HomeKit Default Room HomePodSensor no response

[3460169]

This is an alert that showed up at the "home" level in the Home app (current macOS and iOS alike).

My question is: WTF is this thing, actually?

So this "Default Room" cropped up out of the ether I guess. I did not add this room to the Home layout, ever. It has no actual devices associated in it, except for temp and humidity sensors which of course don't have any data (and are probably the source of this "not responding" message) and make me believe HomeKit thinks I have a phantom HomePod there.

I'm not using Matter, either. I do have a bunch of Eve Energy devices deployed which have been pretty solid -- ironically until this morning which is doubly ironic because Eve pushed out version 6.0 of their app with support for Matter-enabled devices just yesterday. I didn't even so much as open that app though, much less upgrade anything at all to Matter.

Has anyone else seen this? I will just remove this "Default Room" if it lets me but I thought this was worth sharing regardless.

 

[3460169]

Has anyone else seen this? I will just remove this "Default Room" if it lets me but I thought this was worth sharing regardless.

And of course it's not possible to remove this room. There's no "remove" option in the room's settings.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Assuming you have multiple HomePods? Check each room in the home app to see if it has its relevant HomePod associated and the one that doesn't, change default room to the room that that HomePod is in. And because of the no response message, turn that HomePod off and on again.

 

[StumpyBloke]

And of course it's not possible to remove this room. There's no "remove" option in the room's settings.

That is exactly right! That is by design. Tap on default room and move that HomePod into the correct one. See my post above

 

[3460169]

And of course it's not possible to remove this room. There's no "remove" option in the room's settings.

I was able to rename that room and magically there's a "Remove Room" option now.

 

[3460169]

Assuming you have multiple HomePods? Check each room in the home app to see if it has its relevant HomePod associated and the one that doesn't, change default room to the room that that HomePod is in. And because of the no response message, turn that HomePod off and on again.

Yes I have 5 HomePod: 1 OG, 2 full-size current-gen in a pair and 2 minis in a pair.

I haven't removed the default room (or whatever I renamed it to) yet, but I can attest that all HomePods are in their respective rooms in the Home layout.

 

[3460169]

Assuming you have multiple HomePods? Check each room in the home app to see if it has its relevant HomePod associated and the one that doesn't, change default room to the room that that HomePod is in. And because of the no response message, turn that HomePod off and on again.

"Default Room" is back even after I had renamed it and removed it.

All HomePods are claiming they are in the Room that they should be in. (And yes I inspect the individual HomePods of each pair as well.) I'm going to bounce everything and see what happens.

 

[3460169]

I wound up removing what that phantom accessory was, and that in turn removed the Default Room. Reboots and unplugs/re-plugs of the HomePods and computers did not remove it.

All of the actual sensors -- temp/humidity on the 4 newer-get HomePods I have deployed -- were working and reporting fine. I think this phantom one may have been a relic of some prior HomePod(s) I had, considering I recently replaced some Minis with current-gen full-size pods. Who knows!

 

[coredev]

I was able to rename that room and magically there's a "Remove Room" option now.

View attachment 2191255

What happens internally when you rename the default room is this: you are creating a new room.
and then of cause you can remove that new room. But then devices in that room are no longer assi to any room and show up in the default room.

The default room is where Homekit puts devices not assigned to a defined room.

 

[robbietop]

It's the first room created in a Home. Most People rename it or it disappears if other rooms are added.

It's so that there is always a room for devices to fall into, should a glitch occur. Otherwise, they'd get deleted.

Is this the new HomePod with the Humidity sensor turned on? It could be a bug in that and the HomePod didn't know what to do so it dropped it in Default Room.

 

[3460169]

What happens internally when you rename the default room is this: you are creating a new room.
and then of cause you can remove that new room. But then devices in that room are no longer assi to any room and show up in the default room.

The default room is where Homekit puts devices not assigned to a defined room.

Ah ok, good to know. Thanks for the explanation. I honestly don't remember every seeing "Default Room", but we've had our setup for years and my memory is not what it used to be. ;-) All devices, that I actually have, were assigned to a room though so this remains an anomaly and perhaps a remnant of a past device.

