HomePod Mini Add App to Home

[lindybees]

Pandora was working great with my HomePod, however I just bought a new HomePod mini and now it will not play from Pandora. The HomePod mini says something like to do this you need to add the Pandora app to your Home. The old HomePod is unplugged but still is present in the Home app.

• HomePod mini is version 17.0
• Pandora version 2308.1
• iPhone on iOS 16.6.1

What I've tried

• restarting HomePod, quite a few times
• removing Pandora from home, adding it again, restarting HomePod and iPhone
• setting Pandora as the default service 
• setting Apple Music as the default service
• Airplaying from Pandora app (that works fine)
• checked that all Siri settings & search are enabled for Pandora
• removing the Pandora app from my iPhone and adding it again, with all setup above

Anyone have any other ideas how to fix Pandora so it works with a HomePod mini? I can't find any other suggestions online that I haven't tried. 

[TannerPandora]

Hi @lindybees! Welcome to community.

Thanks for your thoughtful and thorough post, I appreciate it.

I just got a new HomePod Mini too! I tried some testing on my own HomePod Mini with Pandora to try and replicate your experience. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get the same message you did.

I did notice I was still on version 16.6 for HomePod, but was able to update to version 17 today and I tried again. Still no luck. The only difference in our experience is that I'm currently on iOS 17. I did try a couple of different ways to replicate your experience, much of the same things you've already done.

My only other suggestions would be to remove the old HomePod from the Home app, and try adding Pandora to HomePod again. Also, in the off chance it may be related to iOS 17, if possible, I would update to the latest version.

If you're still having trouble after that, I'm happy to pass this along to our iOS team for further review.

[lindybees · Accepted solution]

Solution was to wipe and remove old Homepod, remove Pandora as a Home app, wipe and remove new Homepod mini. Add the Homepod mini again, then add Pandora to Home again, then set it as the default Home app. Quite a huge pain. Hope this helps anyone who decides to buy new Apple devices.