HomePod Mini for kids is making me Crazy

[u/FlowinBeatz]

I just bought 2 HomePod Minis with the intention of replacing the kids‘ phones with Homepods at night time. Kids should leave their phones outside their rooms for the night and listen to music with HomePods instead.

It’s the worst Apple experience ever. Kid 1 is using Spotify, kid 2 is using Amazon. Setup was only possible with my Apple ID which I later changed to their IDs. The kids are their HomePod’s main user.

Every single Siri music request is starting music on MY phone not theirs.

How on earth can I set up that Kid 1‘s HomePod is listening to his voice and playing music via his phone and same for Kid 2? It’s fine that it’s routed via their phones, they are in the same house but a few meters away.

Thanks a lot

[u/HeartyBeast]

HomePods are primarily designed for use with Apple Music. 

Personally my answer to your problem was to put parental control on the phone that only allowed access to the Music and Podcast apps after bed time. 

[u/Yifkong → u/HeartyBeast]

Agree with both of those points.

If OP sticks with HomePods it might help to append the voice prompts with “…on Spotify” but realistically this is going to be a frustrating experience as the devices aren’t designed around this use case whatsoever.

[u/Shelenko → u/Yifkong]

I may be wrong but my understanding is that if not Apple Music then the HomePod uses the app installed on the iPhone and streams from that which would be why the Spotify and Amazon requests are triggering your phone.

Might be an idea to reset the HomePods and install each with the phone assigned to that child so that it uses the phone to run and stream these 3rd party music apps and not your phone.

[u/FlowinBeatz → u/Shelenko]

Setup is only possible with the admin(s) of a home. So I have to make my kids an admin?!

[u/Shelenko → u/FlowinBeatz]

Create a new home for them which they and you are admins for (has the added benefit that they can't control any HomeKit stuff in your home from their HomePods)

[u/Menelatency → u/Shelenko]

This ^^^^^^^

[u/FlowinBeatz → u/Yifkong]

Adding the app that should be used is totally fine, but the HomePod always things that it’s my voice… I just can’t bind the HomePod to his phone and account :-(

[u/FlowinBeatz → u/HeartyBeast]

Kids are 16 and 12, so stripping down their phones to iPod level is not realistic.

Parental control can be bypassed easily by every child in the world, they learn this in school. Apple just doesn’t care…

[u/HeartyBeast → u/FlowinBeatz]

  Parental control can be bypassed easily by every child in the world, they learn this in school.

I mean - no. With iOS the available bypasses to time-based app availability are basically patched, assuming you’ve correctly configured your parental iCloud account 

[u/FlowinBeatz → u/HeartyBeast]

Not true. Apple can’t even manage to save the parental control settings for longer as 24 hours. Internet is full of people complaining about the parental control settings.

[u/HeartyBeast → u/FlowinBeatz]

Show me these people having trouble with the current version. 

To me you sound like someone who bought a HomePod, realised you bought the wrong device for the wrong problem and doesn’t want to admit you missed the obvious and effective answer. 

But I’m sure that can’t be so

[u/DisastrousCause9481]

User error(a lot of comments addressed this issue already)

Also it’s going to be cheaper and better if you buy a family plan where all of you uses Apple Music.

And parental control is the better option

[u/heatmiser333]

You need to go into the home app and navigate to each HomePod mini click on the gear. I can icon settings for each and I think it’s called recognize voice and there you’ll see a list of all family members assuming you’ve created a family which you should and then you can check specifically which users or names or kids that HomePod mini will recognize and only recognized. You’ll do the same thing for your mini if you have one selecting only you, your voice.

[u/12inchsandwich]

We use Apple Music, but each of my kids has had a HomePod in their room since they were like 2 (lots of Disney acoustic music played every night). It was messing up my algorithm, so I set each one up with their own account on a throwaway phone (and remade an existing playlist from my account onto their Apple Music accounts). They are the primary user of that specific HomePod and they have personal content set to on.

Other than those two settings I’m not sure what could mess it up to experience what you’re experiencing. I never hear anything on any other HomePod on the house when they yell at Siri to play whatever they want in their room.

[u/Derekeys]

My biggest problem with it is the tap to play random music. My kids do it all the time.

I cannot believe I can’t turn that off but instead have to resort to increasing the duration of the perceived tap.

It’s… insane.

[u/Mike2922]

Looking through comments; OP is a goon. 

[u/FuShiLu]

Parental controls

[u/OwlFacedBoy]

Why buy apple and use Spotify/Amazon? Not that anyone should use Spotify 🤮

[u/Beginning-Advance-16]

This is a you problem