Homekit + Family Sharing not working

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Level 1

21 points

Homekit + Family Sharing not working

I have setup homekit on my iPhone X and I have some Elgato Eve and Philips Hue accessories configured.

I also have my Apple TV (4k) as a hub and my Apple TV 4 as a spare hub.

This all working perfect!

I also have Family Sharing active for my wife and daughter so that we can share iCloud storage, purchases, .... this is also working great.

But know I just want to share "my home" from homekit with my family and ..... this is a disaster! I can't even invite my wife or daughter because I get an error that their email address (which is also their AppleId) is not registered on iCloud. But I can login using that email address on iCloud! So it is their iCloud account and Apple Id and Email address at the same time.

I have tried everything .... the only solution I can think of is to use a spare device (iPhone, iPad) and leave that at home so that everybody needs to use that to turn on the lights or the TV. But that is an expensive power-switch!

So I really hope someone can give me some advice how I can share my Homekit home with my family using family sharing.

Thank you.

Posted on Dec 12, 2017 12:00 PM

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Answer 1

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bartfrombcit Author

Level 1

21 points

Dec 13, 2017 12:32 PM in response to bartfrombcit

For me it's working again.

This morning I talked to Apple Support for more than 40 minutes and they told me to try step 2 to 7 when I had all devices available.

1. I installed this new updated on all my iPhones, iPads and Apple TV's.

2. I logged out each Apple ID on all iOS devices and restarted the device

3. I logged out from iCloud on the Apple TV's and restarted the device

4. I logged in on iCloud on Apple TV

5. I logged in with my Apple Id my Master iPhone (the device I used to setup Homekit)

6. I logged in with the Apple Id of my wife on her phone

7. I tried to invite her on my Homekit - same error 😟

But than I realised that I also use Philips Hue in my Homekit configuration.

So I went in my Philips Hue app - Settings - Homekit & Siri - Advanced - Homes (maybe the name is different but it's the first one of the 2 options) - select "my house" and clicked on Share Home and I invited my wife here.

And BINGO .... the invite is send to my wife her phone and when she clicks on it Homekit opens (not Philips Hue) and after she approves, everything is working on her phone.

I did the same for my daughter and within 15 seconds everything was working.

Hope this helps!

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Answer 2

bartfrombcit Author

Level 1

21 points

Dec 12, 2017 12:19 PM in response to bartfrombcit

Probably (I can't confirm this) has Apple disabled this functionality because they discovered a bug in iOS 11.2 as you can read here:

https://9to5mac.com/2017/12/07/homekit-vulnerability/

So hopefully they fix this fast. I wonder why they don't inform their customers about this issue ....

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Answer 3

mcwllms

Level 1

4 points

Dec 24, 2017 2:37 PM in response to bartfrombcit

Thanks for the information. I've been struggling with this for days. I shared and invited from the Hue app and all is good now. All family members have access via the Homekit app again.

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