Homekit Automations are broken in iOS 16

i only use HomePods as home hubs and I have 3 in my home. When I disable one, another picks up. By doing this, my logic doorbell circle view gets all messed up since it uses a home hub to record and view. It’s a domino effect I try to avoid. Then, by disabling HomePods (unplugging them is only way) and it bounces around, I’ll have one or 2 of my HomeKit accessories go “not responding” another domino. So deleting and re adding automation is a faster solution.

So frustrating! I have tried everything else a full nuking of my Home system (48 devices). My issue is unlike anyone else's in that only my 14 thread-capable devices stop working (Eve/Wemo/Nano). I am currently only using one HP-mini (have unplugged/disabled 2 HP-minis and 3 ATVs). I delete all automations, reset my one HP-mini and then all works well for a few days, and then "bam," all thread devices stop working again with "device not responding." My system worked flawlessly (including all thread devices) prior to iOS 16. I will wait until 16.2 to see if the issue is resolved; if not, I am done with Apple Home. As an "All Apple" person I am very disappointed that Apple will not even acknowledge the issue, but it appears this problem only affects a small percentage because I see no other complaints other write-ups on other forums.

This is what I have tried.

Removing automations and re-creating them – did not work

Reset Apple TV – did not work

Removed all my devices from HomeKit entirely and reinstalling them scanning their setup codes – did not work.

Pretty sure that I disabled home hub and re-enable that on my Apple TV in this didn’t work.

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The only other quirk woth my Setup is that my ethernet port on my Apple TV HD is blown out.

My understanding is that the Apple TV is communicating via Bluetooth to trigger my devices or is it communicating of a Wi-Fi? it has to be Wi-Fi as some of my devices are outdoors - stuff like my garage door opener is pretty spotty with its respond sometimes.

Waiting for the magic. iOS update has been talked about🙈🙈🙈🤮🤮🤮🤮

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.

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.

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.

As the automations don’t run on your iOS device but rather the homehub, running an iOS pre-release is unlikely to cause a problem. 

What you’ve experienced is the release of iOS 16 occurring at the same time as the public release of the corresponding version 16 of the homehub software (for appletv or HomePod). 

That’s why it appeared to break when installing the public iOS 16 release. But it wasn’t that. It was that your homehub(s) automatically updated.

This is the simple solution I've mentioned several times here as having worked for me. The reboot isn't required. The problem comes in when you edit an automation, it reverts to not functioning, and the home hub disable/connect is required to make it work again. I am wondering if this is still required in the most recent round of updates released by Apple today.

For some unknown reason the first day on 16.2 my automations where broken. After several reboots of ALL devices ( really everything so not only my iPhones, iPads and Apple TV) everything started working as it should. I can adapt existing automations, create new ones, rename them,…. and it still keeps working as it should. I have only 1 AppleTv 4K working as a hub.

So would it really be fixed now? Still anxious and hoping that all remains like this now.

21 sensors, 8 bridges, 3 camera’s and tons of devices connected over Homebridge as well.

Fingers crossed!!!

Yeah, I stopped replying because I kind of assume that people have tried that. But maybe not?!

It’s really an essential first step to troubleshooting to make sure devices are updated.

If people are still having problems post 16.2 update then I’m sure Apple would want to know.

I did end up updating everything to 16.2 (and did homekit architecture upgrades before Apple pulled them). At first everything was working just fine but as time has gone on pretty much everything is not working, any time based automations (sunset, sunrise), location based automations completely messed up. Apple Home thinks I am away when I am home, seems completely random when it triggers things. I have checked all location/privacy settings.

I have deleted a few automations and disabled some others, but will HOPE that Apple will correct this problem. This is extremely disappointing so Apple if you are listening. GRRR

I also upgraded to the new architecture in my two homes, after having factory reset all homepods and appletvs to get my automations running again. Then upgraded all devices (iPhones, iPad, appletv, homepods, Macs, etc.) in two homes (2-3 hour drive away depending on traffic). Upgraded! Fast response, automations worked, no accessories that had "no response".

Cut to now. I started getting messages when I got to my primary home if I wanted to run automations for my other home. It got more frequent to where it didn't know or care where I was. Then it kept brining me to my 2nd home in Homekit as a default. Weird. No responses again. Can't get Schlage lock for primary home front door 40% of time - 60% of the time...,. it goes on from there.

I'm done. I'm going to dismantle the 2nd home from Homekit completely. I am tired of the hours and hours of troubleshooting and navigating Apple products and software. This ecosystem has been expensive and I'm going to move on.

Yes but any automations that leverage where people are use iPhones. And I wouldn't be surprised if there are other things tethered to iPhone like shortcuts, or how updates to Home across all these devices and historical data you don't see impact what's broken.

What broke stuff is, as far as I can see, still a mystery to Apple engineers.

Yes be aware of all the versions of all your devices and the myriad of different ways to update them. But know this: this HomeKit architecture release is the first one where every single device in all locations, for any connected users, had to be upgraded to the latest version.

And for whatever complexities and differences of how we use HomeKit, many of us went from mediocre to Twitter-like dumpster fire.

What I know is it was fine for many of us on iOS 16 for weeks / months. But it was when our homehubs also updated when the public release occurred that things went wrong.

That’s why I’m confident it is to do with the homehub updates.

FYI, I contacted Apple support about this issue. After speaking with a senior technician, I was told that the engineering team is aware of the issue and is actively working on a solution.