HomeKit After 16.2, any one have luck upgrading the architecture?

[StumpyBloke]

Something else to add which I noticed last night: when I said "hey **** for brains, good night", my iPhone rather than the HomePod directly next to it picked up my request and actioned it absolutely immediately. Whenever the HomePod actions it, I get the usual on it just a sec and finally "the scene is set, good night". This can take up to 10 seconds.


Now, considering this new architecture is supposedly meant to rely on the home hubs for more, why does this still take such a long time? There is absolutely zero improvement in HomeKit for me.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Sample size of one here, but I'm very impressed with the 16.2 update for HomeKit. Mine has been 100% stable since updating, no devices 'lost' or 'no response'. Which has got to be a first! I'm using everything from iDevices smart plugs, ecobee, Leviton, Yale and Logi Circle.

 

[Itinj24]

Something else to add which I noticed last night: when I said "hey **** for brains, good night", my iPhone rather than the HomePod directly next to it picked up my request and actioned it absolutely immediately. Whenever the HomePod actions it, I get the usual on it just a sec and finally "the scene is set, good night". This can take up to 10 seconds.


Now, considering this new architecture is supposedly meant to rely on the home hubs for more, why does this still take such a long time? There is absolutely zero improvement in HomeKit for me.

I’ve always had 100% success rate with the iPhone.

 

[Itinj24]

Sample size of one here, but I'm very impressed with the 16.2 update for HomeKit. Mine has been 100% stable since updating, no devices 'lost' or 'no response'. Which has got to be a first! I'm using everything from iDevices smart plugs, ecobee, Leviton, Yale and Logi Circle.

My HomeKit has been very stable with iOS 16 for the most part. Rarely get a no response and if I do, it clears itself. It’s really just the HomePods that are the bane of my existence.

 

[Morac]

I noticed today my Ecobee camera stopped recording video or detection motion. I have 3 Home hubs: Apple TV 4K (2nd gen) and 2 HomePod Minis. The Apple TV was connected and the HomePods were standby. Automation was working as my Hue lights turned on when I got home after sunset, but HKSV wasn’t working. I had tested it after upgrading and it was. I unplugged the camera and plugged it back in, but it made no difference.

I ended up unplugging all my Home hubs, waiting till Home detected that and the plugged the Apple TV back in. Recording started working again. I then plugged in the HomePods and recording still worked.

I’ve never had to do this before. I guess I’ll see how long it continues to work.

 

[appleCakes]

For those with Wi-Fi HomeKit devices only at least, if any problem, there’s no need for backup HomeKit hubs. I have 3 Apple TVs and had lots of issues until I disabled HomeKit on all but one of them. No problem since then.

 

[Diamond Dog]

I also couldn't get my wife back to control our home.
Then I found this instruction. After I updated all of her devices to 16.2.
The following worked for us:

0. Update all Devices
1. Remove all the invites.
2. unplug every hub in your house.
3. wait until your Home app actually says no home hubs are connected. It can take 3 or 4 minutes. There will be an alert that no home hubs are connected.
4. plug in a single hub. Wait for it to boot up.
A message will pop up that a home hub is connected.
5. send your invite. It will go through. Accept it and follow the prompts.
6. on the primary account phone, after all that, reboot phone so your invitees show in your Home app.

Chiming in to report that I had to go through this same process, although it was a few days ago and I hadn't seen this post yet, so I tried about 100 things prior to stumbling my way into these exact steps.

 

[catean]

As expected :

Apple Pulls iOS 16.2 Option to Upgrade to New Home Architecture

One of the key new features in iOS 16.2 and macOS Ventura 13.1 is the ability to upgrade to a new Home app architecture. While Apple hasn't...

www.macrumors.com

 

[StumpyBloke]

As expected :

Apple Pulls iOS 16.2 Option to Upgrade to New Home Architecture

One of the key new features in iOS 16.2 and macOS Ventura 13.1 is the ability to upgrade to a new Home app architecture. While Apple hasn't...

www.macrumors.com

Laughable how poor Apple's coding is these days. And HomeKit has just been left to fester, along with Siri, and get worse every single year. No one will ever convince me that Apple Execs use their own systems in their own homes.

 

[Morac]

HomeKit secure video recording is just broken after upgrading. It will work for awhile, but less than 24 hours later it stops. This also includes notifications from cameras.

To fix this I need to reboot the current Home hub and then reboot the hub that takes over so the original hub is primary again. Basically HKSV recording stops working on the hub itself until rebooted. That’s really annoying since I have 3 hubs, which means I need to reboot all 3 periodically now.

Sometimes doing that breaks video streaming in which case I also need to unplug the camera.

 

[hkeely]

I also couldn't get my wife back to control our home.
Then I found this instruction. After I updated all of her devices to 16.2.
The following worked for us:

0. Update all Devices
1. Remove all the invites.
2. unplug every hub in your house.
3. wait until your Home app actually says no home hubs are connected. It can take 3 or 4 minutes. There will be an alert that no home hubs are connected.
4. plug in a single hub. Wait for it to boot up.
A message will pop up that a home hub is connected.
5. send your invite. It will go through. Accept it and follow the prompts.
6. on the primary account phone, after all that, reboot phone so your invitees show in your Home app.

