‘Controls not available’ error within Home App when away from home

I’ve been experiencing the same issue for several months now — the Home app shows “controls not available” whenever I’m away from home.

Everything works perfectly when I’m actually at home, but as soon as I try to play music on any of my HomePods remotely, I get that error. Strangely, I can still set timers and send intercom messages without any problem.

It doesn’t matter which device I use — iPhone 13, 16 Pro Max, or 17 Pro Max — the outcome is always the same.

My setup includes two original HomePods, two HomePod minis, and an Apple TV 4K, all running the latest software. It was iOS 18.x when the issue started, and it has continued through to 26.x.

I did speak with Apple Support a couple of months ago, but even after trying various troubleshooting steps, they couldn’t resolve it.

All HomePods have been wiped, set up from scratch and are all running the latest firmware, signed in with the same Apple ID as my other devices and also have 2FA enabled on my iCloud account.

Any suggestions would be welcome.