AirPlay 2 Support in Roon for Paired HomePods

Ditto. I have a single Home Pod and have been waiting to get a second one once Airplay 2 support is in Roon. I am in the first year of membership but would happily upgrade to a lifetime membership if this support were added.

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I currently have two pairs of HomePods I use with Apple Music and expect to add at least another pair, perhaps two. I just installed Roon to find no support. Oops! Of little value to me without this. Please add ASAP.

BTW, if any consolation, Mac itself lacks such support for system output although it does work for iTunes.

Any updates on this? I was hoping to see it in 1.6 - but it still seems broken.

I also have two pairs of HomePods which are stereo linked. Additionally, if I “group” the HomePods in Roon it still only plays out of one side of the pair. @Hugh_McMillan, I’d love to know what your inelegant work arounds are until this functions properly. Having only one play is rather annoying - it makes me often just use TIDAL (which works with no problem) when I stream to them.

So - I found that on iOS you can select the zone of your iPhone and use AirPlay 2 from Control Center. Couldn’t make it work on macOs…

Hi @Jeffrey_Pierce.

I was hoping for Airplay 2 support in Roon in 1.6 as well. It seems like an obvious protocol to support given Roon obviously supports Airplay “1” already.

My inelegant solution involves using a Mac app called AirFoil to output music from Roon (on MacOS) to an unpaired right and left HomePod. The HomePods must be separate and unpaired within the iOS home app for this to work. Once the two HomePods are unpaired, they must be grouped together within AirFoil the Airfoil app on the Mac.

This is clearly inelegant as it prevents you from taking advantage of the benefits of paired, stereo HomePods outside of Roon and forces you to use Roon for Mac as the Roon Controller, as opposed to your phone or iPad.

Another workaround I have found involves using the Roon iOS app to output to the iPhone internal speaker and then going into the native iOS Airplay menu in control center to send the Roon music to a paired or unpaired set of HomePods. The advantage to this method is it allows the HomePods to remain paired (in terms of the iOS Home app) and still output Roon music. It’s still rather clunky though.

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Thanks for the details, Hugh!

That was my fear. I think AirFoil is a great piece of software - but I’m not going to get into the business of pairing and unpairing to use these speakers - that’s bonkers (as others in my house use Apple Music through same speakers).

But Roon can’t stream to multiple AirPlay 1 endpoints simultaneously (as AirFoil does)? I assumed it could. I thought my issues were an artifact of me being unwilling to “unpair” for Roon. What are AirPlay “zone groups” even for then?

At least Rogue Amebia is aware of the issue and considering updates to work with paired speakers - so that would be a step closer, even if still cumbersome.

For now, I guess I’ll continue to use the iOS workaround until the protocol is properly implemented. I can’t image it wouldn’t be added in the future, right? But I’m fairly new to Roon’s update eco-systems and expectations…

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I have a pair of HomePods that are paired in stereo mode and I can send music via an iOS device, but I can hear that it doesn’t provide full fidelity and separate the channels like it does when I stream directly via the Tidal app, for example.

I hope it is part of the next release…

Hello Roon team,

I’m a “lifetime member of Roon and Apple devotee” as well.

So… where do we stand with this URGENT request please?

Thanks beforehand for your feedback.
Philippe

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You sound like my kind of guy! :slight_smile:

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Welcome to the rest of the mushrooms.

+1 for Airplay2 support to paired Homepods.

It was Roon’s quick and easy Airplay connectivity that got me to subscribe back in ‘15.

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“mushrooms”? :thinking:

They keep us in the dark and feed us manure.

Ah! I have not heard that analogy before. :joy: :mushroom:

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+1 for support to HomePods in stereo pairs. Especially now that Apple has reduced the price, making this a more attractive option.

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+1 more for paired homepod and airplay2 support

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+1 PLEASE prioritize airplay 2 / paired homepods. Then Roon is the one platform to rule them all in the house. It’s all I lack.

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+1 would be great, to have the possibility to stream stereo music (left and right) two different airplay loudspeakers (left and right).
Even better would be to stream surround sound to different loudspeakers. Even so there is not much surround sound music on the market.

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Looks like Roon has no intention in supporting the Apple paired Homepods? Think I’ve waited for over a year now.

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I would tend to agree. Especially, since Roon’s roadmap is secret and apparently takes no direction from subscribers/owners like us. Honestly, I love Roon and went for a life-time subscription right out of the gate, but if there is another product that is comparable I may jump.

I really dislike that we are kept in the dark about priorities and most importantly that we don’t have a voice into product development.

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