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Apple Preparing to Re-Release Revamped HomeKit Architecture That Was Removed From iOS 16.2
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PROTIP: You can **HUGELY** improve HomeKit reliability by assigning a static IP to each device.
In my experience having a similarly large number of devices, it’s the network flux that kills reliability.
I used to have dreadful HomeKit after smart-homing everything, now it all works great.
It is a royal PITA to detect all the MAC addresses, but you only have to record them once ever. And the vendor codes help identification.
The mapping setup is easy though. And once you do it, the benefits are SO WORTH IT.
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And it’s not just HomeKit this helps. I’ve found it greatly improves most of my home networking (most of which relies on Bonjour/zeroconf).
With such a dense network there is just a stunning number of dynamic IP switching going on. Every single service caches IP for a certain amount of time and has ‘smart’ retry attempts, etc when something fails because the device is no longer there.
And these retry attempts can take a variable amount of time depending on whether there is nothing there or a different device entirely or just a different version of the same device.
All this adds time and network traffic when IPs shift.
Static IPs solve a huge category of issues.
You keep a spreadsheet of your device MAC addresses and mappings into static IPs. Add to it as you add a new device. It’s very easy to maintain.
And your computers and phones can set a network ClientID. A name like “bobs-phone”, which you can use instead of MAC address for mapping. This is great because migrating to a new computer/phone will keep the same clientid and you won’t need to update your mapping for the new MAC.
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PROTIP 2: Bridged devices are WAY better for smarthomes than direct connect wifi connections. Especially as you get dozens of them.
Not an option for all types of devices, but your lightbulb does not need to be a first class WiFi client competing for frequency and switching resources and blocking your phone and laptop. Dedicated radio frequencies on bridges are WAY better.
Home wifi networks generally don’t like having 100 clients. Especially in noisy areas. The more smart devices you can off-load to bridges, the better performance you’ll get for all your networked services.
There’s not that many simultaneous requests a home wifi router can handle. You’re killing your network performance by having 100 clients on consumer hardware.
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I’m glad I hesitated to upgrade last time. I really want the new framework but when this is rereleased I’ll wait a few days before upgrading.
In my case, I run three separate homes on three separate AppleID's, all inter-shared with each other so I can control any of them from any device, with a total of over 250 devices spread between them. I upgraded to the new architecture as soon as it came out, and it has been flawless.
I was about to go out of town for a month, and it was always slow to update when I was out of town because it had to poll EVERY device any time I opened the Home app with the old architecture, whereas the new architecture maintains the status of accessories in iCloud [correction: on your Home Hub (HomePod or Apple TV)] and when you are remote, it only has to poll that one location to get the status of the entire home at once. That is the primary difference between the new and old architecture.
I also have over 40 automations across the three homes.
Obviously, I understand my experience doesn't match with everyone else. I'm not implying it does. Apple pulled the upgrade because of legitimate problems. But that doesn't mean it was 100% broken for everyone.
For me, it has been flawless, and so vastly superior to the old method. And I DO have a fairly elaborate setup.
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I agree. Bridges are the way to go. But it would be great if that too could be standardized and zigbee etc could be built into mesh routers, AppleTVs and HomePods. And that routers would have to meet certain standards to be useful for Matter/HomeKit.
Like the Google mess (pun intended) I have. For simplicity Google in their wisdom decided that I should not be able to make a separate ssid for 2.4 GHz and some bridges won’t connect unless you can point them to a pure 2.4, meaning your iPhone needs to be on one (because apple in their wisdom made it so simple that you cannot choose here either). So some bridges can only be connected if I pull out an old 2.4 router, create wifi w same SSID, turn of the mess and then connect.
Likewise all of these smart devices are of questionable security. Larger brands are likely to have security under control while others allow for all sorts of connections from outside. I would be most comfortable having all of that stuff on a separate network and eg the AppleTv being the only bridge between the devices and our computers and phones.
It’s definitely not fully thought through and we have all become beta testers
Can you not manually turn off 5ghz on the Google mesh? My Deco units, I just toggle off 5 ghz, connect new smart home device to the network using 2.4 and then toggle 5 back on.
That's pretty much how Matter works with the Thread radio protocol, which is conceptually similar to Zigbee. Thread is mesh-based so packets can automatically be routed across multiple devices (even smart lightbulbs and such) to reach longer distances.
