HomeKit iOS16 broke home arrival automation

[Rychiar]

I have an automation that turns on my outside lights and select inside lights when arrive home as well as sets the thermostat. Since updating to iOS16 it doesn’t appear to work . It worked flawlessly for the last 6 months or so before this. My automation to turn everything off when I leave still seems to work but this one is particularly annoying as my street is so dark

 

[russell_314]

I have an automation that turns on my outside lights and select inside lights when arrive home as well as sets the thermostat. Since updating to iOS16 it doesn’t appear to work . It worked flawlessly for the last 6 months or so before this. My automation to turn everything off when I leave still seems to work but this one is particularly annoying as my street is so dark

I had the same problem on the first day, but it seems to work now. Try restarting your iPhone. I’m not sure if that’s what fixed it for me but I did that for other issues.

 

[TonyC28]

I have an automation that turns on my outside lights and select inside lights when arrive home as well as sets the thermostat. Since updating to iOS16 it doesn’t appear to work . It worked flawlessly for the last 6 months or so before this. My automation to turn everything off when I leave still seems to work but this one is particularly annoying as my street is so dark

Same thing happened to me when iOS 15 came out, or maybe another update. But anyway, I had a delete and redo the automation and it's worked fine since.

 

[Rychiar]

I had the same problem on the first day, but it seems to work now. Try restarting your iPhone. I’m not sure if that’s what fixed it for me but I did that for other issues.

I tried a reset yesterday and then my phone didn’t even detect when I left and my lights stayed on all day. HomeKit is the only reason I hate OS updates.

 

[tonie walker]

Same, my automation aren’t working anymore.

 

[TonyC28]

Everything seemed fine at first but in the last few days most of my automations stopped working partly or entirely. I’m deleting and recreating all of them.

 

[dmfresco]

I have had issues with iOS 16 with the automation "When I(We) return home" etc. This automation is intended to unlock one of our August Smartlocks to let people in. This automation used to work fine. Then it would work for me but not my wife. I tried to make individual automations for each member of the house, but the check mark next to each individual's name seems not to save. Very frustrating.

 

[RollTide_King]

I have been having the same issue. I noticed on my wife’s device it is giving me an error saying “Location not available”, speaking about my device. It goes on to say the device requires iOS 11 or later. I have an iPhone 14 Pro Max so I have definitely checked that box.

I have completely reset my Home and set up all my devices once again with the same issue. I am assuming this is some kind of but that will be fixed, hopefully, with iOS 16.1

 

[dmfresco]

A glimmer of progress: my wife's iPhone 14 Pro, running iOS 16.03 got prompted to run automations as she returned from dropping a kiddo off at school this morning.

 

[dmfresco]

Afternoon update. Automation DID NOT work for my wife after picking up from school.

 

[dotnet]

Home has lost its mind lately. Not sure which of the iOS 16 upgrades (iPhone, AppleTV, Homepod) is to blame, but things simply don’t work as they used to anymore. Devices are suddenly “not responding” in the Home app (usually en masse), automations fail to work for no apparent reason, saved colours (in colour adjustable light) are messed up. At times, none of the Home hubs (AppleTV and Homepods) are connected, all on standby, and no way to fix that. Also, Homepods drop in and out of the Airplay menu.

I hope upcoming software updates fix this mess.

 

[ufgatorvet]

Reviving this older thread ...

My automations on my watch stopped working. I have rebooted phone and watch, and deleted and recreated the automations.

These change my watch face based on criteria and they have worked flawlessly since earlier this year when I created them.

Anyone have the same problem still? Fixes??

Thanks for any replies and advice,

 

[rogersmj]

Count me in the same boat -- within the past 2 days, Homekit automations have stopped running on their own (most noticeable is the home arrival/departure automations). Everything involved (iPhones, Apple TVs) is on the latest software. I've tried rebooting all the devices. I refuse to delete the Home and start over, I have like 50 accessories and I've spent hours arranging/configuring everything. Pathetic that Apple can't get this right and doesn't even offer any real tools/advice on how to troubleshoot.

