Can't Pair Homepods to Apple TV

Are HomePods responding and otherwise working?

Let’s rule that out first.

Go back to the main menu in ATV Settings to see if anything needs attention. Apple might be asking you to finish setting up following the Home Architecture upgrade. This has happened on mine but soon resolved itself and the HomePods showed up to use as default audio, You should also have your ATV software up to date on tvOS 18.6. Install that if you haven’t already done so.

Look in the Home App in the Apple tv Box settings, scroll down to Default Audio Settings to see if it’s checked in that.

I believe you mean Apple bugged you to upgrade the Home Architecture, correct? Did you also update HomePods to 18.6? You’ve entered HomePods as iOS 17. Don’t factory reset OG HomePods at this time, a Restart would be better. Update all software to 18.6, this includes whatever device (iPhone or iPad) you used to set up HomePods.

Troubleshoot your wifi - since you mention they work (not bricked) but with other issues, please try rebooting your wifi modem (unplug for about 30 seconds) Please do this before proceeding with any software updates so you have a good stable connection. The wifi just might be the cause here. If not we can provide other troubleshooting steps to try next.

As to why you don’t have the default audio setting in Home> Apple TV, I’m not sure but again it could be the details did not fully load, as it was on the ATV.

It timed out, Did you reboot your wifi router as I suggested? Please do that - even if wifi works great on every other device. All of your symptoms appear to be loading issues that won’t connect to the Apple server.

If it’s still not working you will need to try signing out of Apple TV so you are forced to set up HomeKit & AirPlay again. Please do the following:

On your Apple TV, open Settings, select Users and Accounts, choose your user profile, scroll down and select Remove User from Apple TV for the default account.

Restart your Apple TV and have your unlocked iPhone (or iPad) handy so you can sign in again. Keep an eye on your phone screen to click Connect and Done, etc. At this stage it may or may not ask if you want to make HomePods the default audio - you can manually do that afterwards.

You should also restart HomePods while waiting for the ATV to restart. You can do that from the. Home App.

You won’t lose any iCloud data doing this, once signed back in, everything you use iCloud for will be there, including any Apple Music, purchased content or Apple TV plus/channel accounts etc.

Sign out of iCloud on your devices

I hope this helps.

I’m not sure how that’s working but if it is I’d leave it. We’re coming up on a new software release very soon following the Sept 9 Apple Event when they release the new iPhones and new software to go with it. It will be iOS 26 and tvOS 26 (not 19). So you’ll no sooner get everything up and running and a major software update might mess with things. You can choose to update yours to 26 then or wait for another point update once they’ve addressed any hiccups. tvOS 18.6 wiped out most of my aerial screensavers on my ATV 4K. Had to reset it and then I noticed I was inexplicably low on storage to download new ones so I reset it again. Got some storage space back but I only get one new one a day. I’ll be installing tvOS 26 right away in the hopes this fixes it. I fear installing OS 26 on my OG HomePods because some have got messed up for others. I’ve been lucky so far with mine and I prefer them over the gen 2 models.

Everything on the same Wifi Network usually works best. I have some of my devices on 2.4 GHZ while others are on my 5G. I have the same model ATV as you but paired with the gen 2 HomePods. My first gen ATV 4K is paired with the OG HomePods. I use wifi on both.

Ok I hope that works for you now.