AppleTV and HomePod work as bridges between Wi-Fi and Thread (since iPhones don't have a Thread radio).
Oh bummer. I didn’t know the Circle View omits the Occupancy sensor. My Circle 2’s are still going strong so never upgraded yet.
Nope. Google decided that such a switch was not needed. Old threads claims that you can use guest-network for that, but they seem to have changed that so that’s also dual band.
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I don't know why so many people trash Homekit. I have so many non-Homekit certified devices connected to Homekit through Homeassistant and Scrypted and everything works great.
Alexa/Google don't really support local devices (Alexa does support lights/switches using emulated hue configuration in homeassistant but it's kind of a hacky way of doing things) but with Homekit, I can support local devices and block those devices from the internet. Homekit hub takes care of internet to local connectivity to remotely control so it's much more secure.
Currently using - Unifi Wifi with UDM Pro, Tuya devices blocked from internet and using localtuya version 3.x (don't use version 4.x it needs some work) integration in homeassistant, cameras setup through scrypted. Everything is rock solid.
Alexa/Google don't really support local devices (Alexa does support lights/switches using emulated hue configuration in homeassistant but it's kind of a hacky way of doing things) but with Homekit, I can support local devices and block those devices from the internet. Homekit hub takes care of internet to local connectivity to remotely control so it's much more secure.
Currently using - Unifi Wifi with UDM Pro, Tuya devices blocked from internet and using localtuya version 3.x (don't use version 4.x it needs some work) integration in homeassistant, cameras setup through scrypted. Everything is rock solid.
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IMHO this HomeKit stuff should be for the masses and work out of the box. Not only for technically gifted people who like to tinker and experiment a lot.
To me these gadgets should not be a hobby. It should make my life easier. For the lights in our basement I am this close to just reverting to dumb light bulbs and re-teaching the family to hit the switch to turn the lights on/off. Compare that I already spent several hours and a lot of money on these things with that it takes 1 s of your life to hit a switch.
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Yeah totally agree. My wife lost her Dad recently, and we've been trying to get everything in life sorted for her Mum. No Homekit connection there, but it got my wife thinking and saying that if anything ever happened to me, she wouldn't have a clue what to do if the lights or heating or anything else we've got controlled by HA stopped working.
That's the problem, HomeKit-based HA has got to be so easy and reliable that anyone who's capable of using an iPhone or iPad will be able to deal with it. It's still too much of a geek hobby, and even Apple still seem to treat it that way.
And I don’t mind Apple doing some experimental stuff. But then they should just label it as such. Or provide meaningful error messages.
It’s probably part of the reason why some users report it as unstable. They (possibly my self included) are not at the tech level to do required troubleshooting. There’s no way my wife will be able to just take over if I am hit by a falling piano.
It’s probably part of the reason why some users report it as unstable. They (possibly my self included) are not at the tech level to do required troubleshooting. There’s no way my wife will be able to just take over if I am hit by a falling piano.
Ouch, that's brutal!
I know a lot of things are moving towards simplifying and 'ease of use' for majority of plug and play users, but that's a bit over-the-top removing a simple option.
For most of us here there this is fantastic information. Now think about the proverbial "your" moms and dads, aunts and uncles, neighbor, normal person 😉, etc., HTF would they ever get through something like this?
What a disaster!
This is interesting. We have many of our devices setup so that HomeKit/Siri and Google assistant can both control via voice. Siri/HK is always MUCH faster in its response times than GA. With the former, it’s maybe 1-2 seconds, with GA, it’s 5-10. I think it has to do with local vs server based control or that’s been my understanding.
If the new architecture is faster yet, I’ll be really happy.
When I said HomeKit was slower, I was mostly referring to the cameras and notifications. Notifications were always late, sometimes minutes late, though often 30 seconds late. For instance, I’m watching on my AppleTV and one of my cameras is set to track animals because we’ve had issues with one or both pooping on the carpet. We see our cat walk across the room and vanish into the garage to do his business and well after he’s gone, the AppleTV will tell us it saw an animal, assuming it notifies me at all. Sometimes I get no notification at all. For instance, I have a camera covering the driveway and the front porch, but often I’ll only get one notification instead of the two I should get after someone drops off a delivery on the porch.
Ironically, as I was typing this, someone rang the doorbell and one of my kids answered the door. I got zero notifications from either camera, nor did I get a notification the front door was unlocked and relocked when the package was brought in. That’s frustrating. What good is HomeKit if it can’t tell me any of those things?