 

[Feek]

They're very hit and miss now.

 

[dotnet]

*OS 16.1 has stabilised HomeKit for me, but my brand new AppleTV is still not winning Home hub elections against my HomePod minis. I’ve read somewhere that a tvOS 16.2 beta brings Home changes, so the wait continues…

 

[Hexsplosions]

I've updated my devices to the 16.2 beta, currently on beta 2, and have upgraded my home to the new architecture. I've been testing it on beta 1 for a week or so, and have just started testing on beta 2.

So far, generally, the home is a lot quicker to respond and reliability seems much improved.

We've had some hit and miss issues with automations based on returning home, but one member of the home was still on iOS 16.1, so they've today been updated to 16.2 beta 2 as well. I'll continue testing and report back with my findings.

I was updating a thread on the Apple Support Community about this issue, but the automatic moderation appears to be a little overzealous!

 

[Itinj24]

I’m beginning to believe a lot of these misfired location based automations have more to do with iOS 16 in general and less to do with HomeKit.

My wife and I have perpetual notifications set up in Find My for when we leave/arrive home/work and it’s been consistently inconsistent on a daily basis since iOS 16.

 

[dmfresco]

I've updated my devices to the 16.2 beta, currently on beta 2, and have upgraded my home to the new architecture. I've been testing it on beta 1 for a week or so, and have just started testing on beta 2.

So far, generally, the home is a lot quicker to respond and reliability seems much improved.

We've had some hit and miss issues with automations based on returning home, but one member of the home was still on iOS 16.1, so they've today been updated to 16.2 beta 2 as well. I'll continue testing and report back with my findings.

I was updating a thread on the Apple Support Community about this issue, but the automatic moderation appears to be a little overzealous!

My iPhone is on v2 of Public Beta 16.2 as are the HomePod Minis and Apple TVs in the house, but not the HomePods or the other iPhones. I see the screen asking me to update the Home but I think it's failing because there is not a public beta for the original HomePods. Just wondering, is the interface any different?

I can say that our location based automations are working much better now though I get prompted to run them when I leave as well as when I return home.

Now that Apple is supporting Matter, what happens to devices that were in HomeKit via third party hubs? We have a Hoobs and a Starling Hub.

 

[Itinj24]

My iPhone is on v2 of Public Beta 16.2 as are the HomePod Minis and Apple TVs in the house, but not the HomePods or the other iPhones. I see the screen asking me to update the Home but I think it's failing because there is not a public beta for the original HomePods. Just wondering, is the interface any different?

I can say that our location based automations are working much better now though I get prompted to run them when I leave as well as when I return home.

Now that Apple is supporting Matter, what happens to devices that were in HomeKit via third party hubs? We have a Hoobs and a Starling Hub.

Your previous HomeKit hubs and devices should continue to work as they always did. The Matter update just allows Matter certified devices to be supported by HomeKit but HomeKit is still HomeKit.

I’m also reading that Matter updates to third party hubs are breaking some functionality so if your Hubs are working the way you want and there’s no feature reason to update, leave them alone. Philips Hue, for example, is releasing a Matter update to their Hubs but since Matter doesn’t support Adaptive Lighting, you lose that feature if you update.

 

[dmfresco]

Your previous HomeKit hubs and devices should continue to work as they always did. The Matter update just allows Matter certified devices to be supported by HomeKit but HomeKit is still HomeKit.

I’m also reading that Matter updates to third party hubs are breaking some functionality so if your Hubs are working the way you want and there’s no feature reason to update, leave them alone. Philips Hue, for example, is releasing a Matter update to their Hubs but since Matter doesn’t support Adaptive Lighting, you lose that feature if you update.

I wrote support for StarlingHub and got a response similar to what you say here. We do have a few Hue lights in the house but never got into adaptive lighting.

