HomeKit HomeKit thinks one of my family members is at home

[marcusique]

… but she is not. I’m fairly new to HomeKit and I’ve recently bought a security camera (VOCOlinc VC1 Opto) and connected it to HomeKit. The streaming settings that I have right now are:

• Off when somebody is at home
• Stream and record when no one is at home

Whenever we leave home HomeKit doesn’t change the streaming settings, so the camera is basically off all the time. I did a lot of troubleshooting and what I noticed is that when I remove my family member from home sharing it works perfectly fine. It knows well when I leave and when I come back and it adjusts accordingly. But whenever I add my family member to home sharing – it gets disabled right away. I suspect there’s something wrong with her phone setup, but everything looks completely fine: all location services are on, home address is up-to-date in her contact card, location sharing is on under Find My. I compared all settings and they are exactly the same as mine. We run iOS 14.6 and use our Apple TV 4K 2nd gen. as a home hub. Any advice?

 

[Itinj24]

Does she have an iPad that stays at home that is set as the primary device for location?

 

[marcusique]

Does she have an iPad that stays at home that is set as the primary device for location?

No. She has an iPhone and Apple Watch that are always with her when she’s away.
I did some research and found out that Apple TV proved to be buggy when set to be the home hub. Not sure if that’s my case, might as well try to reset it to see if it works.

 

[Itinj24]

No. She has an iPhone and Apple Watch that are always with her when she’s away.
I did some research and found out that Apple TV proved to be buggy when set to be the home hub. Not sure if that’s my case, might as well try to reset it to see if it works.

Gotchya. Wouldn’t hurt to reboot everything involved… AppleTV, Network, her iPhone, etc.

 

[marcusique]

Ok, I think I fixed it. Not sure which of the below mentioned did the trick, but here’s what I did:

1. Removed my Home, that is deleted all HomeKit devices and the home itself
2. Reset my Apple TV to factory settings and re-configured it from scratch
3. Re-added all HomeKit devices to Home, invited my girlfriend

Then we went out for a walk and it worked just fine! We both received a notification that camera changed to streaming and recording as the last person left home. When we approached home, the camera turned back off. I’m not sure how long it’ll last, but I hope I won’t need to get back to troubleshooting.

Another thing that might have caused some bugs is that I changed my Apple ID’s associated email address (from @gmail to @icloud). I’m not sure if it caused Home to act, but it might have. Nevertheless, I’ll keep an eye on it in the future and report back if anything.

 

[mrzo_sk]

Does she have an iPad that stays at home that is set as the primary device for location?

Hi, if I can jump into the discussion - I have this exact problem - one member of my Apple Home have only iPad, which is set as primary device for her location (she does not have any other Apple device) and it totaly break the Away mode for all of us, because it stays at home 99% of time. When I delete her from our Apple Home, it works fine. Can I tell somehow not to take this device to account when determining the Home/Away mode?

 

[Itinj24]

Hi, if I can jump into the discussion - I have this exact problem - one member of my Apple Home have only iPad, which is set as primary device for her location (she does not have any other Apple device) and it totaly break the Away mode for all of us, because it stays at home 99% of time. When I delete her from our Apple Home, it works fine. Can I tell somehow not to take this device to account when determining the Home/Away mode?

Basically what you said. Either remove it from the home and/or disable location services.

Or… you can exclude that member’s iPad when creating the location based automations.

 

[mrzo_sk]

Basically what you said. Either remove it from the home and/or disable location services.

Or… you can exclude that member’s iPad when creating the location based automations.

I tried disabling location services on that iPad - disabled location sharing, and location for homekit app and homekit system service, but it didn't work - did I forgot to disable something else? Removing it from home is not an option as it was bought for the reason to control lighting in the house with homekit, I just removed it once to test that it was the cause of the problems.

Problem is I need it for controling homekit indoor camera modes mainly and there is no option to exclude that iPad in this case, its just a simple setting in the camera. And I can't control cameras in automations unfortunately.

 

[Itinj24]

I tried disabling location services on that iPad - disabled location sharing, and location for homekit app and homekit system service, but it didn't work - did I forgot to disable something else? Removing it from home is not an option as it was bought for the reason to control lighting in the house with homekit, I just removed it once to test that it was the cause of the problems.

Problem is I need it for controling homekit indoor camera modes mainly and there is no option to exclude that iPad in this case, its just a simple setting in the camera. And I can't control cameras in automations unfortunately.

If the iPad stays at home, try disabling Find My as well. Another member of this forum had the same issue in another thread. Must be a bug because I had this working a little over a year ago with a stay at home wall mounted iPad. Haven’t tried since as I moved into a new home but I been meaning to test it myself.

 

[mrzo_sk]

If the iPad stays at home, try disabling Find My as well. Another member of this forum had the same issue in another thread. Must be a bug because I had this working a little over a year ago with a stay at home wall mounted iPad. Haven’t tried since as I moved into a new home but I been meaning to test it myself.

I will try to "play" a little with the location functions on the iPad, disable it for testing completly. But maybe its just buggy at the moment like you said. Thank you.

 

[Mrfatboy]

I just sent through this. See here.

How to exclude an always home iPad for a location based automation?

My HomeKit setup consists of : ATV 4 - Hub iPad - Non Hub. Always home. Part of family 2 iphones I would like to configure a location based automation that only triggers when the two iPhones are away from home. How can I exclude the iPad to be considered in the automation. It’s always home...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[mrzo_sk]

Yeah, I have similar problem with always home iPad, but I read that thread and did not find any solution to this also.

 

[Mrfatboy]

The only possibility is having both the iPad and iPhone on the same Apple ID. Under “share location” on the iPad make sure it says “use iPhone”.

I didn’t try this trick because I wanted the iPad on its own Apple ID.

 

[mrzo_sk]

Can't use this either, iPad is not mine, I am only sharing my Apple Home to it.

This whole idea with using iPad as source for person location is ill-conceived specially with only wifi iPads and not having option to exclude certain devices from Home/Away mode is simply stupid. iPad just isn't "always with me" device…

I hope some changes will come with iOS, iPadOS 15.

 

[TC7007]

I found the solution by deleting the family member(s) and then re-add them to your "Home". Since I used HomePod as my home hub, I rejected to add the family members into AppleTV and then everything works fine. If you used AppleTV as your home hub, you may try "add" or "not to add" your family member into AppleTV to try your luck.