5 underrated Apple HomePod controls that massively enhance your music experience
Did you know your Apple HomePod could do that?!
You’re not using your Apple HomePod smart speaker to its full musical potential if you’re not utilising these five underrated controls.
As a smart speaker, you can use an Apple HomePod for a huge amount of tasks, including smart home automations, timers, calendar notifications, and much more. But where Apple’s range of HomePods really thrive is their audio performance.
Both the full-sized Apple HomePod (2nd Gen) and the petite and discreet Apple HomePod Mini offer clear, crisp vocals, rich bass and immersive sound – but if you’re not using these five features, you could seriously be missing out on the full experience that your HomePod speaker has to offer – here’s what they are and how to use them.
1. Handoff
Apple HomePod Handoff is one of the handiest music features to use, especially if you have an iPhone, iPad or AirPods. Handoff allows you to transfer your music, podcast and even phone call directly from your iPhone to your HomePod simply by holding your phone near the top of your HomePod.
Rather than faff around disconnecting your AirPods and reconnecting to your HomePod, this simple tapping instantly transfers your audio. To reverse it, all you need to do is hold your phone close to your HomePod and tap ‘Transfer to iPhone’ when the prompt pops up.
2. Palm-to-Mute
Another handy feature is Palm-to-Mute. If your music is playing loudly and you want to pause it quickly without shouting over it, you can put your hand over the top of your HomePod. Leave it there for a few seconds and the HomePod will mute your audio.
3. Shared Up Next Queue
If you have people over who also have iPhones, you can quickly add their music to your speaker queue. This is available via SharePlay for Apple Music and means you don’t have to worry about disconnecting and reconnecting devices to switch to different people’s playlists.
To do this, the main user of the HomePod will need to go to the Apple Music app and tap SharePlay. A QR code will appear on the screen which the person who wants to add songs will need to scan. From there, click the Music link and Connect. The original user will need to approve the request before you can add, remove or reorder songs to their HomePod.
4. Sound Check
Depending on the track, some songs can have vastly different volumes as standard which can boom through your HomePod and be a bit disruptive. To avoid this, Sound Check automatically normalises volume levels so your music experience remains consistent and doesn’t jump around during track changes.
To select this, go to the Home app, select More and Home Settings. Under the People section of your user profile, select Media and you can turn Sound Check on or off.
5. Ambient sounds
Sometimes, you just want to relax without having to choose a playlist to do so. In this case, your HomePod has built-in ambient sounds that you can play in the background to unwind after a long day. Simply say “Hey Siri, play ambient sounds” and it will choose between white noise, ocean, rain, first, stream, night and fireplace sounds.
For more ‘hidden’ Apple HomePod controls, check out this underrated temperature sensor feature.
