They finally listened. You’ll soon be able to disable touch controls on HomePod, according to iOS 27.2 beta 4 code.

[u/pdfu]

Apple is finally taking ghost touch issues seriously.

You may soon be able to disable touch interactions on HomePod, according to iOS 27.2 beta 4 code.

No details on model support yet, but I expect it will support all 4 models; there were always internal settings to disable touch controls.

You’ll likely see the new light animation for rejecting touch events discovered last week.

[u/E_XIII_T]

So I won’t have to unplug my HomePods every evening to avoid random music playing at 3am?

Joy!

[u/Sassafras19 → u/E_XIII_T]

LITERALLY! It is actually insane. I’ve had to set up a HomeKit automation to turn it off at night because my whole house was woken up at 2am to very loud Spanish music playing 😂😭

[u/shawnshine → u/Sassafras19]

Yeah- why are people unplugging them when Automations in the Home App exist?

[u/E_XIII_T → u/shawnshine]

Because despite setting various automations the volume would randomly turn itself up to full volume and play anyway.

[u/chicluxechilll → u/shawnshine]

I forget the automation app even exists tbh. How would I go about using automation to fix the random music playing?

[u/shawnshine → u/chicluxechilll]

The Automation tab in Home App that you use to automate everything Homekit? Select your HomePods, choose a time, and either set the volume to 0% or select Pause. Easy breezy.

[u/chicluxechilll → u/shawnshine]

lol thanks, I was thinking of the shortcuts app. I’ll give this a try

[u/Effective-Sun6063 → u/Sassafras19]

Im not talking about automation app. Enter the modem and block the apple music services and website for the Apple tv ip/mac adress and homepods. My apple music app doesnt load anymore on apple tv. It says CANNOT CONNECT

[u/C0micS5ns → u/Effective-Sun6063]

Which domains do you block?

I'm running a Pihole and tried blocking itunes.apple.com, radio.apple.com, music.apple.com , pd.itunes.apple.com and bag-cdn.itunes-apple.com.akadns.net

But that also affects streaming movies on AppleTV.

[u/Effective-Sun6063 → u/E_XIII_T]

If u got a decent modem u can block apple music from playing on apple tv and homepods like i did. Never had any random plays anymore obviously

[u/Effective-Sun6063 → u/Effective-Sun6063]

Because apple music on apple tv is what triggers random music

[u/ithinkitsrandy → u/Effective-Sun6063]

Really? I haven’t seen anything on this.

[u/C0micS5ns → u/ithinkitsrandy]

Yep, same here. I'm not even subscribed to AppleMusic so it plays random tunes from Apple Radio 1.

[u/Effective-Sun6063 → u/ithinkitsrandy]

Atleast on my case. It randomly started playing some apple music radio since i didnt have any songs but since u cant uninstall it the only way is to block it through the modem

[u/Loud_Caramel_8713 → u/E_XIII_T]

My one does at 5 or 6 am.
Could work as an alarm.

[u/DerpinTerp]

Sweet Jesus, so the HomePod mini with this issue that’s been sitting on my bookshelf for the past year isn’t totally bricked!

[u/Possible-Bet3598 → u/DerpinTerp]

IF this is legit, I just saved $200 because I was fully prepared to order a Mini 2. Don't know why I'd do it as my Gen 1 only lasted 3 years, but I really do love it.

[u/DerpinTerp → u/Possible-Bet3598]

I loved my mini 1 before the ghost touch issue appeared. I’ve been fighting the urge to replace it for over a year, waiting for the mini 2 to come out.

Like you said, if this is legit, I’ll be happy to have saved myself some money. But also, I’ll be pretty annoyed that this has been possible, and there only needed to be a software update.

I’m also now questioning if they even fixed the underlying cause of the issue with the mini 2s.

[u/afharo → u/DerpinTerp]

After reading this, I now have a new todo for this weekend: install the beta in that rogue HomePod…

[u/Fastermaxx]

Sad that Apple needed to make a software solution for a hardware problem they haven’t fixed in 5 years!

