I have an OG HomePod purchased March 2019. A couple days ago I was playing Apple TV audio through it and it went silent. Checked my Home app and showed that it was not on the same network. Not unusual, I usually just unplug and plug it back in and that clears it up. That didn’t work this time. So I did a factory reset. Still nothing. Removed it from my account and tried to start from scratch. No luck.

I plug it in and the white light spins at the top for ~15 seconds, it plays the big whoosh sound with lots of bass. Then I get the pulsing white light which Apple support indicates is the “ready to setup” status. No setup notification shows on my iPhone or iPad. The white light pulses for ~8 minutes and then stops.

I’ve tried factory reset about 10 times now, I get the red light and three beeps so my HomePod is still responding to touch. I don’t know what software version it was on because I removed it from my account before I remembered to check.

A call to Apple Support wasn’t particularly helpful. The agent had me restart my Wifi, restart my iPhone, still nothing. They said I could ship it in and have it looked at for about $90+ service fee (I don’t have an Apple store near me).

I really enjoy the HomePod’s sound and don’t want to give up on it. I feel like it should have lasted longer than 5 years (naive, I know) although it did survive a house fire less than a year after purchase. But it had been working fine with no issues till now.

Any help or tips at all is appreciated.