Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Reminding Users of Pending Home App Upgrade Requirement
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Is there something the new Apple TV will be able to do that the current one can't, or is it an aversion to buying "outdated" hardware?
Check the list of devices connected to your account (on iPhone in Settings tap your name and scroll all the way down. Remove any that you don’t use anymore. Hope this is the fix
Home automation tech evolved in stages, with no centralized industry standards when the original HomeKit was released. Then some standards were developed which required a new HomeKit architecture. It's a rare "breaking change" type of upgrade that Apple has worked hard to avoid, but this is a rare exception.
No reason to avoid the new HomeKit when it supports modern standards. It works great! I'm amazed at how fast it works to control devices.
I too dont seem to have the update option on my Home settings. Is anyone else unable to find the setting?
They’ve finally done it. You’ll have to upgrade to an entirely new home to keep using your iStuff.
dustin.haley
macrumors member
Seems perfectly reasonable to wait a couple months if there’s about to be brand new hardware - why buy something that’s 3+ years old when something new is about to come out? By all means if you don’t care, that’s on you, but it’s also a perfectly understandable decision to wait.
Digital Dude
macrumors 68000
I was forced to upgrade my Apple TV yesterday because the AT&T ‘Active Armor’ app bricked my longtime older Apple TV. The only fix was to hook it up to a Mac, which I no longer have, and to wipe and re-initialize. 🤷♂️
That's the officially released update for the HomePod. 26.3 is the one in beta right now.
For one, Apple dropped support for the iPad being the home hub. So if you have an iPad dashboard somewhere that was also your hub, bam see ya later alligator. Oh yeah you can have another device like an Apple TV running 24/7 to do it. Yeah nah.
And then there's that too. For one those of us with an iPad dashboard that was also the home hub don't want to use another device as well to do that, BUT if we so had to I'm also not splashing out same money hardware that's been out for years and likely to be superseded soon. Either way, the Apple Home upgrade *specifically* will take the whole system offline so hence have been dismissing the repeative warnings that have popped up for years.
I’ve read that they’ve resolved the issues that caused that, so I’m hoping that it doesn’t require that now. I don’t relish having to manually add all those bulbs. LOL
Literally just pushing this because they depreciated iPad and want to kick as many people off as they can before releasing a home hub product.
artifex
macrumors 6502a
Good luck; we might not see it until WWDC, especially if they make some big hardware changes to it for Arcade or software changes that affect APIs a bunch.
artifex
macrumors 6502a
Wait, how did it brick your box? I thought the worst it could do was create rules on the gateway to block it. Were you in the middle of an update? This is concerning.
This forced upgrade is absolutely outrageous and absurd on many levels, including a purely technical level. Think about it. This is a remote control protocol, the software is nothing but a glorified remote control. You’re telling me that I need the latest in advanced hardware, plus the latest software on top of it, in order to have a remote control? Nonsense.
Last edited:
I get this. I really do but for personal reasons I have a device that cannot be updated….. guess Apple will lock me out of HomeKit and I’ll have to use gross Alexa or Google home.
For those with older hardware that can't run the new software. Perhaps ity is time to migrate to Home Assistant. It is an open-source ecosystem that is very inclusive, works with Apple stuff, Google, Aqra, and 100 others. Most importantly, it is connected to any cloud that is owned by a corporation, so no one can remotely make the stuff you bought stop working.
Basically, Apple is telling you that things like your front door lock and lightbulbs will stop working unless you buy a new phone.
Seriously, when you set this stuff up, be VERY careful that you are not giving someone control over things like your locks, heating, and lights. Or in a few years, you will find they tell you again, "replace your stuff". This will continue for the rest of your lift and longer. To prevent this, you need to be 100% locally controlled.
No matter how well-intentioned a company might be, not one of them will continue to run a cloud server for 50 years. If your lighting, heating, and locks depend on that server, you will eventually find yourself ripping up all your automation when (not if) the server shuts down.
You need to build a stand-alone system that can work independently from cloud servers and app stores. It is not hard to do. As said, perhaps it is time to migrate to Home Assistant.
Basically, Apple is telling you that things like your front door lock and lightbulbs will stop working unless you buy a new phone.
Seriously, when you set this stuff up, be VERY careful that you are not giving someone control over things like your locks, heating, and lights. Or in a few years, you will find they tell you again, "replace your stuff". This will continue for the rest of your lift and longer. To prevent this, you need to be 100% locally controlled.
No matter how well-intentioned a company might be, not one of them will continue to run a cloud server for 50 years. If your lighting, heating, and locks depend on that server, you will eventually find yourself ripping up all your automation when (not if) the server shuts down.
You need to build a stand-alone system that can work independently from cloud servers and app stores. It is not hard to do. As said, perhaps it is time to migrate to Home Assistant.
No. As I wrote in another post, this is a common problem: old hardware that will not work with new software. One way to fix this permanently is to move to Home Assistant. It is kind of universal in that it can talk to HomeKit, Google, Alexa, Awara, Tua, Thread, and Matter, and 100 others.
Then you can do silly tricks like an Amazon Fire tablet displaying the title and artwork for a song that is playing on the HomePod. All on open-source software that you have control over.
Apple has done a decent job with the Home App, but Apple has a big problem. They have to keep the app really dumbed down and simple so the average person can still use it and it is a walled-off system that can't work well with others.
switz
Contributor
Our two original (first generation @ $349 each in February 2018) Home Pod speakers are the only Apple devices that have "home". We seem to never even use the Apple Black TV boxes since we have Roku boxes on both tvs in the house and each Airstream. The speakers are downloading an update now. The second generation Home Pods cost $299 and lacked the quality and speaker systems of the first generation.
We just have the home pods play Apple Music. My wife is English and soft spoken and Siri was a seriously uncooperative interface but has improved with time. We do not have any other "automation" tied to Apple.
Really great to be able to update an 8 year old Apple device to continue to use it. Sure not an option on the computers, iPads or iPhones where we are lucky to get 4 or 5 years of software updates before the gear is unsupported and basically land fill material.
Glad I stumbled onto this thread today.
We just have the home pods play Apple Music. My wife is English and soft spoken and Siri was a seriously uncooperative interface but has improved with time. We do not have any other "automation" tied to Apple.
Really great to be able to update an 8 year old Apple device to continue to use it. Sure not an option on the computers, iPads or iPhones where we are lucky to get 4 or 5 years of software updates before the gear is unsupported and basically land fill material.
Glad I stumbled onto this thread today.