How to change which HomePod listens to your commands when using paired HomePods

 

How to change which homepod listens to your commands when using paired homepods.

 

 

 

If you have two homepods paired to create a stereo setup, only one of these homepods will be used to listen to your voice questions. When the command says something like "Hey Sir, what time is it in London?" Only the home pod will be listening to you, although the other home pod may be physically close to you.

As far as I can tell, there is no way to manually select which homepod is dominant during the initial pairing process, but there is a way to exchange that you actively listen to after becoming a stereo pair. Will take
 

How to select which HomePod listens to your commands in a paired setup

 To change which homepod will actively listen to your queries, just tap the top of the device you want to dominate, then ask random questions like "What time is it in London?" " Siri will answer your question, and going forward, the Home Pod will hear you when you start the command with "Hey Siri".

I should note that this new configuration does not have to be placed in the rock once activated. As I've experienced over time, and for some reason so far unknown to me, home pods sometimes unexpectedly switch between dominant and secondary devices. I'm inclined to think that there might be some algorithm that takes into account how close you are to the Home Pod when you start the voice command, and depending on that calculation, the OS can change that. Consider it your nearest home pod. Siri's questions may be wrong.

A hat tip to Mike Hurley for my encouragement to share this tip. In a recent episode of Connected, Mike thought about how he could change the dominant home pod in his paired setup. Having run into this problem myself a while ago, I somehow stumbled upon this solution after wasting a lot of time searching for answers in the home app. Turns out there was a long press.
 This whole tip could really be summed up in one tweet, but given the lack of instructions around it, I thought this post would be a reference for anyone looking for the right tip in the future. Can work as