Homekit Automations are broken in iOS 16

Might I suggest that you try using one of your AppleTV's as a Home Hub to see if that takes care of the issues. I have 3 AppleTV 4k's and all were set to be Home Hubs. I disconnected all 3 AppleTV's in settings and automations still work. I do have a number of HomePods including 2 Minis but there is no way to disconnect or connect them manually. I have HomeKit apps opening and running on 2 Macs, 1 iPad and my iPhone and nothing that I do on any of those devices seems to have any impact on the functioning of Automations. All devices are as up to date as possible (no betas).

I also spoke with an Apple Advisor last evening. She heard me out and took some logs from my device, but also urged me to go to apple.com/feedback, select Home to answer a few questions and enter a brief summary: "All was working great until I downloaded iOS 16 (never installed any Betas) and only my Thread devices (12 of 39) were knocked out. Have removed them, did factory reset, but unable to add them back." Very, very frustrating." It is clear that Apple failed to do enough extensive testing with Home/iOS 16 to ensure its functionality.

I have the solution, go buy an Alexa for like $20 and your good, everything, EVERYTHING will work … Home Kit is just garbage and worthless … not intuitive … Alexa is easy to use and works … it’s a hard pill to swallow … even harder to believe … but it’s reality …

A hub is needed to manage automations through the Home app whether locally or remotely.

My understanding is that hubs store the Homekit data and settings. The Homekit data/settings are shared between all available hubs. I have likened this to data in the cloud. I guess that the active hub somehow distributes the data to all other connected hubs so they can take over, if necessary.

My speculation is that this process is getting messed up when the active hub goes to sleep. I might test this by playing music (very quietly) on the Homepod all night.

I have a pair original Homepods (OS16) as stereo output for an AppleTV 4K also running OS16. The ATV has been disabled as a Home Hub (via its settings) for troubleshooting purposes. Overnight it is playing an album on repeat to keep the Homepods "awake". I really have no idea if the Homepods have several stages of sleep/energy saving that could be disrupting automations but it is a simple thing to test.

Home hubs & bridges

Homepod1 connected

Homepod2 standby

AppleTV disabled

Ikea Tradfri bridge connected

Finally!

Out of a sense of cold weather ennui or perhaps masochism, I tried, once again, to get the Home app (post iOS 16.1) working.

Noticed that when deleting and reinstalling the Home app all the previous lamps, appliances, automations, etc. had been retained. Then went into the Hue app and deleted the Siri link. Reinstalled Home app and then back to Hue to restore the Siri link.

When I went to the Home app it requested that I initiate a new home site.

The updated Home app is MUCH more intuitive and easier to use! Too bad Apple refuses to provide this procedure/information for its customers!

Just for clarification: am wondering if you removed/factory reset/added back all your devices (bulbs, plugs, sensors)? Like you, I also tried everything except fir a full nuking of my Home and starting from scratch. And unlike many on this forum, my issue is only with Thread bulbs, plugs, sensor. I factory rest them, add them back but then get a "not responding" message on the Thread devices. Yet I can grab any non-Thread device, add it back, and it works fine. Will wait for iOS 16.2, but if that does not correct the problem I am done with Home. I will take the loss and move back to ISY 994 smarthome. So frustrating cuz my 40+ devices, including 14 new Thread modules, all were working fine (Siri voice commands, App commands, automations and remote commands) until I installed iOS 16. And once you get use to a smarthome it is a challenge to do without it.

The one thing I didn’t do was a full scorched earth remove all devices and reinstall in HomeKit. I do have a pretty complex setup and just not willing to go through resetting all those devices back up in HomeKit. Right now I have:

• 28 Blinds
• 2 doors
• 17 hubs and bridges (HomePods, appleTVs, HomeBridge, Home Assistant, etc.)
• 1 lock
• 6 sensors
• 3 network routers (mesh)
• 4 family members
• 37 lights and switches
• 4 smart plugs
• 2 ceiling fans
• 1 thermostat
• 1 security panel
• 1 smart water valve
• 14 different scenes
• Around 10 HomeKit automations
• Probably 15 or 20 Home Assistant automations

The above is a combination of HomeKit compliant devices that connect directly to HomeKit that I also publish to Home Assistant, and some devices that aren’t HomeKit compliant I push to HomeKit through either Home Assistant or HomeBridge. Actually typing this out I’m amazed it works at all, but no way am I going to recreate all that for just a handful of HomeKit automations that aren’t working. Given how unpredictable HomeKit has been since iOS 16 they might just start working again. Who knows at this point.

I’ve actually moved almost all my critical automations to Home Assistant as it is more reliable. There are just a few automations that are so much easier on HomeKit (like knowing when family members are home).

I don’t even mess with support anymore, almost always useless and they will just pass the buck to blame Home Assistant, HomeBridge, partial lunar eclipse, whatever is obvious. I do post to feedback though.

after deleting everything and rebuilding everything I found a new issue in this version of HomeKit. the rebuild seems to have solved all but one issue. I can build automations based on time and scripting again but only if I do it from IOS device. the home app in macOS will still not allow me to do anything with scripting.

Endless story of great Apple Emporium.... Followed this to find a solution with the problems, but only thing I now can think is: Screw Apple, move over to fully "Home Assistant Open Source" and go.... Used this now for some days, everything work... Even Matter is supported... So bye bye Apple with your ****** Homekit!!!!

1 look at the settings

2 reset the connected hub - or unplug it for 10 sec

3 look at the settings again

4 if the connected hub is now different then it might just work, it does for me

5 upgrade or reset the original device if it’s a homepod

I did encounter that. Went ahead and deleted the pod. Wasn't too bad as you're simply downloading the Homekit from the cloud in the app store and all your settings, scenes, devices, automations are back again. Just reinstall the pod and done.

I can see why this might be the easier workaround in your case, but quite a few with this problem are using an AppleTV as their home hub. So for them it seems disabling/reenabling the home hub is quicker and easier. Lots are trying far more drastic measures that don't seem to do more than this in the end.

The mystery of this problem is why it seem to afflict some automations and not others, even though as in my case they are almost identical.

One night, 3 automations ran successfully, which had started working after I created new scenes but had quit triggering after a couple of days. Everything ran properly last night after the HomeKit removal, phone reboot, and HomeKit and Home Pod Mini reinstall, including the original individual accessories automations I had been using and the new scene automations created after the issue developed last week.

Yeah, the clear test is that you can turn off all your iOS / iPados / macOS devices and HomeKit will continue to work (except for the problems we are discussing here).

All the automations are created on personal devices and then loaded onto the homehubs.

Suspect once people get 16.2 on their homehubs they’ll find that it’s fixed.