HomeKit After 16.2, any one have luck upgrading the architecture?

[dotme]

If you pulled the trigger on the architecture upgrade before Apple reversed course, my understanding is that the only way to have an Apple TV not be a hub is to remove it from the home. It will still appear as an Airplay target and be controllable/usable with iOS shortcuts but will no longer be a "tile" in the Home app.

It's things like this that lead people to think nobody's listening at Apple. Instead of offering us the ability to disable Hub functionality in HomePods, they instead force that now on Apple TVs too.

I have 4 Apple TVs. I also went all-in on whole house audio, so I have 15 HomePods. The thought of trying to restart or remove/re-add 19 hubs in the event of some kind of HomeKit problem is not appealing at all.

At least with HomePods you can reboot them from the Home app. With Apple TVs, you're paying each unit a physical visit. Nobody needs 19 hubs and the level of complexity that brings. With no logging in HomeKit, troubleshooting becomes impossible too.

 

[StumpyBloke]

If you pulled the trigger on the architecture upgrade before Apple reversed course, my understanding is that the only way to have an Apple TV not be a hub is to remove it from the home. It will still appear as an Airplay target and be controllable/usable with iOS shortcuts but will no longer be a "tile" in the Home app.

It's things like this that lead people to think nobody's listening at Apple. Instead of offering us the ability to disable Hub functionality in HomePods, they instead force that now on Apple TVs too.

I have 4 Apple TVs. I also went all-in on whole house audio, so I have 15 HomePods. The thought of trying to restart or remove/re-add 19 hubs in the event of some kind of HomeKit problem is not appealing at all.

At least with HomePods you can reboot them from the Home app. With Apple TVs, you're paying each unit a physical visit. Nobody needs 19 hubs and the level of complexity that brings. With no logging in HomeKit, troubleshooting becomes impossible too.

The option to remove/add as a HomeKit hub is there, at least on 16.3 beta on my Apple TV 4K 2022

 

[Bl0ckHe1d]

Sample size of one here, but I'm very impressed with the 16.2 update for HomeKit. Mine has been 100% stable since updating, no devices 'lost' or 'no response'. Which has got to be a first! I'm using everything from iDevices smart plugs, ecobee, Leviton, Yale and Logi Circle.

All my equipment are running fine (I think!) Philips Hue, Logi Circle, Meross, etc. currently experiencing no issues.

However I joined the Eve Matter early adoption program, successfully upgraded the firmware on the Eve Door & Window Sensors and Eve Energy to 3.1; now these devices currently returns the "No Response", they function momentarily then drop off after a reset. Whereas the other Eve accessories (Thermo, Weather & Room) on Thread network remain unaffected!

Eve Support have advised that Apple are well aware of the issue and hoping to have this addressed in a later firmware update.

 

[StumpyBloke]

All my equipment are running fine (I think!) Philips Hue, Logi Circle, Meross, etc. currently experiencing no issues.

However I joined the Eve Matter early adoption program, successfully upgraded the firmware on the Eve Door & Window Sensors and Eve Energy to 3.1; now these devices currently returns the "No Response", they function momentarily then drop off after a reset. Whereas the other Eve accessories (Thermo, Weather & Room) on Thread network remain unaffected!

Eve Support have advised that Apple are well aware of the issue and hoping to have this addressed in a later firmware update.

Exactly the same situation for me. So this is an Apple issue rather than Eve? Shouldn't be surprised!

 

[Morac]

The option to remove/add as a HomeKit hub is there, at least on 16.3 beta on my Apple TV 4K 2022

That removes the Apple TV from Home entirely which means it can’t act as thread or Bluetooth router. There used to be an option to keep it in Home, but disable it as a hub. That option disappears after updating to the new architecture.

 

[StumpyBloke]

That removes the Apple TV from Home entirely which means it can’t act as thread or Bluetooth router. There used to be an option to keep it in Home, but disable it as a hub. That option disappears after updating to the new architecture.

But if you removed it from the home on the older versions of tvOS the result would be the same as on the new version wouldn't it? IE it can't be used as any kind of hub (thread, HomeKit etc). Or am I missing something here?

 

[dotme]

But if you removed it from the home on the older versions of tvOS the result would be the same as on the new version wouldn't it? IE it can't be used as any kind of hub (thread, HomeKit etc). Or am I missing something here?

Also, whether you "disable" on the standard architecture, or "remove from home" on the new architecture, either option probably also means they won't act as BTLE/Thread beacons any more.

