What’s better than an Apple HomePod smart speaker? Two HomePod speakers paired for stereo, of course. If you pair two HomePods together, and then subsequently pair them to your Apple TV, you can create an immersive and quite excellent home theater experience. There are plenty of cases to be made that this is a better experience overall than relying on a soundbar, let along an in-home surround system that can cost thousands of dollars.
If you have a couple of HomePods and want to enjoy the best sound experience that Apple has to offer, you’ll need to create HomePod stereo pair. But before you do that, you’ll first need to make sure that your HomePod are updated to the latest firmware.
Open the Home app on your iPhone or iPad.
Tap one of the HomePods that you plan to pair (it doesn’t matter which one you select).
Scroll down to the bottom and tap the Settings (gear) icon.
Scroll down and tap the Create Stereo Pair button.
Select the other HomePod that you want to use in the Stereo Pair.
Follow the on-screen steps to ensure the location of HomePods in the Stereo Pair setup.
If you need to swap the position, tap the button in the middle.
Tap Create Stereo Pair.
Select the second HomePod.
Choose the left and right HomePod.
After the process is completed, you’ll be able to then connect the HomePods to your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV, and can enjoy a surround sound experience. Plus, you’ll still have all of the same functionality that you would if you didn’t create a studio pair. This includes making requests of Siri, sending messages, turning off smart home products, and more.
You Can’t Pair Every HomePod Together
Despite Apple surprising everyone with the updated HomePod release in 2023, there are a few caveats if you want to pair two HomePods together. The first of which is that you can’t pair a HomePod with a HomePod Mini. This has never been possible, and we don’t expect that to change any time soon.
The second, and more annoying, caveat is that you also cannot pair Apple’s 2018 HomePod with Apple’s 2023 HomePod. Despite being similar in size, there is no official way for you to pair two HomePods together if they aren’t two of the same kind. It’s really rather frustrating for those who own one of the original HomePods, or one of the new HomePods and don’t want to spend another $300.
We’re still holding out hope that Apple could reverse course on this one. However, we’re also not holding our breath, as this is one of those situations where “if Apple wanted to, it would have”. But hey, we can still hope for the best, right?
Andrew is a freelance writer based on the East Coast of the US.
He has written for a variety of sites over the years, including iMore, Android Central, Phandroid, and a few others. Now, he spends his days working for an HVAC company, while moonlighting as a freelance writer at night.
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