No success with this, unfortunately. Home still won’t appear on other user’s phone.

 

[Morac]

I figured I’d call Apple support. The first person I spoke to didn’t know what Apple Home or the HomePod was. She was in media support. I’m not sure how I ended up there since I wrote HomeKit in the description. I’m currently being transferred to iOS support, which is probably also the wrong group, but the only other option was Mac support.

 

[Morac]

I reached an advanced senior tech for Home. The only thing he could suggest was removing my camera from home and re-adding which didn’t help.

I’ve been doing some more testing and found that HomeKit secure video (HKSV) recording will work after restarting all my Home hubs as long as the camera is set to record. If I switch to Stream for more than a few minutes, then when switched back to recording, recording won’t work until I restart the Home hubs again.

Basically HKSV recording is worthless as it stops working unless recording is always enabled. At least with an Ecobee camera.

I didn’t test what happens if notifications are enabled. Mine are only enabled when I’m not home which is the same as when I enable recording.

Does anyone have a camera that is not set to record all the time, that will record consistently after updating the HomeKit architecture?

 

[StumpyBloke]

[mention]Morac [/mention] Just had a look at my living room camera which is set to only record when I am away from the home, and it is working absolutely fine (apart from having to occasionally power them all down). It also worked fine prior to the update. It's a Logitech Circle View camera by the way.

 

[Morac]

[mention]Morac [/mention] Just had a look at my living room camera which is set to only record when I am away from the home, and it is working absolutely fine (apart from having to occasionally power them all down). It also worked fine prior to the update. It's a Logitech Circle View camera by the way.

You are on the new Home Architecture? I can reproduce the recording issue on demand simply by switching to Stream only for several minutes. Once it switches back to recording, recording won’t work unless I restart the home hubs.

Do you have any cameras set to record all the time? I only have that one camera, so maybe that’s the difference.

 

[StumpyBloke]

You are on the new Home Architecture? I can reproduce the recording issue on demand simply by switching to Stream only for several minutes. Once it switches back to recording, recording won’t work unless I restart the home hubs.

Do you have any cameras set to record all the time? I only have that one camera, so maybe that’s the difference.

Yes I am on the new architecture. I have a few cameras permanently recording yes

 

[Morac]

Yes I am on the new architecture. I have a few cameras permanently recording yes

That’s probably the issue then. I think at least one camera needs to be on permanent recording otherwise recording just stop working entirely until the Home Hubs are restarted.

I have one camera. For now I’ve left it to record all the time and it is still working after 9 hours whereas before it stopped working after 5 minutes.

I may adjust the recording categories when I’m at home. That’s a pain, but less so than rebooting all my home hubs.

 

[Someirishguy]

My architecture upgrade went well. I have 6 home hubs (gen 3 4K Apple TV with thread, 1st gen Apple TV, 3 HomePod minis, 1 HomePod OG) and about 40 devices (Philips hue lights/plugs, Tado thermostats, Netatmo doorbell, Circle view outdoor camera, and Twinkly Christmas tree lights). Shared home with wife.

Before up upgraded I made sure all our devises were up to date, including all hubs and all connected devices (firmware etc.).

Just before upgrading I restarted all home hubs - and made sure my preferred home hub was connected (new Apple TV).

Pulled the trigger, all went well (although I had to restart the HomePods again). HomeKit running better than before in almost all regards ✅

 

[Morac]

I’m finding the Home app on my iOS devices runs in the background frequently throughout the day. I don’t recall that being the case previously. If I don’t use my phone much it’s in the top 3 battery draining apps.

 

[4k78]

Ugh. Did the upgrade when it came out and didn’t seem to have any problems. But this morning I noticed our ecobee 3 was giving way too warm temperature reading. I unplugged it and reset and seems to be working fine now. Unfortunately I can’t add it back to the Home app. Have to use the ecobee app.

 

[WannaGoMac]

My 2 smart lightbulbs with apple tv as the only hub worked perfectly and flawlessly on iOS 15. Since iOS 16, they turn off and on randomly, and my measly 5 automation are not reliable. In the middle of the night, the lightbulbs will just turn on. I also noticed a couple times where the Apple TV will pause what I’m watching and the light turns off.

I have deleted all automations and re-made them multiple times, and logged in and out of my iCloud account on my apple tv.

The fact is, we shouldn’t have to be doing all this crap to try and fix it. This is horrible, and an embarrassment for the company

 

[Morac]

I guess this is “good” in that Apple now recognizes the release was FUBARed, but why was it even released in this state?

Apple Adds iOS 16.2's Home App Upgrade to Internal List of Major Issues

Apple has marked iOS 16.2's Home architecture update as a major issue by adding it to an internal list of issues typically only reserved for...

www.macrumors.com

 

[rillrill]

Just had a weird HomeKit crash this morning. It was weird. The whole home went down and all the hubs restated.

 

[martens]

We just have one smart plug, and since 16.2, it just won't stay 'in the loop'. I've removed/added it several times, it works for awhile, and then stops working.

Update: after a couple of days of 'rest', it has started working again. Hmm.

 

[TonyC28]

Are we not able to tell Apple TVs to not be a hub anymore since this horrendous update? My older Apple TVs keep taking over as hubs and messing things up.