The new HomePod officially launched yesterday and reached the first customers. But instead of a smooth setup, many are faced with a never-ending configuration. The reason could be the new HomeKit architecture.

After the new HomePod is added to HomeKit, it can already be used for music. However, further settings are not possible, since the HomePod has to be configured first. A process that is automatic and usually takes only a few minutes.

The HomePod, though, gets stuck in this state for numerous users. Even a reset does not help most of them. After re-setting up, the same problems appear.

A temporary home helps

The reason could be the new HomeKit architecture, since the HomePod ships with software version 16.0. On reddit, one user writes that he was able to successfully set up the HomePod with a device that was not invited to his home. After that, the HomePod could be updated to 16.3, reset, and added to the actual home.

If you do not have such a device at hand, we have found the following procedure to work well:

  1. Remove HomePod from the actual home in the Home app
  2. Reset HomePod (unplug for 10 seconds, plug back in, wait 10 seconds and hold your finger on the top until you hear 3 beeps).
  3. Create new, empty, additional home in the Home app: “Test apartment” with “Test room”.
  4. Add HomePod to “Test apartment”.
  5. Update firmware to software version 16.3
  6. Remove HomePod from “Test apartment” again
  7. Wait until the HomePod is reset
  8. Delete “Test apartment”
  9. Re-add HomePod in the original home
  10. The HomePod shows “Configure” again in the Home app for about five minutes and is then finally fully available with all options for alarm clocks, timers, automations, etc., as we are used to from the HomePod Mini.

If that doesn’t help either, you can try using a fresh iCloud account:

  1. Reset HomePod (unplug for 10 seconds, plug back in, wait 10 seconds and hold your finger on the top until you hear 3 beeps).
  2. Log out of the iCloud account on a device
  3. Create a new iCloud account and sign in
  4. Open the Home app and complete the initial setup
  5. Set up HomePod
  6. Update HomePod to 16.3
  7. Reset HomePod
  8. Set up HomePod on the device with the actual iCloud account

The previous solutions are cumbersome and do not at all correspond to the user experience we are used to from Apple. We expect Apple to comment on the problems and present a simpler solution in the next few days. In the worst case, however, this could take until the next iOS update.