HomeKit remote access not always working

On a whim, I decided to unhardwire my Apple TV from our Eero network. One ATV reboot later and I can control our garage door remotely for the first time since getting the Insignia Garage Door Controller. I previously had a home-brewed raspberry pi setup that worked fine with the Apple TV hardwired.

No idea why being on the same network is insufficient; being on same WiFi/SSID is apparently important for some items. Also no idea if this will continue to work, but so far I am hopeful.

Hope this information is useful to someone.

This is my situation: on LTE, even if the signal is good, often the accessories are not reachable and I have to make more attempts to connect closing and opening the app Home. On WiFi (mine or other) all the devices are connected and respond without problems.

My hub is an iPad.

Ok! This was frustrating, but this is what I did and seems to work - not perfectly, but works.

So, I have 1 Apple TV, 1 iPad, 2 iPhones, 1 Ecobee, 3 Koogeek outlets (more to come)

1. Update software for all devices, update firmware for Koogeek using their app (for koogeek, you have to add the device using Home app, update it in Koogeek app, then in Koogeek app update the firmware (should be above version 2))

2. Remove all devices from Home app

3. Reset Apple TV - log in using one of my two apple ID's.

4. Log into iPad using the same apple ID.

5. Set up Home in iPad and use it as a Hub

At this point, I have Apple TV as the hub and iPad as standby

6. Invite my other apple ID and my wife's apple ID to control home (gave edit options)

7. Reset all outlets, and add it to home.

8. Add Ecobee to home.

After this - it looked like everything is working, inside and outside home.

Now, on day 2 when I was outside - all devices had NO RESPONSE in home app. I still could control Ecobee from Ecobee app. I came home, and still was showing NO RESPONSE. My wifi works fine, download/upload, facetime everything.

So, I plugged off and plugged back in my modem+router and worked outside my house for 2 more days.

Since then, I have to restart my moden+router every other day. I dont want to get a new modem and router as I feel its not the issue, I rarely have issues with it. (Maybe I have to bite the bullet and get a new set).

This is not the end of the story, when I am outside I sometimes get NO RESPONSE on certain devices, but I still can control those devices. Makes no sense!

I am not a fan of Alexa and google home, I want to stick to Siri, but boy are making it tough for everyone.

Apple needs to get it's act together!

I’ve been in IT for over 30 years. I learned to program using key punch cards, I use to setup network by binding protocols to NIC cards, manually mapped memory when there were TSR programs. I’m no stranger to trouble shooting issues. All of the I have seem to point to the HomeKit hub as the issue. I too would loose some functionality in HomeKit but other devices worked fine remotely. If I can control some of the devices with HomeKit I would have to assume I have communication to and through my HomeKit hub. At times even on the WiFi I couldn’t control my lights or garage. As soon as I would go into the native app, hue or myq, HomeKit appears to link back up. I haven’t seen this much since some updates, which leads me to believe they have fixed some things, but there are still lingering issues they have yet to resolve.

Since my upgrade to iOS 11, my shared devices lost the ability for remote access (even though I have Allow Editing/Remote Access enabled). The primary home device "sometimes" works remotely. This is with an Apple TV 4.

Hence, I used my iPad Air as a HomeHub but that too also stopped working with iOS 11.3. So now I don't have any remote access. I just have the message my hub is not responding and my devices are unavailable when I am away from home.

That’s incorrect. I’m not sure what your whole situation is, but I can tell you you for sure need the following:

-iCloud Keychain turned on

-2 Factor Authentication on

-either Apple TV 4, Apple TV 4K or HomePod as the hub for remote access

Not biased at all. HomeKit has been around for over 4 years and it’s still just as buggy and inconsistent as day 1. I’ve had the latest gen Apple hardware at every product release for those 4 years and updated to the latest TvOS, iOS, MacOS as soon as it is released. I have yet to go a month without a failure (minor or major) of the HomeKit system. The worst is when I have scenes scheduled to make sure the house warms up for my dogs after I leave for work and then coming home to find out my thermostat didn’t change at all.

HomeKit is a product failure in my book. Something that should make life easier and take some of the thought/worry/effort out of the day, that instead has me worried it’s too cold or thinking about turning on the lights so the house isn’t dark when I get home.

Worst of all, my HomeKit was entirely setup using a centralized account on an iPhone that sits in my living room on WiFi 24/7. That device should always be able to connect even if the thermostat doesn’t want to participate with remote access. And yet I came home today to 1 of 3 lights I expected on, and two shivering dogs because the thermostat never flipped the heat on. So even having a device on WiFi aside from the home hub and accessories doesn’t make the automation work. Complete failure.

When you say reset just a device reset or a full wipe?

I reset the Apple TV Settings>System>Reset and lost all settings and information

Thanks.. that is too bad wish Apple could at least test this scenario .. I’ll try.

I did a full reset on the Apple TV. Basically wiped it completely and set it back up. On the ecobee, I only reconnected to the WiFi. It has been working for the past few days with no issues.

Unfortunately this didn’t work for me. Works fine on my iPad on local Wifi or remote. My iPhone 8 only works when on Wifi. Just a few devices are unresponsive when remote.

Unfortunately my Google Wifi doesn’t allow forcing 2.4 or 5. I’ll try via a hotspot and report back result. Nice find @dwcowan

I have the bands on my router with different SSID’s so I don’t run into that issue. The update seems to have fixed my issue. I haven’t had n issue at all recently.

Out of interest. Do you have all of your HomeKit devices and Apple TVs on the same ssid/band?