Homekit Automations are broken in iOS 16

Happy to report that the 16.2 upgrade fixed all my problems with home, for all devices thread, bluetooth, wifi. All automations time, presences, functioning as they should. have edited and changed several of them and those continue to work 24 hours later. Fingers crossed. Hopefully this will last.

Prior to upgrade I had not done any of the recommended workarounds other than removing Homepod and HomePod mini and reinstalling. Disabled Apple TV hub connection and enabled.

Final thing I did which I did prior to the problems with IOS 16 is setup a EERO profile for all Home Hub devices, pausing them every night for 30”. This gets around the fact that apple does not let you assign a primary HUB. When I do the Pause/Resume with EERO it always defaults to the AppleTV as the Hub.

Again fingers crossed this will hold for a while until it is broken by some other factor in the chain. Hoping the new architecture and Matter standard will stabilize things. GL everyone

So the issue appears to be solely when my AppleTV is the Connected hub. If I unplug the AppleTV so that the HomePod takes over all is good. If I then power up the AppleTV and it is Standby and HomePod remains connected, all works. But if I restart or unplug the HomePod and the AppleTV becomes Connected then ToD automations stop working. The behavior is consistent for me.

Also, fwiw, I did do the Home upgrade (yesterday).

You know you can disable your appletv as a homehub in the settings? I don’t think that’s possible for HomePods, but it is possible for the appletv. So you might want to look into that as an easier alternative to restarting or unplugging it.

Just this evening I’ve updated my appletv to 16.2 so it will now also act as homehub again. Previously it was just my HomePods that were on 16.2 and so they always seemed to retain the role of homehub.

If I start seeing problems again then I’ll know the cause.

Thomas Easterday, thanks for confirming you also see the appletv as the center of the automation madness. Now the question is how to proceed. There is not a lot to configure on appletv. What I have noticed in my case, is that every 2 weeks or so it has been asking me to login using an iPhone or iPad to configure my appleid. This has gotten very irritating. I’ve done that like 4 times or so in the past 3 months. I wonder if the issues with home are related to trouble induced by those mysterious recurring remote appleid updates? Have you been plagued by them? Thing is you don’t see you need to do that until you enter the settings app and notice a notification icon.

I did the HomeKit upgrade and things seem to be working today (knock on wood). I did notice that all the AppleTV's show up as hubs on Standby (even the ones I had disabled).

My new problem is that I can't add family members to the Home. The invites show up, but they get error messages about conflicting home names and the invite simply disappears on my end. Oh well, for another thread.

I had similar problems with family members after upgrading to 16.2

Make sure that:

All members are on 16.2 and ALL hubs are as well.

Unplug all hubs and wait until they appear as not reachable in Homekit

Plug one in again and wait till it appears

Delete family member that does not work

re-invite them.

That worked for me

Can anyone else confirm that with 16.2 it forces Apple TV to be a home hub? I’ve never had it set since I have 3 HomePods. The HomeKit on Apple TV has to be tuned on if I want to access HomeKit thru Apple TV. Which I was able to do in previous iOS. This is first time I can’t disable Apple TV as a home hub

In my case ios 16.2 didn’t change anything to the way appletv and home hub on it are configured. I have in fact disabled Apple TV home hub in the settings and only use my HomePods as hubs and since I do this all of my automations operate rock solid.

So how did you disable it? Mine automatically forced 2 of my Apple TVs as homehubs. When I go into settings—HomeKit—HomeKit—-room—-and remove. It does remove the Apple TV from HomeKit and not a hub but then I can’t access any of my cameras or scenes or HomeKit icon from the Apple Remote.

Maybe a work around(?) Pull the plug on the AppleTV.

Every time that I make a change, I then pull the plug on my AppleTV. Wait 30 seconds and plug it back in. This has consistently allowed the automations to work after any changes are made.

As background:

Tried: Delete/recreate home, Reset AppleTV, Configure scenes for all automations.

Configuration: Ten plug devices from three different manufactures

Final Solution: Place an automated plug on the AppleTV and power on/off with the manufacture's app.

Which supports my thesis that appletv is a problem. Also, what you observe makes sense because when you unplug it home will “connect” another hub as the “leader” (status=connected) in your network. Even powering appletv back on will not change the leader of the home network. Only when the leader has problems connecting (reboots) it will change that leadership (I think). So with you there are now several ppl here that consider the Apple TV is a problematic home hub.

To disable appletv as a hub you go into Settings > AirPlay and HomeKit > scroll to the bottom and click to “Disabled” on the item under “Home Hub” section. In my case this shows “Home” but I suspect it will show the name of your home here.

And then, when you go to your home’s settings in the home app you will see under Hubs & Bridges that your appletv shows a status “Disabled”. It will not become the leader anymore. And with it, in my case, my automation troubles are resolved.

I updated my appletv the other day but so far I haven’t observed it being the connected homehub. My guess is my HomePods haven’t had any problems.

My automations have run ok so far.

I’ll try unplugging my HomePods to force the appletv to be the homehub to expedite this experiment.

Can't do the Home upgrade here because Apple, in their "infinite wisdom", have decided iPad no long can be a home hub. Brilliant.

I already have a Roku in my TV for streaming video, otherwise I would consider getting an Apple TV. Not really sure what the HomePods are even for.