Stream to Homepod Stereo Pair

[charlesvestal]

What feature would you like?

When streaming to a homepod stereo pair, I see both as individually addressable homepods, but not as a stereo pair. I'd like to be able to stream (and control) the stereo pair, rather than individuals.

Describe the solution you'd like

When scanning for devices, detect a pair and show as an additional device.

Any other information to share?

I'm attempting (unsuccesfully) to get around this via an apple TV paired to the homepods, but I imagine there are users without an apple tv that would want to do the same.

[shauder]

There has been some work and success with this in OwnTone: owntone/owntone-server#1413

[wivaku]

When comparing my two homepod mini's (set up as stereo pair) I have seen two service discovery outcomes for my actively playing stereo pair:

• complete: differences as expected
• incomplete: visible that it is a pair, but does not have all the expected settings

What they have in common:

• gpn (group name) is set on both devices (same as the name of the group leader)
• flags has bit 13 set for the group leader
• gid (group UUID) is the same for both devices - can be "single" UUID, or can be a "concatenated" UUID.

Comparing the two situations in detail:

complete:

• gpn (group name) same on both (same as name for the group leader)
• flags for group leader has bit 13 set: TightSyncIsGroupLeader
• gid (group UUID) same UUID on both devices (consist of tsid UUID and a 2nd one)
• tsid (?) set to same UUID on both devices
• gcgl (group contains group leader): set to 1 on both
• pgid (parent group UUID) only set on the non-group-leader, has same value as gid
• pgcgl (parent group contains discoverable leader ) only set on non-group-leader, set to 1
• igcl (is group leader) set to 1 for the group leader, 0 for the other device

Format for gid/pgid: <tsid-UUID>+0+<some-other-UUID>

incomplete:
Only gpn and flags are different between group leader and the non-group-leader. The flags are different than the complete example, but here as well: the group leader has bit 13 set.

• gid: same on both devices (format: single UUID, not the same as tsid)
• tsid: same on both devices (not used in gid or pgid) - and same as for complete example above
• gcgl: 0 on both
• pgid: same on both devices, same as gid
• pgcgl: 0 on both
• igl: 0 on both

Diffs for both situations:

[wivaku]

After updating from 16.1 to 16.2 all values are still the same, except:

srcvers=670.6.2
osvers=16.2

[wivaku]

any news / plans regarding support for homepod stereo pairs?

[wveilleux]

any news / plans regarding support for homepod stereo pairs?

[postlund]

No updates on that I'm afraid. It's a low priority for me right now, but certainly an interesting feature. At some point I might feel ready for it.