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Apple Pulls iOS 16.2 Option to Upgrade to New Home Architecture
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exactly what I was gonna say and I have 5 plus 2 Apple TV so there's a lot of switching
I’ve had that rarely happen before but this time it’s been more frequent. Worked well during the 16.2 betas but started after the public release. Have to see how 16.3 betas play out.
Like several others here, I'm on 16.2 with all devices, ran the Home Upgrade and things are generally fine. I did have to remove and re-add my wife to the home for her to see everything on her phone. I'm running a HomePod Mini, Apple TV 4K, Meross light switches, Meross smart plugs, Meross garage door opener, several Nanoleaf A19 bulbs (Thread-enabled), Ecobee thermostat, and a few Eve Motion sensors. I'm on the beta program for Eve's Matter upgrades. That was tricky to get working correctly, but I'm back up and running now.
Definitely feels like it's much quicker to respond. Fingers crossed it keeps on working.
I'm super excited for all the Matter-compatible products to start hitting shelves. I've been holding off on a lot of smart home purchases for the last year.
Definitely feels like it's much quicker to respond. Fingers crossed it keeps on working.
I'm super excited for all the Matter-compatible products to start hitting shelves. I've been holding off on a lot of smart home purchases for the last year.
Thanks for the confirmation! My HomePods delivered so once I get home from work I’m gonna give it a shot!
Yeah after I installed HomeKit I documented all my HomeKit codes and printed them out then backed up the current home To the cloud. i then removed the home and created a new one before you can do your restore you will have to add you bridges back if you have any ie: hue, homebridge , aqara, door locks etc…
then in the controller app go to backups all backups and select the on you created earlier. The app will let you know if there are any missing accessories it needs before it can restore. This is where documenting the homekit codes come in be sure you printed it off before you remove the original home so you can just scan you printout instead of going to the devices that need to be added.
I did the 7day free trial but after it helped/saved me so much time an effort I’m going to purchase a lifetime.
The “enhanced” architecture was apparently not tested at all with real world homes. After I upgraded my devices (Apple TV 2nd gen and 2 HomePod Minis), I thought things were okay, but then started having issues.
- One of my Wemo switches duplicated itself. I resolved this by removing and re-adding it.
- My hue lights lost dynamic lighting. I ended up having to remove the Hue bridge, unplug all my Home hubs, plug one back in and finally add the bridge back in to get that working.
- Finally after upgrading HKSV recording randomly stops working with my Ecobee camera. I can get it working again by unplugging all my Home hubs and then plugging them back in, but having to do that daily is annoying. I never had problems with that before updating.
AppleTV was the problem for me too. Unplugged it so one of my HomePods could take over as hub. And… tada! Tthe new architecture worked perfectly. The household is now able to accept my invites and glitchy accessories instantly started playing nicely.
I was having issues with the old architecture where the home location was off by a few miles, problems with geofencing and so on. I have a few devices that cannot get this years’ update and so will always be stuck with the old architecture.
I decided to go the nuclear route and delete everything with the reset HomeKit profile. What i did not except was to have the architecture update take place without my say so or involvement. It just happened. Quite frustrating, now some of my stuff can’t simply talk to the my home. Thanks apple
I decided to go the nuclear route and delete everything with the reset HomeKit profile. What i did not except was to have the architecture update take place without my say so or involvement. It just happened. Quite frustrating, now some of my stuff can’t simply talk to the my home. Thanks apple
Your point encapsulates everything that's wrong with HomeKit.
Why, indeed, can I the user not choose the primary hub? Even more so, why is there a concept of a primary hub, why doesn't the set of hubs just WORK correctly as a distributed system?
As outsiders we have no insight into HomeKit's architecture but it seems clear that
- the original design did not seem to understand that people would have multiple hubs, many IoT devices, and many Apple devices as clients. OK, fair enough that's rev 1.0 eight years ago.
BUT
- the second design, the one that has just been killed, ALSO does not seem to take into account these facts of modern life! There are SO MANY places where
+ the right thing to do is work correctly in the face of multiple options (multiple hubs, multiple clients, ...)
+ if that's too hard, allow the user to make a choice (this is the primary hub, this is the garage door that appears in CarPlay, ...)
+ but Apple insists, in every case, on a RANDOM choice that is usually the wrong choice AND provides no way for manual override.
I always wonder how many heads would roll if Steve was still around to see this.
Yeah, anything location related is totally fscked up.
This is a combo clusterfsck that spans Contacts (which specifies your address), Maps (which is supposed to map the address to a latitude/longitude), Location services (which sometimes uses the wrong "trigger" for a location, eg locating you based on WiFi, but what happens when you move the WiFi base station...) and HomeKit.