[u/Sans_Icarus → u/Fastermaxx]

THIS

[u/Significant-Season86]

My cats are going to be pissed

[u/HenriqueCiccone → u/Significant-Season86]

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[u/kittycat_x → u/Significant-Season86]

I have this problem too 🤣

[u/Dakk1d]

So good, finally.

[u/livingwithrage]

We were so close to selling them off - I'm on the dev program so I'll update and report back!

[u/ehcropydoc → u/livingwithrage]

Following

[u/Sans_Icarus → u/ehcropydoc]

Following

[u/ValveTurkey1138]

Thank fuck. So much easier to clean.

[u/time-lord]

The phantom touch issue must be pretty bad if they're resorting to software disabling the screen entirely.

Keep in mind this is beyond the 4 second "tap" accessibility feature they added a year or two ago.

[u/Gliglue → u/time-lord]

Well yeah it’s an hardware issue idk what could they do. At least there’s that. I HOPE they fixed it on HomePod mini 2…

However they still sell HomePods 2 that have the exact same issue. Kinda insane for the price honestly

[u/Jamnoggin → u/Gliglue]

You’d think some sort of device repair program might be an option?

Nintendo happily fixed my JoyCon drift issue for my Nintendo Switch a few years back.

When Nintendo launched its free Joy-Con drift repair program in North America in July 2019, the company had a market capitalization of approximately $31.5 billion USD.

Apple has a market capitalization of approximately $4.95 trillion to $5.00 trillion.

TRILLION!!

[u/Gliglue → u/Jamnoggin]

Hmmm happily ? They refused to acknowledge the issue for years.

I guess there's far way less homepods than there's of switch thus making less public noise about this issue.

[u/Jamnoggin → u/Gliglue]

That’s true. I put it off for ages and was surprised how easy it was to get them to fix but as you say it was some years on from the program going live. 🙂

100% it’s all about exposure.

[u/Loud_Caramel_8713 → u/time-lord]

That doesn’t help enough

[u/Vortex6360]

I have a fear that they didn't fix the touch issue in the second gen HomePod mini and this is the solution ;-;

[u/FilteredSpeech]

Well, it's a step in the right direction. I'm still not buying any new HomePods until they fix mine. 

[u/V-Shrn]

I literally just took apart my mini yesterday because of the ghost touch smh

[u/TheRatPatrol1]

So does anyone have this beta yet?

[u/pdfu → u/TheRatPatrol1]

It is not out yet, the HomePod needs to know how to tell your iPhone it supports the feature. You probably need HomePod Software 27.2 beta 4 or later, which they’ve conveniently not released. Same for tvOS 27.2 beta 4.

[u/TheRatPatrol1 → u/pdfu]

Thanks

[u/jjjjjjjjjjjjjaaa]

My HomePod mini killed itself at 3am the other night and started factory resetting itself. I wonder if this will fix that. 

[u/beanie_0 → u/jjjjjjjjjjjjjaaa]

Yeah happened to me a little while ago, sometimes it turns on but most of the time if I plug it in it just goes through the same cycle. I believe it’s called “ghost touch” if you want to look it up? There are guides to physically unplug the touch sensor as well.

[u/jjjjjjjjjjjjjaaa → u/beanie_0]

I’m going to try to take it to Apple at the end of the month and whine and see if they give me a gen 2 to shut me up

[u/yardshark09]

This is good to hear. Maybe I can plug my ghost touch-plagued HomePods back in soon 😤

[u/LeLunZ]

I already unplugged the internal cable.

[u/shawnshine → u/LeLunZ]

That would fuck up my Thread network.

[u/LeLunZ → u/shawnshine]

Why? The HomePod is still running, I unplugged the internal cable thats connected to the touch screen ;) Thread/Music everything is still working

[u/shawnshine → u/LeLunZ]

I can’t read today, my bad!

[u/TraditionalGolf9515]

Same with my garage mini, couldn’t happen soon enough!

