Homekit Automations are broken in iOS 16

An hour later and a couple of automations have started working. The only change I can think of is that the Original Homepod that is the primary hub is now in use (awake). Overnight it likely goes to sleep - I wonder if OS16 changed the way the Homepod (or Apple TV) controls Homekit when asleep?

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 tried that (removed/factory reset) all three HP minis and then added only one back for trouble shooting purpose but all my Thread device still fail to respond. Are you using any Thread bulbs:plugs/sensors in your Home setup?

Informative and interesting! Are you using your two ATVs as Hubs or just some of your HomePods? I see you have two different iOS (iPad & iPhone). Do you notices any operational difference when you run the Home App on either device? I have tried everything with no positive outcome so am just waiting for Apple to put out a fix. I have removed my Thread devices (Eve/Wemo/NanoLeaf) that were continuing to fail and replaced them with non-Thread devices I had put away in storage. So my Home is working great as long as I do not add back any Thread devices.

A possible solution in my case...

I kept my Homepods awake all night by putting an album on repeat. Last night all automations worked when they failed on previous nights (back to the OS16 update). So it is possible, in my case, that Homepod hubs going to sleep is causing Homekit problems.

The Homepods are default audio output for my Apple TV 4K, which is disabled as a Home Hub as part of my troubleshooting.

Accessories include Cygnett power outlets, Ikea (bridged) power outlet and LiFX lights. No Thread yet. I replaced Wemo power outlets months ago when they became unreliable - I had to restart the bridge every couple of days.

It took me quite a while to type out my last post and I edited it a bunch. After posting I went back and looked at my iPhone and I am on iOS16.03 and should have corrected that before posting. If I recall correctly now I updated before I logged out and back into my iCloud Account on the AppleTV that is connected to my Home. I still stand by my belief that the issues are with tvOS 16.

Interesting, so between your ATVs and HPs which one is your "connected hub" and which ones are in standby mode? Have you traveled outside and sent some remotes commands back from your Home App? I did get my Thread devices back working (one HP mini only as the connected hub and no standbys because I disabled three ATV 4Ks and two HP minis for t/s purposes, but after traveling 250 miles and sending a few remote commands, all my Thread devices were knocked off but all non/Thread devices remain working (never had issues with my non-Thread devices after 16.x.x uogrades.

My Apple TV is my connected hub and my HPs are in standby.

Yes, I didn't mention this, but I am able to send remote commands from outside my house and they've worked. But I didn't have an issue with this before, just as I could tap "test this automation" on any failing automation and it would work anyway on demand. Also for clarity, I have all Philips Hue lights with a connected bridge. And I do not have geofencing enabled in the Hue app. I wanted to use HomeKit for this, and all other automations. I only have 1 time-based automation setup with the Hue app because it's not a feature Apple offers (gradually dim lights for an hour until off).

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

Please keep us posted with your results. I was hoping I would not have to completely delete my Home and add back 40+ items, but it seems it might be the only option. I did notice something new with my Home setup: on my iPhone 14 PM with iOS 16.0.3 I can no longer do a "Restart" of any of my HP minis, but if I use my iPad with iOS 15.7 (19H12) it does work and I do see "Restarting" displayed at the top of the screen as it has always done before with my iPhone 13 PM running iOS 15. So now I am wondering if I should hold off getting the new iOS for iPad when it is released tomorrow. Anyway, these issues are disappointing after having such great home automations with Home for the past few years since switching over from ISY 994 to Apple Home. But other than this forum (20-30 members) there does not appear to be many who have developed corrupt Home setups after installing iOS 16, and certainly no public acknowledgment from Apple that issues with Home exists after iOS 16.

Concur… some of my Hue lights came on at 2:00am. At first I thought it was the Hue hub but realized that the problem began with the 16 update.

Apple has become very insular regarding customer satisfaction. The recent offerings are a joke! Apple Watch Extreme(ly) overpriced? Why not call it a Samsung square Galaxy?

Recently called Apple Support for an AirPods Pro (gen2) issue. It remains unresolved. The “Genius” reacted negatively when I said I purchased them at Amazon, saving $10, same payment option albeit not next day. At the end of the chat he stated ‘… I would never buy AirPods…’

I don't think you can estimate the size of the problem by the number of posters on this forum. Other Apple-related forums also have numerous discussions about this. In any case the Apple website does not have a dedicated Community Discussion for Homekit (I pointed this out to Apple several years ago) so users with Homekit issues might not find this forum.

An update on a solution that seems to work in my case: automations are still working after several days where I keep the Homepods playing music all night. Ironically I have created an Automation that starts playing a song late in the evening at near-zero volume and with repeat enabled.

Well, a bunch of software updates are due out today (Monday Oct 24) - 16.1 for almost every device and new MacOS and WatchOS as well.

so - has anyone tried the betas with any of this - any idea if 16.1 addresses it at all?

Things so far have been mostly good since I reinstalled everything. I only left the one HomePod mini configured throughout the process, and once everything else was added to my liking, only then did I add the second HomePod back, and the family members accounts. So far I have not added the AppleTVs to Home just to keep things simpler. I was planning on reporting back in a few days if things still worked properly…

However today there is a new HomePod OS update, which has me on edge because throughout HomePod OS 15, these updates frequently resulted in the dreaded "Loading Accessories and Scenes" message—and every time this happened my only option was to rebuild everything from scratch, which I just finished doing last weekend due to iOS 16.0. I'm installing the 16.1 updates and hoping I don't have to go through that again already.

So far tvOS 16.1 and homepodOS 16.1 are working well for me. I let my Original Homepods go to sleep (whatever that means) last night and the automations still worked.

In the release notes Apple mentions the Home app so maybe they have addressed our collective problems?

Good luck with 16.1 everyone. Note, however, that if a previous OS has corrupted your Homekit data then you might have to start again from scratch.