IMHO they should, though. Maybe it's indicative of the general apathy/lack of effort that seems to permeate HomeKit. I don't want 19 hubs. I do want all capable devices to be beacons or relay BTLE/Thread when capable.

I'm kinda sad and a bit resentful that Apple thinks I should have 19 hubs. The day I have to "rebuild" my home from scratch and spend literally hours just adding all those hubs back (before I even get to all the accessories) I'm probably going to explore Home Assistant and see if that's a better option for me.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Also, whether you "disable" on the standard architecture, or "remove from home" on the new architecture, either option probably also means they won't act as BTLE/Thread beacons any more.

Exactly my thought!

And I agree with your other points, Apple are just playing at this. Like Siri, HomeKit is simply an abortion. There is no way on earth Apple Execs use either in their own homes...not with how fundamentally flawed both are! If they did, we wouldn't have the crapfest we do now IMHO.

 

[Bl0ckHe1d]

Exactly the same situation for me. So this is an Apple issue rather than Eve? Shouldn't be surprised!

Appears to be, this was the response from Eve:

"We're in contact with Apple on that. Unfortunately, I don't have any specific timeframes from them, but rest assured, they are aware this is very important and it's high on their priority list to fix for the next iOS updates. If the fix would also involve a firmware update, that will be delivered over-the-air through the Home.app."

Now all my Door & Window sensors can currently no longer be added to my Home via add accessory after resetting them :sob-sob: hopefully there is an easy fix for this too!

 

[rayward]

I upgraded to the new architecture before it was pulled. Everything remains attached to my smart home and my scenes still work, but none of my timed automations will run. Automations triggered by a sensor or other device still run properly, but the simple act of turning on lights at sunset is broken.

I have even tried creating the automations in Shortcuts, and that doesn't make any difference. 🤬

 

[Morac]

Today half my Home devices suddenly stopped responding. I had to reboot my router to get them back.

 

[TonyC28]

Ok so if I remove the Apple TVs from my home setup that will disable them as hubs but I can still use them at the tv as I always have. Correct?

 

[StumpyBloke]

Ok so if I remove the Apple TVs from my home setup that will doable them as hubs but I can still use them at the tv as I always have. Correct?

You can still use them for all your media yes.

 

[hagjohn]

My AppleTV in the living room is connected as the hub.

 

[valkraider]

I upgraded to the new architecture before it was pulled. Everything remains attached to my smart home and my scenes still work, but none of my timed automations will run. Automations triggered by a sensor or other device still run properly, but the simple act of turning on lights at sunset is broken.

I have even tried creating the automations in Shortcuts, and that doesn't make any difference.

Well that sucks. I only have one automation - turning lights on at sunset. I have 3 Nanoleaf essentials bulbs using it and it’s working fine for me after the upgrade.

The upgrade itself was bulloxed - but once I got it working, everything has worked fine.

I did have one bump with them - they didn’t rub the first day. So I removed the bulbs from the automation, then added them back and they ran the next night.

 

[TonyC28]

I upgraded to the new architecture before it was pulled. Everything remains attached to my smart home and my scenes still work, but none of my timed automations will run. Automations triggered by a sensor or other device still run properly, but the simple act of turning on lights at sunset is broken.

I have even tried creating the automations in Shortcuts, and that doesn't make any difference. 🤬

What hardware are you using to control those lights? I ask because I've been having trouble with WeMo (Thread) smart plugs depending on which hub is in control.

 

[Bl0ckHe1d]

Now all my Door & Window sensors can currently no longer be added to my Home via add accessory after resetting them :sob-sob: hopefully there is an easy fix for this too!

Spot of good news, managed to re-join the sensors to Home after resetting the iPad! Eve also made a number of suggestions for re-pairing the Eve devices to the Home app:

1 Reset the accessory by holding down the LED button and waiting for ~10 seconds until it blinks red (for Eve Energy) or using the pinhole reset (for Eve Door&Window and Eve Motion), then try to re-add back;
2 Try adding manually by tapping More Options in the add accessory window on the iPhone and locating the accessory there (then using the manual setup code found on the generated Matter QR code);
3 Reboot the iPhone/iPad
4 Make sure the home hubs are all on 16.2
5 Make sure the iPhone/iPad is on the same Wi-Fi network as your home hub(s) and is not on a VPN connection
6 Some customers report that temporary turning off the 5 GHz wi-fi network on the router helped them
7 Try and see if there is your accessory listed in iPhone/iPad Settings under General -> Matter Accessories (next to CarPlay) — the option may not be there. If there is one, and it seems to be the one you cannot pair add to (check the serial number), then try Removing it there first.

