The Infamous HomePod White Ring: How to Fix and Prevent it

Since Apple’s release of their newest product, the HomePod, last Friday, complaints about the HomePod white ring have surfaced.

The base of the HomePod is made with a silicone ring that is supposed to help decrease the vibrations from music.

However, when placed on wood surfaces, white rings are left behind.

While Apple has said that with time, these pronounced lines may fade, ultimately, this new product is damaging furniture.

Unfortunately, Apple does not have many suggestions to help fix the problem for those who already have white rings from using the speaker. As a company who sells wood furniture, we recognize this issue and know that silicone can leave marks on wood.

This can happen to any piece of wood furniture-regardless of the quality, wood and silicone do not react well and often discoloration can occur.

For this reason, we never recommend using plastic place mats, or setting anything made of silicone on wood tables because of the chemical reaction that can take place-as demonstrated by the HomePod white ring.

Photo: Jon Chase, Wirecutter (click photo to follow link)

Though a different product, I have personally had an issue where white residue was left all over my solid wood entertainment center.

Over time it did not fade, and using dish soap and a little warm water did not help either, as suggested by Apple.

I found that using a paper towel or soft cloth, rubbing a very small amount of virgin olive oil onto the parts of the wood that were discolored, the white film went away almost entirely.

For those of you fortunate enough to have avoided this catastrophe with your new technology, there are many different ways to prevent the white ring-outside of just finding another surface.

As suggested by macworld (click here to view the whole article), coasters are a popular option. Conveniently, the base of the HomePod is about the size of a coaster-so the coaster is not super visible or take up much extra room if you choose this option.

Setting it on books or other items on your table or shelf would be another possibility.

iMore also discusses the wall mount that can be found only on Amazon at this time (click here to read their full article).

Photo: macworld

As Apple tends to do, it is expected that they will eventually take advantage of the HomePod white ring situation by coming out with a product of their own to help prevent the problem-but only jokes have surfaced so far, and there’s no official news on this.

While Apple overall seems unapologetic that the HomePod white rings are an issue, they have updated their care page to mention the issue and provide their mostly unhelpful suggestions-one of which is to simply choose a different surface to avoid the “mild marks.”

Overall, reviews say the speaker’s sound is amazing. But, when considering this purchase, the white rings are definitely an issue to keep in mind.

Photo: iMore