HomePod alternatives with AirPlay 2
Third-party multiroom, multi-faceted smart speakers to give HomePod a run for its money
AirPlay 2 adds extra controls, improves buffering, and adds multiroom support
Amazingly, AirPlay has now been with us in one form or another for some 15 years. As AirTunes, its first incarnation, it was primarily there to send music from iTunes to an Airport Express; when the transition to AirPlay came in 2010, its support extended to third-party apps and devices.
It’s clearly a very capable streaming protocol, and one which has grown beyond audio to support video streaming, screen mirroring and more. But for all its expansion, it’s still a top-line way of streaming audio.
Harnessing Wi-Fi rather than Bluetooth increases both the potential range and the streaming resolution, while also making setup a breeze. AirPlay 2, which came to us with the release of HomePod last year, truly cemented that reputation.
There’s a lot that’s new. AirPlay 2 adds a host of extra controls, putting devices into
Apple’s Home app and allowing Siri to boss them around. It improves buffering, ensuring glitch-free streaming. And, most crucially, it boosts the interoperability of speakers, adding multiroom support and, at least in the case of HomePod, stereo pairing. Our testing here showed that it’s not possible to pair up different speakers of different manufacturers, though all five of the devices here were happy to play multiroom audio as part of one seamless network, and they’ll work perfectly well with a HomePod, too.
A device doesn’t need to be built for AirPlay 2 to support it. Indeed, the Yamaha MusicCast 20 has only just received the firmware update that added support in; there will likely be far greater support for AirPlay 2 cropping up in speakers (and, indeed TVs – see p71) in future months. So if you’re looking to fill your home with sound, AirPlay 2 is the choice to make.