Other observations for Eve Door & Window sensor; should the infamous "No Response" pop up then (in my experience) this may be early signs of battery depletion (around 80% or less), the sensors appear to be somewhat more responsive after the batteries were replaced. Not clear if replacing the battery is the long term fix or whether there are other underlying issues with the Thread / Matter network within the Apple ecosystem.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Spot of good news, managed to re-join the sensors to Home after resetting the iPad! Eve also made a number of suggestions for re-pairing the Eve devices to the Home app:

Other observations for Eve Door & Window sensor; should the infamous "No Response" pop up then (in my experience) this may be early signs of battery depletion (around 80% or less), the sensors appear to be somewhat more responsive after the batteries were replaced. Not clear if replacing the battery is the long term fix or whether there are other underlying issues with the Thread / Matter network within the Apple ecosystem.

If you have updated your sensors to matter, then they will probably "disappear" after a day or two again. I did the same and thought great they're working again to only get the no response within 48 hours on all of them. I think, as noted above, it's yet another issue with Apple HomeKit

 

[rayward]

What hardware are you using to control those lights? I ask because I've been having trouble with WeMo (Thread) smart plugs depending on which hub is in control.

Some are Lutron switches and some are Phillips Hue bulbs, attached to their respective hubs. I can still control them with HomeKit, but automations won’t run.

 

[rayward]

I called into Apple Support and they had me set one of my automations to run a minute or two later so that they could see the failure. Of course, the automation ran right on time. We tried a couple like this, and all worked correctly, so I thanked support and got offline.

I returned the automations to run at their location-sensitive times (30 mins before sunset) and they failed to run. I tried a specific time again, and they worked. So it's the location-sensitive element that is the cause the problem.

I have location services enabled, so I guess I'm going to have to get back on then phone...

 

[Someirishguy]

I returned the automations to run at their location-sensitive times (30 mins before sunset) and they failed to run.

Did you delete the old automation and create all new ones? I needed to do this for a few of mine to get them working post update.

 

[Morac]

I have a location based time automation to turn on my lights when I get home from 30 minutes before sunset till dawn and that’s been working fine.

Actually most everything is working for me with the exception of HomeKit video recording.

 

[WannaGoMac]

I upgraded to the new architecture before it was pulled. Everything remains attached to my smart home and my scenes still work, but none of my timed automations will run. Automations triggered by a sensor or other device still run properly, but the simple act of turning on lights at sunset is broken.

I have even tried creating the automations in Shortcuts, and that doesn't make any difference. 🤬

Yep. Automations now don’t work at all. My lights turn on randomly and I’ve tried deleting everything and starting over from scratch and they still just turn on and off randomly. What the heck did they do?

 

[WiiDSmoker]

If you pulled the trigger on the architecture upgrade before Apple reversed course, my understanding is that the only way to have an Apple TV not be a hub is to remove it from the home. It will still appear as an Airplay target and be controllable/usable with iOS shortcuts but will no longer be a "tile" in the Home app.

It's things like this that lead people to think nobody's listening at Apple. Instead of offering us the ability to disable Hub functionality in HomePods, they instead force that now on Apple TVs too.

I have 4 Apple TVs. I also went all-in on whole house audio, so I have 15 HomePods. The thought of trying to restart or remove/re-add 19 hubs in the event of some kind of HomeKit problem is not appealing at all.

At least with HomePods you can reboot them from the Home app. With Apple TVs, you're paying each unit a physical visit. Nobody needs 19 hubs and the level of complexity that brings. With no logging in HomeKit, troubleshooting becomes impossible too.

There actually is logging for the entire HomeKit system but only done via an AppleTV but it does grabs the logs for all devices and accessories within your HomeKit home. It’s accessed via a secret dev menu in settings

 

[Bl0ckHe1d]

If you have updated your sensors to matter, then they will probably "disappear" after a day or two again. I did the same and thought great they're working again to only get the no response within 48 hours on all of them. I think, as noted above, it's yet another issue with Apple HomeKit

This exactly what has happened, 48hrs on the nose the sensors have dropped of the face of the earth! I have given up on them and will patiently wait on the update that will fix this!

Speaking of which, where is the update to rectify the HomeKit issue(s), in the past Apple were usually quick to release a "fix"...have they really made a dogs dinner of it?!