HomeKit remote access not always working

So after almost a year of banging my head against the wall and countless restores, removing and re-adding all my accessories. I decided to call again and be adamant it was an iCloud issue. Passed me up 3 tiers of support in the first 20 minutes of the call. Spent almost 2 hours on the phone with Mason. Long story short, he was awesome and actually put effort into figuring it out. Low and behold, it was a “block” on my AppleID. He literally “unchecked” the block at his end and almost instantly I was able to send invites, and after about 10 minutes, AppleTV was recognized as the hub again and I could control everything remotely. So if anyone has also been banging their head against the wall for almost a year, call in and tell them to check that. Kudos to Mason and his excellent customer service for actually making the effort to look into it and ask his peers. Last time it was an endless loop of being passed off by support for 3 weeks until I got frustrated and gave up. Persistence pays off I guess. I knew it wasn’t at my end. Hope this helps anyone else having the same problem! Good luck!

Here’s what I spent a good chunk of last weekend doing.

• Setup my new TP Link AC5400 router to replace the old and tired AirPort Extreme
• Delete all scenes and accessories from HomeKit
• Delete/unpair/unregistered all devices from their respective apps
• Deleted my home from the HomeKit app
• Factory reset all devices (when I say all I mean all, including Apple TV and iPhone)
• Sign into the newly-reset iphone and then the Apple TV
• Installed the Lutron app for lights And setup the entire Lutron system in the Lutron app
• Installed the Hue app And setup my one individual Hue bulb in the Hue app
• Installed the Ecobee app and setup the Ecobee 3 device in the app
• Opened HomeKit for the first time since deleting my home in step 3
• Added my 3 systems one by one into HomeKit making sure each device was setup before moving to the next one, this way I don’t have to go back and change a single thing once I’m done
• Configured individual scenes and tested each scene after it was created
• ** dramatic pause **
• Turned. Off. WiFi.
• ** second dramatic pause **
• IT WORKED!

I was able to tell Siri to turn on the lights for the dogs and everything happened like clockwork. I left WiFi off on my phone for the rest of the night to make sure the other Siri controlled scenes and schedules worked. The next morning I woke up and the lights I scheduled for my morning routine we’re all running properly. So I turned WiFi back on for the phone and felt my eyes welling up with tears.

When Apple says reset or factory reset, they mean EVERY. SINGLE. THING. Perhaps all of this wasn’t necessary for most people. But with the new router I changed my SSID for a couple reasons. So reconnecting everything to WiFi is really only two steps away from factory resetting it all.

Lets see what the next few days hold for me. It was a solid 5 hours of non stop resetting/downloading/configuring/testing and I’d really like it to last longer than a week this time.

3 days ago I made a few tweaks and since then I have not had any connection issues with my Homekit remotely:

> on my Netgear router 2.4: I switched the channel from auto to 11

> for good measure I also gave my apple TV a static route

It takes around 6 seconds for my Iphone to connect to my homekit remotely.

I will continue to test and see if it continues to work as it is supposed to.

I hooked my Apple TV directly to my router using an Ethernet cable and so far it’s been working fine.

I have had similar issues with outside the home connectivity as well as intermittent inside home problems.

My system includes Ecobee, Hue, Lutron, Liftmaster, Eve, Hunter and Schlage locks. Th biggest issues were with the Lutron, Liftmaster and Hunter accessories. The Ecobee was intermittently connected and usually had the wrong setpoint.

I have had a surprising, substantial improvement by simply restarting my WiFi router. Inside house on WiFi works again completely. Away from home connection works with occasional hang up with the hunter fan.

Good luck.

So since my last posting on Apr 22, 2018, I just resolved my issue last weekend.

After going through every setting, and updating and factory restoring my iPhone and AppleTV, I finally have a working HomeKit that works away from home.I believe there's an issue or bug with my old iCloud drive account that hasn't been update and the fact that I have several Apple computers that aren't running the same MacOS.

1. Follow Apple's instructions - Automate and remotely access your HomeKit accessories - Apple Support

and make sure Homekit works while at home.

2. Check to make sure Location Services are enabled on your iPhone.

Settings -> Privacy -> Homekit -> Enable all devices

Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> Homekit - While using

Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> Homekit - ANY Device listed should be ON - While using

Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> Homekit - System Services -> HomeKit - ON

3. Check to make sure Home Hubs is listed and "Connected"

3. Click on your name listed in People and my issue was that "Allow Remote Access" was OFF and grey out so I can't enable it.

a. To resolve this, you'll need to reset your iCloud drive. I don't recall entering a 4 digit security code, so I ended up deleting everything including the save iCloud Keychains which probably contains some HomeKit security settings.

b. Delete the Home with all the devices.

c. Remove the iCloud account from your iPhone

d. recreate the home check to make sure your account now has "Allow Remote Access" enabled. I don't know why it can't be changed at this point.

e. Invite other users. Their account allow for both Remote and Edit settings to be enabled.. strange.

4. Go to your AppleTV and logout and log back into your iCloud account. Make sure your new Home is listed there.

5. Check on your iPhone to make sure Home Hubs is listed and "Connected"

6. Disable wifi and bluetooth and test it out.

Anyways, good luck. I'm on day 3 and it's still working. I'm now going to finish purchasing the rest of my home automation devices, but not the HomePod until the 2nd or 3rd generation.

On December 29, I posted the following: "The jury is still out, but I am temporarily having success following the recommendations in this link. Apple TV HomeKit Disconnected

I made a channel adjustment to my router which was previously set to automatic and reflecting "severe" interference. Let's see what happens.."

I have had NO ISSUES since changing to the 5G network on my existing router (I was on 2.4 which had severe interference that I was not aware of), adjusted the channel to be fixed so that it did not change automatically. I did NOT get a new router. Just made adjustments in the settings on my existing router. This fix has worked perfectly for me.

Like others on this thread my remote HomeKit was working beautifully for about a month in December. Then something changed and has not worked since. My Apple TV 4K network is hardwired so this has nothing to do with router Wi-Fi frequencies. I read another article that said you must prevent the AppleTV from ever going to sleep. I tried this after toggling HomeKit off and on and thus far have succeeded in maintaining remote access. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Confirm same. Since moving to a single band on my Wi-fi I have had no issue since my original post

Hi had the same issue, I just tried to disconnect / connect the homekit on the Apple TV and it solved the issue right away:

go to Seetings > Accounts > iCloud > HomeKti > click to disconnect > click again to reconnect..

Now I can use HomeKit remotely via 4G again.

I’ve had this problem too... I’ve spent ages trying to troubleshoot it, and followed most of the suggestions made by various people in this thread. Some of the comments prompted me to check my wife’s iPhone to see if it worked on hers, and I found it did. So... I wondered if my iCloud or Apple ID was ‘blocked’ as per some comments here... but before calling, I figured a reboot of my iPhone would be in order.

That resolved the problem for me, straight off the bat, much to my surprise and frustration, as if I’d thought of doing that earlier, I may have been able to access my kit while I was away from home the last couple of days!

Anyway... just thought I’d share... I’m just hoping this isn’t a recurring issue. I’ll try to remember to update the thread in a couple of weeks when I know if the issue has reoccurred.

Update:

It has now been over a week and Homekit continues to work well remotely since I made the channel tweak.

FYI: I am using a Netgear router (R8000)

I hooked my Apple TV up to my router via an Ethernet cable. I’m hoping that will help.

This sounds exactly like what I was going through with this. I really didn't want to but a new router either, but I did because it was worth it to not have to restart my router every day or so and I need to be able to control my lights from work. I have had zero problems since getting top of the line router....