Homekit Automations are broken in iOS 16

Respectfully disagree with respect to voice. A great (meaning reliable) mobile app with on/off automation would solve all my use cases. Hardly ever use voice and until its drop dead reliable (SIRI suddenly doesn't understand Garage Door #2) I'm happy to use an app...

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.

Granted. I didn’t consider some people are ok with pulling up the app. Myself I don’t carry my phone on me everywhere around the place all the time. So I find voice to be accommodating me more often. I agree that Siri is the same disastrous pile of crap it was when it was launched. Nothing improved in the field of AI voice capabilities. I guess IBM Watson (which Siri runs on to my Knowledge?) is a static model. The big hooha about a new manager on the Siri team years ago was very much a damp squib. But… I use only what works (though “on” and “off” are even frequently miss understood).

Slightly off topic but the biggest issue with Siri (if you're like me and walk around with Apple headphones on) is that Siri will answer randomly on whichever device it thinks it should. So, although I may be in the living room and say, "Hey Siri" and expect it to respond on my headphones it doesn't. What I don't realize is that the Homepod has heard me all the way in the bedroom and has responded there. There is no way to set different wake words like I do with all the Alexa speakers in my house. Now, if only they had SiriusXM integration like Alexa I would be thrilled.

Still off topic, but yes, true. It’s annoying. Feels as if Apple takes ages to get past „Minimum viable product“. Same with the temperature sensors in HomePod mini: there is no offset!!!! WTF. Put it on a high cupboard and it reads 25 C … although it’s actually closer to 22.5C… MVP once again.

I have 2 ATVs and 3 minis set up. A few months ago when I found this thread, I tried everything in the thread to fix the constant intermittent issues. I have had relatively stable and reliable performance since then. Suddenly, with 16.2 I believe, all my devices go to “No Response” almost daily. I have to restart whichever ATV or mini that’s the connected hub at the time. Anyone experiencing this issue?

Sure, make sure wifi is strong where that particular hub is placed. Or else, your only option currently is to round-robin reboot until a stable hub is connected. It’s crazy that we can’t define a preferred hub order for connectivity ourselves that based on actual connectivity HomeKit cycles through, always beginning with the top one and thereby almost unlikely ending up on the one with worst wlan coverage.

One of the ATVs is 8 feet from my router yet I have had to reboot it as often as any of the others. It doesn’t seem to matter. If it was once in a blue moon it wouldn’t matter but it’s practically daily now.

You probably tried manually forcing a different channel in your wifi settings (could address intermittent interference). Another wifi tweak is to try assigning a static IP to the ATV in your router settings (dynamic IPs sometimes confuse Homepods and, maybe, ATVs waking from sleep).

Otherwise it could be a wifi/hardware issue with the ATV.

iOS 16.3 has not yet appeared to impact anything on my devices. I know that the iPad is no longer allowed to act as a HomeKit hub, so I won’t be upgrading the HomeKit stuff when that becomes available again. Unless Apple changes which devices can be a HomeKit hub, or I buy an Apple TV or HomePod Mini, I’ll be stuck on the old protocols/architecture.

3 HomePods, 3 ATVs, iPhone 12, latest iPad Pro, Watch, Hue lights throughout house, 3 Ecobee thermostats on Linksys mesh network (3 nodes). Repeated and random dropping of thermostats and automations in Homekit. Automations worked more consistently when the 2 wifi child nodes were unplugged. Recently able to correct all of my issues by getting all nodes recognized by Homekit, updating all ATVs to 16.3 and disabling all as home hubs. Phone, pad, and pods are also all updated. Thermostats immediately appeared and all automations now working with all mesh nodes online - this is a first.

Well, my iPhone 12 Pro runs iOS 16.3.1, my AppleTV 4K runs 16.3.2, all Philips Hue lights and virtually all the homekit devices in my Home are up to date. Still, half of my automations DOES NOT WORK! "Turn lights on sunset" works, while "turn lights off at sunrise" does not. Also, automations set to run at a specified time do not trigger.

I have tried literally everything I found on the web, forcing updates on everything, removing and recreating problematic automations, even deleting Home App from the iPhone and reinstalling again. Of course I set everything according to the suggestion in this thread and also many others. Nothing seems to help, it is still bugged. All automations work flawlessly in Philips Hue app, but not in the Home app.

It would be really nice if Apple could finally address this issue and solve it!

' "Turn lights on sunset" works, while "turn lights off at sunrise" does not.'

As I noted many pages ago, I think there is an issue with Home Hubs going to sleep, or similar, due to lack of activity at night (maybe losing wifi connection?). My "fix" was to keep a Homepod awake by looping a music track at very low volume all night. I didn't need this after a recent 16.X update.

I found in iOS 16.0, time-of-day automations only work for me if they trigger a Scene. They are not working for individual accessories.

https://apps.apple.com/it/app/controller-for-homekit/id1198176727