HomeKit- After upgrading to 16.4, automations and scene buttons are unreliable

I'm having similar issues. After the 16.4 upgrade my Home hub defaulted to a HomePod Mini. Nanoleaf bulbs and other devices were sluggish to respond. A few automations stopped working (e.g. Eve motion sensor turning on nanoleaf bulb). I turned off all the HomePod minis and forced the (latest) Apple TV to act as a Home hub and all worked fine again.

I wonder, since you mentioned they’re already messed up, what would happen if you removed the Thread devices entirely (not necessarily permanent, just a test!) To be honest, I don’t think Thread is all it was cracked up to be. In homes with more than one Home hub, based on not only what I’ve read but also my experience, the Home hubs get confused about which one should be the main Thread router (independent of the designated Home hub, don’t get those two confused) and they just end up using Bluetooth because they can’t “agree”. The new Matter standard is much better in my experience, and you can get Thread-like speeds, yet much better reliability, from Matter or regular HomeKit accessories as long as you have good Wi-Fi and fast routers. I ended up selling my Nanoleaf bulbs for nearly their full price of when I got them, and my Home has been 10x more reliable without them bottlenecking the system, so to speak.

FYI, I mentioned when I sold them (on eBay) that they work best when used in homes with only one Home hub. I reached out after they were purchased and the person who bought them says the two they got work great - as fast as flipping a switch - in their bedroom with their single HomePod mini. So that’s a great use case for the Nanoleaf bulbs that actually lets them work as intended.

Yes, this all seems to be thread related, all my automations dependent on Eve devices are hit or miss. All other zigbee (Aqara, Hue and others) work well. Looking at the Eve app the the “thread network” it’s constantly fluctuating routes and devices right next to border routers don’t seem to peer with them, they find far away routes.

The architecture upgrade completely messed up thread.

After updating my iPhone to 16.4.1, my home automation problems seems to go away.

Kind of weird because my homepod is still on 16.4. Only my iPhone was updated to 16.4.1.

An update on iPhone somehow affects home automations?

I too am facing similar issues. I have only one homepod mini as my homekit hub, 22 aqara devices, and 14 zemismart devices. All of them connected to their respective hubs using zigbee 3.0.

After the 16.4 updates, all of the homekit automations related to those devices become very unreliable. Hit and miss. But automations on the homepod only don’t have the same issue.

Example: An aqara mini switch which i used as doorbell is supposed to trigger the homepod to play doorbell chime. Previously it was working well. But now is a hit and miss. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

I also trigger my homepod mini to play music every hour. This one doesn’t have that issue.

I don’t think it is thread-only issue.

I’m not using scenes but I’d agree automations have become unreliable at about 16.3. 16.4 didn’t improve it so I then did the architecture upgrade. It’s only gotten worse. Some have said it’s my wifi. I’m not convinced it is though.

The best thing to do is to let Apple know: Feedback - Home App - Apple. If more people submit feedback, the more likely it is to be addressed. 34 of us clicked “me too” on this thread. I feel like I could fiddle around with settings and resets and fix it, only to have the next update mess it all up again!

Hi,

yes. I've got more than 23 Evehome devices. Since monday all of them make trouble. I installed everything from scratch. Today same problem. Reason: my 5 Homepod mini do not set up a Thread network as before, instead all devices are working with Bluetooth again. The Thread mesh will not work, where all devices communicate with each other. Checked that with the Eve app in the settings where the Thread networked can be controlled.

I'm really angry about that. Worked before 16.4 for month as yours. Never Apple smarthome again, took so much of my spare time in the past and now. Why is it so difficult? Any Openhab or Smart Assistant with Zigbee works better.

(Sorry for moderate English, I'm German).

Kind regards

G.

That’s quite strange. I have more than 65 HomeKit devices, including many Home hubs that total 8 HomePod minis, two OG HomePods, and three Apple TVs. I found that the 16.4 update fixed everything that was still bugging me about the 16.3.2 update, and I’ve been very happy with it so far. The one thing that I did notice a couple months ago is that all my HomeKit troubles were related to my Nanoleaf smart bulbs. Pulled them out, upgraded to VOCOlink, and everything works like a charm and has ever since. Additionally, upgrading my router to the tri-router Eero Pro 6 mesh system, which is HomeKit compatible, just served to make everything a little faster and round out the experience.

If you have a chance to reply, I’d be very interested to know how you managed to downgrade from a later version of HomePod software (16.3) to an older version (16.2). I didn't even know this was possible, and while I hope that my Home experience stays reliable, it’d be great to have that as a backup plan just in case!

Just updated to 16.5, but still, since 16.4 and after that 16.4.1 and now 16.5, location automations are very unreliable. When I come home it will not run the automations, but also when I am home and my partner leaves, it will run the automations for last person leaves home….I never had this issue with HomeKit and Apple keeps telling they don’t have a clue. It started on 16.4, the next day after the update. I have the latest Apple 4K Wired to internet as a hub, HomeKit minis it does not matter at all for me. And even when I did the button sequence and reset my IPhone in that case I was home and the last person leaves home automation was finished, it did not change a thing. Only when I disconnected the power of the HomePod mini which at the time was the active hub it started working again…. For me HomeKit became unusable for my Alarm system and security cameras… I really hope it’s not just us (38), I have no clue what I am doing wrong…so have around 48 HomeKit devices, but all of them are effected because it’s the automation not running.

Yeh I know what you mean on the possible 'confusion' for thread. Noticed my border router is not always my Home hub. Might try some experimentation, but at the moment with the Apple TV as the Home hub (and threat router) all seems to be working.

16.4.1 broke my scheduled automations.

16.2 I did the “architecture upgrade” before it was pulled, and that created all kinds of havoc - but mainly with family members in the home, my automations mostly worked.

16.3.x had some HomeKit bug fixes here and there, most notably in HomePod firmware.

16.4 was supposed to have had a ton of HomeKit improvements, enough to where they re-enabled the “architecture upgrade”.

My HomeKit was mostly stable on 16.4

Now, after the 16.4.1 update (which only was applicable to phones, iPads, and the associated MacOS 13.3.1 release - but not HomePods or AppleTV) - my scheduled automations are no longer firing.

I have so much money tied up in HomeKit devices that I am really disappointed with the reliability in this space.

It has been terrible since ios16 debuted.

Interesting. I *think* my issues are thread related, but who knows. The problem with diagnosing HomeKit problems is you never know if it's your router, your Home hub or your edge devices (e.g. nanoleaf bulbs).

I have one automation that turns on a porch light and hall light (both nanoleaf) when I return home - they worked fine. It was the automations where an eve motion sensor trigger nanoleaf bulbs that broke.

This is just random stuff it seems, mine are not he same and one specific automation just stopped working all together. The Eve app would report Motion but nothing in the Home app.

it’s a whole architecture change, issues are expected but ****, this is beta level stuff not GA.