Cannot invite family members to HomeKit

Apple update Its article for Homekit sharing and write that device need to be at least on 11.2.5 to share works.... bleh!! 😮 Use the Home app on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support. So my wife iPhone 5 is now obsolete.... programmed obsolescence.

From what I've read elsewhere. In the new OS11.2 update, Apple discovered a security issue. So they "turned off" access for anyone you "invite" to your "homekit" home. They are supposed to release another update with the fix in the next week or so.

It's frustrating. I have a email address for my home and have HomeKit setup using that and a apple tv 4 as the hub. Then I add people and authorize them to have access. But it's really only myself and my wife. Now we can't use the homekit app. I like it because it's faster than waiting to open any other app to access the various devices like Lutron, ecobee, iDevices, August and Onelink. HomeKit is like a One Stop Shop for all our devices and the various apps.

I have the same issue. Spent an hour with Apple Support yesterday - unresolved and escalated to engineering. I am rethinking my dedication to HomeKit - this is being swept under the rug - but it is a major issue when folks lose the ability to control their home devices!

Yeah, this is a huge problem. I just purchased my first Homekit accessories and I was trying to invite my partner for an hour, and looking up information about it. This is completely frustrating, I got into Homekit so all the people in my house could use it and control from their phones or remotely if needed, but I am the only one after investing 100's of dollars into it! It would be nice if Apple would give you a notification at least stating there is a security issue, but instead I get that the emails I'm putting in are not associated with an Apple ID, which isn't true.

Apple! What is happening to you?! Nothing just works anymore...

I’m curious what this means for user who are still using an iDevice that’s not upgradable to iOS 11.

I have an iPhone 5 and iPad 4 that I was originally started with using it a different iCloud account setup for the house.

I have family sharing setup with that account being shared with wife and I.

I also granted the wife and I access from the houses iCloud account for the HomeKit. Till recently.

Since this security issue came up with the iOS 11.2 update, I re did my HomeKit setup on my iCloud account now. And today the iOS 11.2.1 came out.

So I have installed the new update on my iPhone 6s and Apple TV 4. I’m now eagerly waiting to be able to try and add another user. But once Apple flips that switch back on, how will it affect iDevices that are stuck in iOS 10 world?

I tried to add my family members and friends to share my Home app accessories, but the I get the message “Invitation failed ...Apple ID is not registered with iCloud”. I have verified that I am indeed using their iCloud emails. So far I have tried removing and re-adding all homesharing members, deleting and reinstalling the home app, logging out of and deleting all my other smart home apps, resetting all HomeKit accessories, repeating with wife’s phone, using her phone to invite me to a whole new home account and disabling two factor Authentication. Interestingly, I was able to send an invite to her actual @iCloud.com email account to homesharing although nothing at all is associated with that email (ie it is not used for her Apple ID account and she doesn’t even use it for email but it does exist )

I'm still having the issue. So it appears to be a bit hit and miss whether it works or not.

I've updated both phones and the Apple TV. I've not updated the iPads though. I wonder if all of a user's devices need to be on 11.2.1 before the invite will work. It would be good to have some guidance from Apple. Say in the release notes for the update for example.

Allowed me to invite my wife finally (nothing else changed, I just waited), but not my mom. I guess we have to wait for Apple IDs to be addded to a database or wait for something else to update server side that can’t be controlled.

It still does not work with my iphone and my wife’s ipad updated to 11.2.1 As of Dec. 20, 2017.

I have reset the homekit and now I cannot invite my wife as it says my wife’s id is not registered on icloud. Such frustrating!

Anyone reading this, I recommend NOT nuking your Homekit or accessories. I tried this several times, even started by restoring my phone. Its wont fix anything. The solution appears to be waiting after the 11.2.1 update, or trying different invite methods like:

1) invite yourself from a fake home from another persons phone

2) inviting from elgato eve app

3) using their @icloud.com email address.

I fixed it by setting a new home with my wife’s account and inviting myself as a member. It seems that there are some of the accounts that are not working properly in the apple id - unregistered to icloud.

I found a work around by using the Phillips hue app. I went to settings for HomeKit in the app and was able to share my home. It was buried in the settings but it looks like they might have some old code in there that actually works.

I can invite, with success, anyone but my wife. She is part of our family sharing iCloud account. Her iCloud account seems to work fine. She can invite anyone except for me into her HomeKit home. For some reason we can not add each other. The invite gets sent and then accepted by my wife, but then it gets hung up indefinitely. It has been doing this for a couple of weeks. Last call to Apple was when it first started. They were just reading the forums for answers. One guy even told me the Apple HomeKit server was down. I did not believe him. She is using an iPhone 7 Plus on iOS 11.2.1. I am using an iPhone 6s on iOS 11.2.1. Our hub is a 4th gen Apple TV. Very frustrating.

This was helpful. I was able to find the place to send the invitation from the Hue app but they haven't received it. On my phone it just says Invitation Pending. I'll give it a while to see what happens.

I decided to try deleting the old invites and sending them again. This time 1 of the 2 invites went through. Now my wife can control the lights with HomeKit. My daughter still has to use the Hue app.