HomePod not seeing a HomeKit accessory

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HomePod not seeing a HomeKit accessory

I have a HomePod (original) and last week I bought a new HomePod mini and an Eve. Room temperature accessory. The mini was easy (of course) to set up and the Eve was reasonably easy. But my HomePod (original) which is in the next room, doesn't "see" the Eve. When I ask Siri on the original HomePod what the room temperature is, she tells me that there is no temperature accessory connected. However, the HomePod mini reports the temperature fine.

Is there some step I need to do in order for the original HomePod to see the Eve and be able to tell me the room temperature ?

Thanking you advance and any guidance anyone can give me.

HomePod

Posted on Jan 10, 2022 6:30 AM

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Answer 1

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Vancouver22

Level 8

36,818 points

Jan 12, 2022 8:58 AM in response to SlippySlope

Not knowing how Eve works it’s hard for me to help figure it out. Is there one of these devices on each room? Did you assign it to a room? My thermostat is just in one room and runs the entire house

Did you try what’s the temperature in my home?

Because you keep saying “room”. When you say room, HomeKit assumes you’re wanting information on something that’s in the same room as the homepod. If that device isn’t in that room it will say it can’t find it. When I changed “room” to “home” my mini was able to tell me. I was having trouble with the minis and the original HomePods .

Granted, the OG HomePods are not functioning like they did in 2018. One of them keeps turning off personal requests, I have to keep putting it back on.

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Answer 2

Vancouver22

Level 8

36,818 points

Jan 10, 2022 9:03 AM in response to SlippySlope

I just asked mine and it was able to tell me the room temperature (for my ecobee thermostat).My other one could not, but this is a HomePod I plan to factory reset today

It could be several reasons and hard to pinpoint;

The OG HomePod isn’t compatible with Eve

Its on a different software version than the mini and requires an update.

Its a temporary glitch or wasn’t able to connect to wifi right when you asked.

Some less invasive steps to try first:

Power cycle the HomePod and wifi route

Restart HomePod from the home app and try asking again

Factory Reset HomePod - then set it up again

See: If HomePod isn't responding - Apple Support

EDIT: My minis are not telling me either. I think it’s the 15.2 software, that after installing needs to be reset to iron out the glitches. All of my HomePods are on 15.2 but there’s one OG stereo pair I reset and are the only HomePods that give me the temperature, also the only ones working on timers.

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Answer 3

Vancouver22

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36,818 points

Jan 11, 2022 1:29 PM in response to SlippySlope

You need to have the HomePods on the same wifi network the iOS device you used to set them up is using.

I’ve just reset my mini and it still says it’s not a supported feature when asking the temperature. My iPhone and two of my OG HomePods will.

Now I tried rephrasing it to “what’s the temperature in my home” and it worked. Try that
Have a look in the home app to make sure every HomePod has personal requests turned on. I just found one of mine turned itself off so I enabled it. When that happens it appears to mess the others up.

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Answer 4

SlippySlope Author

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147 points

Jan 12, 2022 8:19 AM in response to Vancouver22

Vancouver22:

I checked and "Personal Requests" was/is turned on.
15.2 was installed when I did a reset on HomePod Original
There is only one network (but my Eero wi-fi is a mash with two routers - one is the "base" and connected to the modem via ethernet and the other is connected to the base via wi-fi.
I just did a test and unplugged the 2nd router (so there is now only one wi-fi source)
I asked my HP mini what the room temp is and Siri properly reported the room temperature
I asked my HP original what the room temp is and Siri responded: "Hmm. There are no devices in the room that support temperature control." (Note: Eve is not a "temperature control" device, it is "temperature reporting" device)
I asked my Apple Watch what the room temp is and Siri properly reported the room temperature.
I asked my iPad Air what the room temp is and Siri on my HomePod Original (not my iPad) reported the room temperature.

I think the issue is definitely related to HomePod Original - even though it is running OS 15.2

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Answer 5

SlippySlope Author

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147 points

Jan 15, 2022 1:59 PM in response to Vancouver22

Vancouver22

Could it be the "Thread" enabling that is causing the issue? I knew nothing about "Thread" until I went back to the Apple Store today (went to the physical store but found it was an hour before an appointment was available so I went home and went to the online Apple Store). I wanted to buy another HP mini and another Eve Room. However, the Eve Room was sold out. So I went to Amazon and they had them in stock...with the option of "with or without" the "Thread". Since I didn't know what a "Thread" was, I searched it and found out. The HomePod mini was the first device to have "Thread" built in and apparantly the ordinal HomePod doesn't have the "Thread" so it must be a chip. I read that until the Apple launch of the mini, Thread was a little-known smart home technology that certainly wasn’t a phrase on everybody’s lips.

