Totally agree. Who are we to dictate whether iPads leave households or not, right?
This, all of this. Thank you for such a succinct explanation. I'd also like to add what's the user base of all home hubs that are iPad vs Apple TV + HomePod mini. Any guess is pure speculation, where as your justification is objectivity.
Of course they can, but I bet many also want to upgrade to the latest iOS to get the additional new features or just new experience (sans Home Hub lockout).
I feel for affected users, but it seems like it was a bizarre choice to let an iPad function as a home hub to begin with. The home hub is supposed eco be a device that's permanently plugged in and on the network.
Ive only ever used an iPad (which was not being used anymore prior to setting it up as a HomeKit hub, so its always plugged in) as a hub and have about 30 different accessories (lights, switches, tvs, thermostat etc)and about 15 or so automations running daily without issue so I'm not seeing how an Apple TV or HomePod is any better?
HomePad
Apple likely also has a pretty good idea how many iPads are being used as base devices AND know that the number of folks affected are exceedingly small. Absolutely not zero, but every little bit they don’t HAVE to try to make work with the newer OS features, the better.
Count me as one of them. I can control the 21 IoT devices of multiple manufacturers in my home via Alexa on my iPhone, including two televisions. Is that a “hub?” I don’t know, but I can monitor and manage all of them from one (or more if I choose) device, like the one that goes with me everywhere including outside of the house.
Meanwhile everyone else has an Apple TV made sometime in the last 5 years and doesn't have any of these problems.
That’s your opinion, it’s actually full of threads with Apple TV 4 and 5 issues.
Thread/Matter won’t require hubs. And, I’m guessing iPads don’t include Thread Border Routers.
Look, don’t bring your sensible logic into this, Apple would of COURSE want folks to buy cheaper devices instead of expensive devices… unless we’re in a different thread, of course, where Apple wants folks to buy more expensive devices than cheaper devices.
And I often do take my Apple TV with me, as it's convenient to plug it into a hotel TV and have access to my shows.
Perhaps initially it wasn't such a bizarre choice. But regardless, it seems to be a bit unreasonable not to allow existing iPads to continuing being Home Hubs (with upgraded iOS). They should just stop allowing it once such iPads can no longer be software upgraded. That would be more reasonable.
My old iPad mini has been flawless for me for over 3 years. If you keep it plugged in 24/7 then it works great. If you still use an iPad outside of it solely being a HKHub then I can see were it might not be as reliable as a HomePod or Apple TV but if you only used it as a HKhub then saying it "never worked well" is not true.
Each of those costs hundreds of dollars less than an entry level iPad. If your reasoning was all it came down to, wouldn’t they want to push more of the more expensive, higher profit margin devices instead?
no I get that an iPad is more mobile than a homePod or appleTV so it makes sense that it may not be ideal to have this type of device controlling your home if it is not always there or connected to wifi and in range of all the devices
When iPadOS 15 is on iPad installs a HomePod or Apple TV, the system will automatically recognize those as HomeKit Hub and use iPad only when those don’t work. Then you can upgrade iPad to iPadOS 16 and lose functionality.
