[firloop]

>Coming this year in a free software update, users will be able to play music throughout the house with multi-room audio.

Interesting that a key feature that the competition already has won’t be shipping at launch. I wonder if this is related to the Homepod’s previous delays.

[jbigelow76]

It's a delay with AirPlay 2, which isn't HomePod specific, and not the hardware from my understanding.

[knolan]

You can already AirPlay to multiple devices (including homebrew kodi boxes) from iTunes in MacOS. AirPlay 2 just brings this to iOS.

[lobster_johnson]

The changes in AirPlay 2 will be a little more than that. To make it work more like Sonos, it requires that the receiving device buffer a lot more of the audio to make it resilient from wi-fi instability, and it probably requires some changes to that devices are synced up at all times. And I sure hope they're doing something with latency.

As I understand it, Sonos can do some of these things because their audio is transmitted over a proprietary wireless connection, so it's not competing with Internet traffic. I use AirPlay today over ordinary home wi-fi, and it's awfully unreliable — stutters all the time, sometimes doesn't play, long pause before audio will start, etc. — and larger buffers would certainly help here.

[knolan]

My AirPlay experience is a lot better. From my Mac I can play music simultaneously in my living room and kitchen very reliably. From my phone I can play to either speaker, however the kitchen unit (Airstream S200) stutters when I move the phone into a known poor signal area at the back of the kitchen.

There’s about a 2-3 second buffer with current AirPlay. It warns you of this when use use the a GarageBand app.

Try enabling IGMP snooping on your router and see if that helps.

[lobster_johnson]

Thanks for the IGMP tip! Turns out Mikrotik's RouterOS got this feature a month ago, and I've turned it on now. So far so good.

[knolan]

Good luck!