I am still waiting for when my Home is eligible for the upgrade. I am noticing that one of my HomePod Minis did not update and I cannot figure out how to get it to download the TvOS beta. Update, my mistake, it was an original HomePod that was not updating, which there is not a TvOS beta. But, since I have HomePods, I am seemingly unable to upgrade unless I remove those HomePods from our home.

 

[Hexsplosions]

My iPhone is on v2 of Public Beta 16.2 as are the HomePod Minis and Apple TVs in the house, but not the HomePods or the other iPhones. I see the screen asking me to update the Home but I think it's failing because there is not a public beta for the original HomePods. Just wondering, is the interface any different?

I updated my HomePods to the beta. It is available to the public.

The only reason I did this, though, was because my automations were so poor on the previous version, hence I was willing ton update all my devices. Literally everything is on a beta at the moment (iPhone, Apple Watch, MacBook Air, iPad, Apple TV 4K, all my HomePods.)

Just by way of an update, updating to the new home architecture did not improve all aspects of the home. The automations were still hit and miss, particularly the location-based ones, and we also experienced some automations triggering when they shouldn't. We were sat watching TV when our hallway light came on (it's supposed to do that if either of us are arriving home, but we were already there) and then, 10 seconds later, the entire home shut down (another location-based automation, for when we leave the house, but we were both there... Watching TV.)

I decided to recreate all the scenes and automations in the new home architecture, just in case there were any issues hanging over from the previous version. Since doing so, all the automations seem to work.

I'm continuing to test.

 

[Slumor]

View attachment 2097549
I have been having the same issue. I noticed on my wife’s device it is giving me an error saying “Location not available”, speaking about my device. It goes on to say the device requires iOS 11 or later. I have an iPhone 14 Pro Max so I have definitely checked that box.

I have completely reset my Home and set up all my devices once again with the same issue. I am assuming this is some kind of but that will be fixed, hopefully, with iOS 16.1

Thank you for posting this. I too am seeing this very same "Location not available" on my wife's phone regarding my location for these Arrive/Leave automations, of which the "Last Person Leaves" automation does not work.

Have you been able to figure anything out on this front?

At this point I would like to stop wasting my time and hope for the best with the next update in order to resolve this.

 

[dmfresco]

All of us in the house are on iOS 16.2 or higher. I am on public beta of 16.3. I migrated the home to the new HomeKit before Apple pulled it. I have to say, it's actually working well for us. Very few glitches and automations are now working, including location based automations. August Locks were slow to get their app working with iOS 16.2 but their latest release was the last aspect of our smart home not working. It was a very ugly migration to the new HomeKit, and it was especially tough on two of my Macs which caused our home not be seen, but logging out and back into iCloud eventually fixed that problem. Far from seamless, but finally, working well! Hopefully Apple will fix and re-release HomeKit.

 

[RollTide_King]

Thank you for posting this. I too am seeing this very same "Location not available" on my wife's phone regarding my location for these Arrive/Leave automations, of which the "Last Person Leaves" automation does not work.

Have you been able to figure anything out on this front?

At this point I would like to stop wasting my time and hope for the best with the next update in order to resolve this.

Oh it’s been a while but I did resolve the issue. I believe I had to use the nuclear option and delete my “home” and start from square one. It was a pain, but I haven’t had any issues sense.

 

[Slumor]

All of us in the house are on iOS 16.2 or higher. I am on public beta of 16.3. I migrated the home to the new HomeKit before Apple pulled it. I have to say, it's actually working well for us. Very few glitches and automations are now working, including location based automations. August Locks were slow to get their app working with iOS 16.2 but their latest release was the last aspect of our smart home not working. It was a very ugly migration to the new HomeKit, and it was especially tough on two of my Macs which caused our home not be seen, but logging out and back into iCloud eventually fixed that problem. Far from seamless, but finally, working well! Hopefully Apple will fix and re-release HomeKit.

Thank you for your reply - so I'm glad to hear things are working well for you again. I'd like to touch on the iCloud aspect you mentioned. You signed out and back into iCloud for your phones associated with HomeKit?