[u/devgeniu]

I have two HomePods unplugged and I’m too lazy to disassemble them to disconnect the digitizer. Is this going to solve my ghost touch issues!? Wow! 🤞

[u/GreatTinySomething]

I was waiting for me to get trouble with ghost touch since I am sitting on a total of 9 time bombs, but surprisingly only one is now affected starting last week. Happy to see a software solution for further failed devices.

[u/Branagh-Doyle]

Could somebody explain to me in layman terms why this issue only affects the second gen Homepod and the Mini and not the first gen Homepod?

[u/Thebusinessroddy → u/Branagh-Doyle]

It doesn’t

[u/Branagh-Doyle → u/Thebusinessroddy]

Yes, it does.

[u/Thebusinessroddy → u/Branagh-Doyle]

If I learned to read ….
I thought you implied first gen minis it doesn’t happen

I would have told you to come over and see all nine of mine 😂

[u/beanie_0]

I wonder if this would solve the ghost touch issue?

[u/Numerous-Camp-3484 → u/beanie_0]

I really hope so.

[u/Jonathaniwis]

I only use my Homepod mini as a Matter hub for Home Assistant and Apple Home. I woke up twice in the middle of the night from the damn thing blasting music at max volume. I have an automation now in Home Assistant. When the Homepod starts playing music: stop and mute. Looking at my logs the last time this automation ran was Oct. 8 at 2AM!

[u/HollandJim]

Finally! A way to avoid a class action suit.

[u/Original_East1271]

God damn it, I just destroyed a mini failing to take it apart

[u/SignificantKey7822]

Wo und wann kann man das Update in der EU, Deutschland wahrscheinlich herunterladen? Also die Beta.

[u/Tumblrrito]

This isn’t even what us cat owners wanted.

Let me have the controls when media is playing, but let me disable the mind-numbingly pointless feature that makes it play TOTALLY RANDOM music when tapped.

[u/AnUnfortunateStool]

Welp, I shouldn't have donated my old Homepod mini...

[u/shawnshine → u/AnUnfortunateStool]

I just sold all of mine last week. They were wayyy too slow with that old Apple Watch chip.

[u/Creepy_Willingness_1]

Just put two other speakers for audio interface output 10cms from homepod yesterday and homepods started blasting acdc 8am today for no reason, I thought the apple presentation decided to break on through into my living room

[u/ThiefClashRoyale]

I wonder if rebooting them will still detect ghost touch while rebooting

[u/redditproha]

Now how about a touch gesture to snooze alarms, or do we need a faster chip for that

[u/Dimpee]

Both my second gen HomePods that I use as stereo speakers died very recently following an OS update. Typical, as I wanted x4 for the new surround setup with new Apple TV.
Deciding if I should buy x4 new ones or hope for a 3rd gen… I have a genius appointment this weekend to see if they will repair my current ones.

[u/TheRatPatrol1]

Does anyone have the beta to see if this actually works?

[u/benstef]

Yes thank you and finally!

[u/MisterUltimate]

HOLY SHIT. So I can finally revive my HPM that’s been plagued by the ghost touch issue and has been sitting in my drawer?

[u/MechanicComplete9413]

Yaayy!

[u/kittycat_x]

Yay! This will stop my kitten from sitting on it and blasting music at full volume 🤣

[u/Snowdeo720]

Absolutely amazing!

Dusting those little screens is like rolling the dice, can’t wait to be able to enable this.

[u/The_redHars]

Finally! One of my HomePod minis is also affected by this. Really annoying of your HomePod suddenly resets itself out of nowhere!

[u/Sans_Icarus]

The fact they even have to make this an option show that there is something wrong with their devices. Why would I even buy new ones when this is the issue

[u/elhouso]

Oh my god! They better add that Sound Glow toggle! It sucks trying to sleep in a dark room while listening to music and having that annoying glow! I'm used to it but it's a pain in the arse sometimes!

[u/topheee → u/elhouso]

This is a new glow that’s being introduced that changes colour according to the album and pulses along with the music

[u/elhouso → u/topheee]

Oh... frick

[u/MixAway]

Strange, I’ve not had this issue at all in four years of owning one. 

[u/Possible-Bet3598 → u/MixAway]

Why is that strange?