HomeKit Problems after HomePod took over as hub

[Five_Oh]

So, a 4K ATV has been my hub and everything was great. Another ATV and HomePod have been "standby" hubs. And...then I had to turn off the ATV circuit to do some electrical work.

The HomePod took over as hub, and showed both ATVs as standby. Ok, fine. But then I find out all my automations no longer work, and my HSV camera will not allow recording any longer. Grrrrrr

I tried every combination of power cycling, turning on and off hub authorization, but it always just showed the HomePod as "disconnected" and the ATVs still in standby. I even reset the HomePod and removed it from my account, but no change. Now, I have no remote access to my Homekit and it still shows the HomePod as disconnected, even though I manually removed it as an accessory.

Ideas?

TIA

 

[malcky77]

Try unplug the HomePod from power...leave it unplugged and hopefully one of the ATV's will kick in as the primary hub, once that happens then power up the HomePod again.

One of my HomePods, which was also the primary home hub at the time was marked as disconnected and when in this state nothing would work remotely (we were away from home for 4 days) and none of the other 4 possible devices kicked in to take over as the main hub.....only unplugging the HomePod from power for a minute or two got it all working again.

 

[Five_Oh]

Thanks for your response. I left the homepod unplugged for hours and eventually even reset it and removed it from my account in iCloud. Still nothing.

 

[Itinj24]

Try rebooting the ATV you want to work as the hub. IIRC, the last connected hub is the one that takes over the duty.

 

[Five_Oh]

I thought so too.

I tried turning off everything but the ATV that used to be hub. I tried disconnecting everything for awhile and then reconnecting one by one. No matter what I did, the two ATVs always said "standby" and the HomePod said either "connected" or "disconnected" depending on if it was plugged in or not.

I tried turning off hub authorization for each ATV and restarting. No change. Something is hung up somewhere.

 

[malcky77]

Have you actually done a complete reset...as in a out of the box factory reset of the HomePod? Unplug the HomePod from power then plug in again while holding the top touch pad for about 15 seconds....until the HomePod screen goes red, then you can let go as it’s doing a complete reset....ready to set up from scratch again.

Remove the HomePod from the home app before you do the reset though.

And while the HomePod is in reset condition, restart your ATV’s and hopefully one of them will kick in as the primary home hub again.

But don’t forget that it seems to be normal for all home hubs to cycle through being the primary hub....no way to keep one there permanently.

 

[Five_Oh]

Yes I reset the HomePod the way you describe. And I have read many other people have had the experience of the hub switching between devices, but I have never seen it change from the same ATV...until it was shut off and the problems started.

I don't care which acts as the hub, but am just trying to troubleshoot why automations won't work since the HomePod took over, and why the hub responsibility won't change back when it is disconnected.

Thanks for your reply. I may just end up deleting the Home and starting from scratch. Something is hung up somewhere.

 

[malcky77]

What are the automations? And were these set up in the home app or in the devices native app? Could there be a conflict somehow in the automations between the home app and the native app?

 

[Five_Oh]

Several different types, like location based, time based and motion sensor activated. All set up in the Home app. I'm not using any native apps, other than to expose the devices to HomeKit.

 

[calimed]

I have the same issue!

I posted this on other threads. I have also factory reset my HomePod.


“My automations also have stopped working. I have found out that the issue only happens when my HomePod is set as the hub. If I switch the main hub to my Apple TV (by unplugging the homepod) then all automations work correctly.

I tried factory resetting the homepod and it didn’t help. Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to turn off the ability for HomePod to act as the hub.”

Would love a solution. Driving me insane.

 

[malcky77]

How is the WiFi/Ethernet/internet set up in your house?
Do you have split SSID’s for 2.4ghz & 5ghz networks? Or all 1 SSID?
Do you have vlans or such things on your home network?
Sounds to me like some devices are not communicating correctly with each other within your home network or something to me.

 

[calimed]

WiFi is great. Eero mesh network. All use same SSID.
No VLAN.

 

[Five_Oh]

I hope you figure it out. I didn’t. I finally just deleted the Home and started over. Everything has been fine since.

What a pain though.

 

[calimed]

I hope you figure it out. I didn’t. I finally just deleted the Home and started over. Everything has been fine since.

What a pain though.

Can’t do that. It would take me forever. I have over 100 devices.

I did just figure out a small workaround. I think the “chosen” hub is the one that has the best network connection. I have an Apple TV that is hardwired now and it seems to have stuck to it.

Time will tell...

 

[gildorn]

I’m usually able to get AppleTV to take over as “Connected” by leaving my HomePods unplugged for a bit.

I wrote a bit about this back in this thread.

 

[Five_Oh]

Glad that worked.

My hardwired ATV was the original hub until it got turned off. Funny thing is, hub duties still haven’t returned to it even with a gigabit connection!

 

[Arran]

I've had four HomePods at home for the past year and the spare bathroom HomePod always takes over as the hub.

Anyway, I felt this wasn't right (not sure why!?) and kept trying to persuade one of the other HomePods to take over by periodically removing power from the dominant bathroom one.

And one of the other three always did. Until I powered up the spare bathroom again, and it would grab control right back.

So I physically swapped the spare bathroom HomePod hardware with another HomePod that is literally 2 feet from a wi-fi access point (an airport express). And guess what? The new HomePod in the spare bathroom becomes the Queen Bee! Go figure.

The only thing I can think of is that the spare bathroom has a very central location in the house - and the location wins. No matter that both wi-fi access points are at either end of the house and one - literally - has another HomePod sitting right beside it.

It's all a bit of a mystery.

 

[malcky77]

@Arran Thats an interesting habit your HomePods are doing that makes me wonder if somehow in the background of what a HomePod is doing is trying to figure out the best device to act as the primary hub based on how easy it can communicate with the other HomeKit stuff within the home app rather than choosing a HomePod/ATV/iPad that is closest to a WiFi access point???

 

[mdhwoods]

old thread i know, but im having the exact issue. When my homepod takes over, automation breaks, recording stops working etc. When my apple tv is the hub, all works fine. Currently have my homepod disconnected which seems to just make it an expensive paper weight. When I plugged it back in yesterday eventually everything broke again. prior to about 2 weeks ago, everything worked fine with both devices on the network. Very strange issue.

 

[Rychiar]

I have 4 HomePods and the Apple TV and the Apple TV is never the home hub. I wish I could choose it to be cus randomly flipping between home pods definitely seems to break my geofencing at times… of course eero software updates never help either. One of the last ones caused me all sorts of HomeKit problems

 

[mdhwoods]

old thread i know, but im having the exact issue. When my homepod takes over, automation breaks, recording stops working etc. When my apple tv is the hub, all works fine. Currently have my homepod disconnected which seems to just make it an expensive paper weight. When I plugged it back in yesterday eventually everything broke again. prior to about 2 weeks ago, everything worked fine with both devices on the network. Very strange issue.

so a factory reset on my homepod seems to have corrected the issue for the time being. would still prefer to make my apple tv the main hub as its more centralized and hard wired so i get faster response to devices etc.

 

[StumpyBloke]

so a factory reset on my homepod seems to have corrected the issue for the time being. would still prefer to make my apple tv the main hub as its more centralized and hard wired so i get faster response to devices etc.

Unfortunately, I can guarantee you it will not stay working.

 

[Five_Oh]

My Home setup has been amazingly stable the last 1.5 years or so. I haven't really kept track of which is the connected hub since there've been so few issues. However, when I do check, it is inevitably one of the HomePods or HomePod minis.