 

[3460169]

It's the first room created in a Home. Most People rename it or it disappears if other rooms are added.

It's so that there is always a room for devices to fall into, should a glitch occur. Otherwise, they'd get deleted.

Is this the new HomePod with the Humidity sensor turned on? It could be a bug in that and the HomePod didn't know what to do so it dropped it in Default Room.

Yes the new HomePods are turned on and have been for a couple of weeks so far.

• On April 1st I replaced a pair of Minis that were in a stereo pair, with a single current-gen full-size HomePod. The Minis were of course removed from the Home setup via the app after first ungrouping them and then removing them.
• A week later I got a second current-gen HomePod to pair with the first. I didn't have their software updated right away but did eventually a few days later. They were running 16.0 and 16.3.something respectively until I bumped them to 16.4 and then 16.4.1

The "Default Room" with the phantom temp/humidity sensors showed up over night, last night -- coincidentally when whatever one of the other Minis I have deployed that was also the active hub at the time, flaked out and HomeKit devices were either not responding or responding very slowly. I had to cycle that Mini to get the active hub to switch to something else and the HomeKit devices were responsive again -- but the Default Room with its phantom sensors remained.

I checked the 4 HomePods I have that have sensors -- all of the sensors were active and functioning and doing so in the room they are supposed to be in.

I think this experience was a bit of a fluke but it any case, I removed the phantom sensors themselves and they haven't come back, nor has the Default Room.

 

[robbietop]

Yes the new HomePods are turned on and have been for a couple of weeks so far.

• On April 1st I replaced a pair of Minis that were in a stereo pair, with a single current-gen full-size HomePod. The Minis were of course removed from the Home setup via the app after first ungrouping them and then removing them.
• A week later I got a second current-gen HomePod to pair with the first. I didn't have their software updated right away but did eventually a few days later. They were running 16.0 and 16.3.something respectively until I bumped them to 16.4 and then 16.4.1

The "Default Room" with the phantom temp/humidity sensors showed up over night, last night -- coincidentally when whatever one of the other Minis I have deployed that was also the active hub at the time, flaked out and HomeKit devices were either not responding or responding very slowly. I had to cycle that Mini to get the active hub to switch to something else and the HomeKit devices were responsive again -- but the Default Room with its phantom sensors remained.

I checked the 4 HomePods I have that have sensors -- all of the sensors were active and functioning and doing so in the room they are supposed to be in.

I think this experience was a bit of a fluke but it any case, I removed the phantom sensors themselves and they haven't come back, nor has the Default Room.

Yeah, it's HomeKit. iOS 16 has been an absolute HomeDisaster. Just rebuild your Home before it craps out like mine did for two months

 

[Cactuscris]

Yes the new HomePods are turned on and have been for a couple of weeks so far.

• On April 1st I replaced a pair of Minis that were in a stereo pair, with a single current-gen full-size HomePod. The Minis were of course removed from the Home setup via the app after first ungrouping them and then removing them.
• A week later I got a second current-gen HomePod to pair with the first. I didn't have their software updated right away but did eventually a few days later. They were running 16.0 and 16.3.something respectively until I bumped them to 16.4 and then 16.4.1

The "Default Room" with the phantom temp/humidity sensors showed up over night, last night -- coincidentally when whatever one of the other Minis I have deployed that was also the active hub at the time, flaked out and HomeKit devices were either not responding or responding very slowly. I had to cycle that Mini to get the active hub to switch to something else and the HomeKit devices were responsive again -- but the Default Room with its phantom sensors remained.

I checked the 4 HomePods I have that have sensors -- all of the sensors were active and functioning and doing so in the room they are supposed to be in.

I think this experience was a bit of a fluke but it any case, I removed the phantom sensors themselves and they haven't come back, nor has the Default Room.

Okay, did anyone figure out what to do??? Because now mine is doing it, and it’s the same reason this person had it. All my homekit devices are in their rightful places and this happened when I added two HomePods to my homekit but cancelled them as they were taking forever, I then removed them but while doing that they took forever to be removed, and finally got removed, but now the default room popped up and now the sensors are in the default room and I can’t delete the room or remove the phantom sensors, it’s driving me crazy !! Someone please help 😭