Homekit Automations are broken in iOS 16

Richard Caughlan wrote:

So you know, when you reinstall the HomeKit app it comes from the Cloud and all of your accessories, scenes and automations are saved and back again. Be certain to REBOOT THE PHONE after uninstalling the HomeKit. It's pretty simple really. You'll have to delete the HomePod from the HomeKit in order to remove it but reinstalling that is easy.

When apple support advise deleting the home and re-adding it, this is not what they mean.

They mean, going into the home settings and deleting the home from the home app. This syncs across to icloud.

Deleting the home app from your iphone and leaving all the settings in icloud will not affect the running of automations on your home hub devices.

Uninstalling the HomeKit and HomePod and rebooting before reinstalling worked for me. BE SURE TO REBOOT THE PHONE BETWEEEN HOMEKIT UNINSTALL AND REINSTALL. No, I'm not talking about removing the "Home" in the app, I'm talking about removing the HomeKit app. The settings in the app will return with the reinstall.

Exactly, and what's more, your phone does not control your HomeKit devices, your hub (AppleTV or HomePod) does. So pretty clearly deleting the Home app on your phone isn't doing anything that couldn't be accomplished with a whole lot less fuss and bother.

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.

I have 2 homes set up, iPhone 14 pro max, iPhone 12 Pro Max, Apple Watch 7, iPad Pro, MacBook Pro M1, Mac mini M1, 2 MacBook Airs, many OG homepods, 1 HomePod mini, 3 ATV 4K, 2 ATV, 5 OG HomePods, 1 minipod (for thread only - I held my breath buying it). Hundreds and hundreds of smart home devices from irrigation, lift gates, garage, 3 thermostats, 1 radiant floor thermostat, lights, locks, cameras, sensors, appliances, crazy town. I have an Eero mesh network in my main home.

I noticed HomeKit automations not completing, not firing, and then nothing. All stopped. I read through this string and others. I called support and shortly gave up and did the following.

I signed out of every ATV, deleted every HomePod and the HomePod mini inactivating them, shut down my iPhones. And then... started up primary iPhone, and resigned in to every ATV one at a time, set up and configured every HomePod and HomePod mini, and set the configurations again. Hours of work.

Automations have worked the past 24 hours.

Besides determined to find a replacement for HomeKit, trash all homepods, and never buy a new category from Apple again, is that they don't have a category for support issues to log HomeKit or Home issues.

How do they track the issues like these? They don't share known issues, even support levels are either unaware or unable to say, but perfectly willing to let us test their products and software updates.

If you can wait for apple's fix to arrive - great. I can't. I also know this has been unable to make this work reliably and consistently for some time. Siri, homepods, HomeKit.

I did submit my feedback in Apple's app for Home and even that humoursly thinks we have 1 device of each category and what software version is it on. So cute and uselessly time consuming.

Apple doesn't just work anymore. And we're still paying premium margins for it.

Several things don't add up in this advice. First, I've experienced any number of internet outages and not noticed that my smart home devices fail as a result. Second, an iOS device or iPad isn't required to program HomeKit devices. They can be programed using the Home app on a Mac. Third, as others have pointed out, you can shut off your mobile devices entirely and your Home devices continue to function. But they can't function without a home hub. They're called home hubs for a reason. Finally, Apple pushes out updates for all of their devices simultaneously. If you have an AppleTV or HomePod, most likely it is being updated automatically and without you even being aware. The update on your iPhone may be the one you notice, but that doesn't make it the culprit.

I'm seeing a lot of shotgun solutions being tried and recommended to address this problem but this is not a good diagnostic method. You may hit something but you won't know what it is. A better method is to try one thing at a time and see if that fixes the issue. If it doesn't, then try another.

Anyway, with any luck Apple will have fixed this with the next round of updates.

I’ve never had to blast away indiscriminately at a problem and didn’t this time either. I simply disabled then reenabled the home hub and the automation worked again. This solution should work for a lot of people until Apple fixes the underlying issue. Just don’t change the automation after it’s working or you will have to do it again.

if your fix is to disable and re enable the automation or delete the automation and recreate it then your automations are simplistic. probably something like if motion turn on light. try building some more complex automations and you will experience the same issues.

Let’s ease up. Obviously this is an impactful situation for a lot of people and a long time. To disable a HomePod and if people have multiple ones, that’s a lot of work. Then to delete the app itself, reboot phone, and re add HomeKit app, a lot can go wrong. If someone has 54 bulbs, 2 door sensors, 2 light strips, 2 smart locks, smart camera, door bell cam, 5 smart outlets, I would never delete the app in fear I would lose everything. That’s a test by fire method.

As I have repeatedly said, the HomeKit app is reinstalled from the Cloud in the App Store and retains all of your settings, devices, and automations. Delete the app after removing the hub, reboot your phone, and reinstall it.

My method worked for me, for my environment, for now. Obviously a lot of work. I have been at it with Apple's lack of software quality a long time. Testing why things aren't working, how to workaround, fix or just repost the issue with support.

Contacting support for these things out if

the gate is just painful for all involved.

What is there to lose? Scenes I need to manage my house, security, HVAC/radiant heat systems? It was already broken.

And I did all of the HomePods because over they get flakey, unresponsive and have to be reset anyway.

I am looking forward to common standards in devices that allow us to break from an eco system without loosing a limb. In the meantime I'm using the apps that don't require HomeKit scenes, automations, or

device shortcuts and I've turned off auto updates where I can.

happy holidays

Yes, you’ve repeatedly said it. But it makes little sense because the app on your iOS device does not control the automations.

Deleting the home from the app and then having to re add it makes some sense but is a huge ball ache. That is what Apple support told me I had to do to continue to get help from them. But this is clearly a bug and one that is soon to be fixed.

Thank you. Someone gets it.

My final comment on this is: I (and others) have suggested a simple temporary fix that will probably solve the problem for a lot of people. It did for me. It will be entirely up to whoever is looking for help and finds this discussion to decide whether they believe it's worth trying that solution first, or whether they'd prefer to try a far more time consuming method first. Some will see the logic and sense in at least trying the easy solution and escalating only if it doesn't work for them. Others won't. Not much else left to say.

You can use iPad as homehub in iOS 16.

If you have an iPad, you can see for yourself in settings -> home.

This discussion being about automations not working, hence why I’m saying that it has nothing to do with the home.app on your iPad or iPhone.

It is entirely to do with your homehub. So yes, if you’ve removed and re-added the homehub, maybe that’s a potential fix. But personally I’d rather just wait for 16.2 which is likely just a few days away.

What I’m saying is that removing the app from your iPhone will have had no effect at all.

That’s out of date. And from macrumors.

Have a look at the actual software.

If you look at the support page I shared, it states that it won’t be supported in the future. But it is currently supported.