Having said that, Siri on the HP original will tell me the room temperature if I ask for the "home temperature" (as per your suggestion). The Eve data does display on the HomeKit app page on all my devices (MBA, iPhone, iPad) and I can ask my AppleWatch what my room temperature is and she will tell me. Here are screenshots of HomeKit from all three of my Apple devices

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Answer 6

SlippySlope Author

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147 points

Jan 10, 2022 11:02 AM in response to Vancouver22

BTW, as an FYI...I checked and it says my OS for both HomePods is up to date (15.2). Also, when I go to the link on Apple you gave and go to:

Restart HomePod

Open the Home app on the primary user's iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac. On iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, press and hold HomePod. On Mac, double-click HomePod. Scroll down and tap or click Reset HomePod, then select Restart HomePod.

There is no "Reset HomePod" and, therefore, can not go to "Restart HomePod"

I tried on both my Mac app and my iPhone app.

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Answer 7

SlippySlope Author

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147 points

Jan 10, 2022 3:12 PM in response to Vancouver22

I just did a reset via the unplug and hold the touch routine. It reset and I transferred my data from my iPhone. The HomePod (original) still doesn't pick up the Eve. The HomePod mini still sees and reports the Eve room temp. I'm on Eero wi-fi. About the wi-fi, since the HomeKit accessory works off of Bluetooth, the wi-fi should not be part of the communication (should it?) The reason why I ask is because I have the Eero Pro and a Gateway Eero Pro, both serving the same Network.

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Answer 8

Vancouver22

Level 8

36,818 points

Jan 10, 2022 4:02 PM in response to SlippySlope

I’m really not sure how Eve works.

As to not seeing “reset HomePod” in the home app to do restart. This sometimes happens, so close the home app and try again.

I still have to reset mine now to see what’s going on with this. The timers don’t work on my kitchen mini and I need it for cooking. Hoping it also fixes the thermostat room temp. They don’t always communicate with the accessories that well imo. When I first got the thermostat I thought it would be good to tell me the inside temperature but it said it doesn’t support that but when I tried again it did. It should still be able to tell you via Siri on any other Siri supported Apple device though. Just as long as the device is signed in with the same Apple ID.

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Answer 9

SlippySlope Author

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147 points

Jan 11, 2022 10:43 AM in response to Vancouver22

Vancouver22

I just did a little experiment...I went into the other room (about equal distance from both my HomePod (original) and my HomePod mini - and in direct line-of-sight to each but closer to my Erro Pro than to my Gateway Erro Pro).

Using my iPhone 11 Pro, I said "Hey Siri, what's my room temperature?" Siri responded with "There are no HomeKit temperature accessories"...or something to that effect.

Then, I went to my desk (where my HomePod mini is, and, using my iPhone 11 Pro, "Hey Siri, what's my room temperature?" This time Siri responded with the room temperature from the Eve AND displayed it on my iPhone screen.

So, I'm thinking this issue is something related to which router I'm connecting to. I'm thinking my HomePod (original) is connecting via Eero Pro and the HomePod mini is connecting to Gateway Eero Pro. The Gateway is an extender. The Eero Pro is the one that is connected via Ethernet.

Any thoughts?

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Answer 10

SlippySlope Author

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147 points

Jan 12, 2022 9:11 AM in response to Vancouver22

There is only one Eve device.

However, I just tried your suggestion: what’s the temperature in my home? on the HP original...BINGO ! Siri reported the temp without saying "....the temperature in the Study is..."

Nice going Vancouver22 (BTW, my son went to the Vancouver Film School)

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Answer 11

SlippySlope Author

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147 points

Jan 13, 2022 6:50 AM in response to Vancouver22

Yes, so am I. Interesting that it works by using the word "home" and not "room" but gives the correct "room" temperature as supplied by the Eve device (but doesn't identify the source). But, when sitting at my desk in my study, when I ask my mini "Hey Siri, what's my room temperature?" Siri replies "It's 73 degrees in the Lox Study." When sitting at my desk and ask "Hey Siri, what's my home temperature?" the mini replies "It's 73 degrees."

So, even though my original HomePod won't give me a "room" temperature, it will give me a "home" temperature - from the only temperature recording device in the home.

Thanks again for your help Vancouver22

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