There are at SO MANY problems in this area because, to be cruel but honest, the people working in it appear to all be morons. Things that SHOULD be done (but haven't, for at least eight years) include
- an AUTOMATED way to update the database that links a WiFi base station to a location (in case you move, and move the WiFi base station with you)
- an alternative way to localize what counts as "I'm home" perhaps based on Bluetooth Beacons. Apple fscked up everything to do with BT beacons 10 years ago, but they could do it again and do it right for this particular use case.
- an AUTOMATED way to update the connection between an alphanumeric address (123 Alphabet Lane) and a lat/long. Cities sometimes change this mapping (eg when a house is torn down then four new houses erected in that same area) and it takes forever for Apple to update this.
- a CONCEPTUAL redesign of how addresses are used throughout the OS. For SOME purposes, an "address" is an alphanumeric string (eg autofill for Safari). And for SOME purposes an "address" is a latitude/longitude (eg for HomeKit Geofencing). These two MAY NOT BE THE SAME! This can happen when the geomapping is broken (as I said above, the city reallocates address) or it may happen that the geomapping is problematic (the alphanumeric string maps to a mailbox where the mail is delivered, but the house, on a farm, is a mile or two away from the mailbox).
In cases like this, Apple should allow you to specify your address BOTH ways, with the appropriate address (alpha or lat/long) used in different contexts. But since only morons populate the relevant parts of Apple...
That’s my take too. The architecture simply hasn’t been adequately tested in the wild.
My Home has a Hue hub operating 27 items, several Logi and Euphy cams, a number of August smart locks, ten or so sensors from various manufacturers, about a dozen smart plugs and power strips… in other words, the exact sort of setup that Apple claimed the new architecture was supposed to address.
Had the update done nothing on the front end it would have been completely successful IMO. Any actual improvement in functionality would have been welcome. But it appears pretty obvious that complex systems like mine don’t work reliably with the new architecture and that’s a shame. I don’t really appreciate beta testing Apple’s HomeKit architecture when I rely on it run my house 24/7.
I’d expect basically everyone except maybe Craig Federighi to get axed by a resurrected Steve Jobs.
Both my iPad and iPhone froze after updated HomeKit, and my iPhone can no longer control anything within HomeKit.
Plenty of stuff froze back then too. Although we did get new products every couple of years.
HomeKit Secure video recording stopped working less than 12 hours after I “fixed” it. I had to restart all my Home hubs.
Edit:
It stopped working again less than 30 minutes after I “fixed” it.
Edit:
It stopped working again less than 30 minutes after I “fixed” it.
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I upgraded and everything is working well so far. The one issue I ran into was one of my eve blinds got confused and thought up was down and down was up. I had to reset everything on that one blind. Other than that, I notice it's snappier and more reliable thus far.
For what it’s worth, I have multiple HomePods and Apple TVs. I upgraded to the new architecture right away and haven’t seen any problems. The vast majority of devices on my HomeKit network are Hue lights. I have a couple of Eve outlets but that’s about it.
On a related note when I tried to add a Hue bulb it couldn’t find it. Turns out I hit the bridge limit. Hue tech support said it doesn’t give you an error message. It just says it can’t find the bulb.
I deleted about a dozen Hue bulbs that were not really being used as connected bulbs. Now the remaining bulbs are much more responsive now that the bridge isn’t loaded with devices.
On a related note when I tried to add a Hue bulb it couldn’t find it. Turns out I hit the bridge limit. Hue tech support said it doesn’t give you an error message. It just says it can’t find the bulb.
I deleted about a dozen Hue bulbs that were not really being used as connected bulbs. Now the remaining bulbs are much more responsive now that the bridge isn’t loaded with devices.
Interesting; on Apple TV we can disable HomeKit, which is why we can pin one Apple TV among many to be the hub, (and it solved all my problems prior to 16.2).
Typical of recent Apple. Apple is terrible at services. I mean it took what 5 years to get iCould working? No surprise here.
After reading this thread I got the notification of the update to HomePod 16.2 for my Mini . Hasn't been pulled?!
Anyway thanks to all of you: going to wait for the 16.3, maybe, if things will get better.
Staying on 16.1 for the holidays
Anyway thanks to all of you: going to wait for the 16.3, maybe, if things will get better.
Staying on 16.1 for the holidays
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iOS 16.2, HomePod 16.2 and iPadOS 16.2 have not been pulled.
Only the HomeKit foundation which requires all devices to be on 16.2 and Mac computers on Ventura has been pulled.