Cameras also take way too long to show video after I’ve selected them. It shouldn’t take more than a second or two to show video, but I’ll watch the cursor spin for a while and then eventually video shows up.
The main problem I have with HomeKit is adding accessories. If I’m not right next to the main router, it could take 20-30 attempts to add an accessory, if it ever works. Each attempt may take 3-5 minutes of waiting for it to fail, and I could spend an hour trying to get an accessory added before it either works or I give up. I’ve returned a number of items just because they won’t connect. It’s a rarity when it works the first time. I’d get various errors adding them and I’d reset them every time, especially after getting the dreaded, “This accessory has already been added,” when it hasn’t. Even being next to the router isn’t a guarantee it’ll add correctly. I turned off some of my devices (Eufy) due to their lies about not uploading to the cloud, but I don’t dare remove them from HomeKit because I’m afraid I can’t add them back if I choose to some time down the road.
Some things work great. To save energy since people keep forgetting to turn off the upstairs hall lights and they stay on all night, I put in two motion sensors to cover the stairs up and the L-shaped hallway. When either detects motion, it’ll turn on the lights for 5 minutes and shut them off. It’s worked rather flawlessly. The second someone approaches the stairs or comes into the hallway, the lights come on immediately. And once nobody’s there, the lights turns off after the short timeout. It works better than I expected.
When it works, HomeKit is pretty good. I don’t trust Google nor Alexa for privacy reasons, so I won’t use any of them, but I will use HomeKit. Sometimes it works great, but sometimes it’s just dreadful.
Thai can’t come soon enough. My HomeKit is a disaster.
Two of my three HomePod pairs do not work. My OG pair stopped working and resetting them did nothing. One of my mini pairs have a similar problem. Can’t find network. Won’t play as a pair.
I’m literally just not going to use them until this new update is out and works and then I’ll set it all up as new and start again.
It worked fine, apple. Why mess this up so badly?
Two of my three HomePod pairs do not work. My OG pair stopped working and resetting them did nothing. One of my mini pairs have a similar problem. Can’t find network. Won’t play as a pair.
I’m literally just not going to use them until this new update is out and works and then I’ll set it all up as new and start again.
It worked fine, apple. Why mess this up so badly?
These people are rarely early adopters with several dozens of smart devices.
It is absolutely not “there” yet for the masses.
But it can absolutely be “there” for the moderately tech savvy.
I love my smart home, but I’m sure as shirt not gonna set one up for my family. Maybe in 5-8y when there’s a consumer plug-and-play system that’s reliable out of the box.
It’s the people with like a few smart lights that they almost never do anything with other than turn off/on who keep claiming “tHeRe’S nOtHiNg wRoNg, HoMeKiT wOrKs gReAt, yOu mUsT bE sTuPiD”
If you actually use all the features of HK you quickly realize that it’s an unbaked mess that does nothing but infuriate you.
So true!
"Look honey, we can now turn on the Christmas tree lights with our phones"...
..."WORKS WITHOUT PROBLEMS FOR ME; SPEAK FOR YOURSELF!"..........
But the truth is that even the simplest automations fail constantly. If I had a penny for every time
- my automation didn't turn off the light a minute after turning it on
- I opened my studio door in the morning and the alarm went off because my automation didn't disarm it
- I get an error message when I leave the house and want to arm multiple alarms with a scene
...
The list goes on and on, it's insane.
Don’t underestimate Apples brute force and what persistence and time can do. I still remember the first years with Apple Maps. That was laughable and screamed to the sky that someone at Apple had demanded: “So ein ding muss Ich aus haben”
Today it’s (IMHO) a better experience than Google maps that’s just cluttered with “infomercials”.
Of course I want these things as well in HomeKit, but they need to sort out the basics first and with Matter I guess it won’t matter 😉
Agree. HKSV is flaky.
I installed two cameras in December and upgraded to the new architecture. Logi circle doorbell and a separate logi circle view for the driveway.
Their coverage area overlaps 95% and includes the entire front of my house facing the street. Clear unobstructed view for both. I have both configured to record: people, packages, vehicles and animals all the time whether I’m home or not. On a daily basis only one (sometimes neither) records a clip.
One really annoying thing is that they’re HomeKit-only cameras. There’s no logi app to let me bypass HKSV and get my brand-new $360-worth of cameras working reliably.