Homekey Broke For Family Members After iOS 16.4 and HomeKit architecture update

It seems after the iOS 16.4 update (and HomeKit architecture update), the home keys for my family (setup as residents in HomeKit) no longer work. The key shows up in their Apple Wallet, but when it’s tapped against the lock, it says try again. I (the owner of the home in HomeKit) have 2 iPhones and both home keys work, no problem. It’s just the others who I have added to HomeKit, their home keys do not work.


Tried deleting home, re-adding, reset and re-added lock in HomeKit, but none of that worked, This only started happening after the 16.4 and HomeKit arch update.


using Level Lock+

my 2 iPhones: 13 and 11 (works)

family iPhones: Xr, 11, 12 (apple home key shows in wallet, but says try again when tapping)

-all iPhones on 16.4


please help

iPhone 12

Posted on Mar 30, 2023 4:07 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 1, 2023 12:18 PM

I wanted to shed some light on this issue since I too ran into this problem and was able to resolve it. Let me begin by explaining how I got to the point where only my home key (the owner of the house) worked and all the other users did not, and then the steps I took to resolving the issue. Maybe this will resolve your issue too, and give Apple some background on where to help troubleshoot a potential bug with the Home Key feature.


Background that led up to Home key not working for some users

I purchased a level lock+ back in December 2022. The installation, configuration was all straight forward and was working as expected, along with getting all family members setup with home key as well.

To clarify my order of sequence during setup: 1. I installed Level's app. 2. created an account. 3. setup a new lock in the Level app. 4. added users in the Level app. 5. I added the lock to the Home app. 6. I setup Home key on the Home app.

Ok, from here everything was working until Apple released the new architecture into Home. I didn't have issues with Apple Home, but my level lock had severe vampire battery drain - new battery would be gone in 2 days. I was also experiencing weird issues with Apple Home hub connecting to the lock (would get No response randomly) but after manually locking/unlocking the lock it would then synch and connect to my apple Home - I think this is besides the point. So I worked with Level's support to getting an RMA created for a new lock - this took WAYYYY too long (~3 mnth) But they finally got around to shipping me a new device. So once I got my NEW level lock, I deleted the existing one in the Home App and Level App, uninstalled the lock, installed my new lock and configured it as mentioned previously (setup new lock in Level's app, then added to Apple Home).

One thing different I did here though was I DID NOT invite my family members to use the NEW lock before I added the lock to Apple Home.


Anyways, when I grabbed my wife's phone to verify her phone's home key worked (I went to her Apple Wallet and saw a Home key in there so I assumed everything transposed automatically) and it wasn't working...After I did some digging, I realized, stupid me, I needed to add her to the NEW lock in Level's app. So I did that, and verified wife's phone could unlock/lock lock from Level's App, done. I tried her home key again and still "Try Again" error was coming up. I restarted her phone, and still same error.


The Solution

My thought process was maybe my wife's Home Key is not really the same Home Key linked to be used on the NEW Level Lock+ (maybe there was something that did not automatically update/change like I thought it would). There was no way to "delete/remove" her Home Key from the Apple Wallet app, so I decided to start with a clean slate. From my phone, I removed the NEW Level Lock+ from Apple Home and Level's App. After that, I made sure mine and my wife's Apple home Key disappeared from our Wallet. Then, I started the process over by setting up the lock in Level's App, inviting family members in Level App, and then adding the lock to Apple Home again. Once I did this, I was prompted to add a new Apple Home key to both my phone and my wife's phone. After that, Home Keys were working on both of our phones.


Sorry for the long write up. I hope this helps.

Similar questions

23 replies

Mar 30, 2023 5:02 AM in response to dwong888

Many users who have updated to iOS 16.4 must have a similar issue if the issues stated by you are due to the iOS.

Unless you state what the issue is many in this forum may not be able to respond positively to the issue you are facing. 



With the limited information that you have provided, It is hard to even guess the problems faced by you. 


You may get faster and better responses to your query by --> Writing an effective Apple Support Commun… - Apple ...



Please re-post with detail so that someone else can help.



Mar 30, 2023 5:02 AM in response to dwong888

This update introduces 21 new emoji and includes other enhancements, bug fixes, and security updates for your iPhone.

This update includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:

  • 21 new emoji including animals, hand gestures, and objects are now available in emoji keyboard
  • Notifications for web apps added to the Home Screen
  • Voice Isolation for cellular calls prioritizes your voice and blocks out ambient noise around you
  • Duplicates album in Photos expands support to detect duplicate photos and videos in an iCloud Shared Photo Library
  • VoiceOver support for maps in the Weather app
  • Accessibility setting to automatically dim video when flashes of light or strobe effects are detected
  • Fixes an issue where Ask to Buy requests from children may fail to appear on the parent's device
  • Addresses issues where Matter-compatible thermostats could become unresponsive when paired to Apple Home
  • Crash Detection optimizations on iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models

Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices. For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit this website: 

Apple security updates - Apple Support



Apr 11, 2023 12:48 PM in response to dwong888

So, I had issues up through the end of March with a HomeKit device (A Meross garage door opener) that broke with the 16.2/3 update. It got fixed for a couple of weeks until 16.4 came out just the other day, and the same problem cropped up again.


All of my devices are up to date. HomeKit is up to date. All have been rebooted. All have been reconnected via my network (the garage door opener and the appletv serving as home have been assigned static IPs per some other suggestions).


The specific symptoms are, upon adding the Meross garage door device (which has the latest updates as well), (which I reset and readied several times), it works for a few minutes, then goes to "updating..." and then "No response." Again, this was fixed with the immediately prior update (after having been broken for some time), and broken again with the latest update from last week to 16.4.


If I had to guess, they aren't really keeping good track of their code repository and have used an older library to update the latest build, breaking (again) what they fixed in the last one.





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Homekey Broke For Family Members After iOS 16.4 and HomeKit architecture update

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