts on Reddit. Many users are reporting issues similar to the original posts in both cases, where the HomePod mini responds with ‘I am having trouble connecting to the Internet’ when given a voice command. Following the troubleshooting steps, which suggest either rebooting or resetting the speaker, only fixes the issue temporarily after which the connectivity issue reappears.
Users on Reddit are stating that the issue is limited to the HomePod mini, while other HomePod devices in the same household and connected to the same Wi-Fi connection are working fine. When the speaker is controlled directly to stream music, there appears to be no problem; the error only comes up with voice commands with the HomePod mini not responding to questions or requests posed to Siri.
The lack of an official fix will be worrying for now, and a user comment on the forum suggests that Apple’s support staff also don’t seem to have a solution for the problem yet. It’s likely that this will need a firmware update to fix, but Apple hasn’t officially acknowledged the issue yet. At the moment, the only fix appears to be the temporary one, where rebooting the device makes it functional for a few hours.
The Apple HomePod mini takes on competition from Google and Amazon in the smart speaker space, including integration with other Apple devices, personalised responses and updates, multi-room audio, stereo pairing with two HomePod devices, and Intercom, which lets users send messages between various compatible devices. The HomePod mini is on sale now in India and is available in two colours — space grey and white.
Are iPhone 12 mini, HomePod mini the Perfect Apple Devices for India? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.