mine have been screwed up since 16.1. It seems I'm suffering from that GPS bug. I have to re-start the iphone to get to make my location accurate.
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iOS and iPadOS 16.2 Betas Overhaul Home App Architecture With Improved Performance
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Posted this on the tvOS thread too, but SO confused. What do are we to make of this?
We update our HomePods with tvOS software?
We update our HomePods with tvOS software?
Huh, that happens to me now. About 100 feet from my house the porch lights would come on, now I'm out of the car heading to the door. Still handy, but not how I set it up.
Removed the HomePod mini, updated everything else to 16.2 and the Home update worked fine. I did it on my iPad, and it did say several of my other devices (iPhone, Mac, MacBook) would no longer work with Home as they weren't updated, even though they were all on 16.2. I took the gamble, but everything (including 5 HOOBS/Homebridge bridges) seems to be working fine, even Home.app on those listed devices. And even though it's early days and I've yet to test my automations, response seems to be much quicker, practically instant.
The question now is, if I re-setup my HomePod mini which is on 16.1 with no current option to update it, is it going to mess anything up, or will it just not function as a Home hub until it gets updated?
Yes. I've not even attempted turning it on, even though my only homekit device is a Philips Hue hub (I own no Apple TVs or Homepods).
Reason for not using it: I read it makes all the homekit devices unusable by devices not running iOS 16.2.
Kind of like how they broke Reminders a few years ago and Notes a few months ago (which is why I've not enabled the Notes security change.)
I would assume the latter - it might just not work at all with HomeKit. Also, wouldn’t surprise me if when you re-add it you then get the option to install 16.2.
I've re-added it and it seems to function just as before, presumably it just doesn't serve as a Home hub any more. No option to update it to 16.2 though, still says it's up-to-date on 16.1.
I've just upgraded my whole set up, apart from my bedroom HomePod that simply will not show up in the list of available HomePods to install the beta profile. I have removed it multiple times but to no avail.
So very similar issue to yours. Will wait for the next beta come out.
I can’t even get to update my HomePods.
My phone, MacBook Pro, TV and iPad Pro are all on latest beta. HomePod Mini’s (have 5) are all enrolled in the beta prog although all are still on 16.1.
Yet when I try to upgrade it won’t and I get this. I’m in the UK if it makes a difference.
My phone, MacBook Pro, TV and iPad Pro are all on latest beta. HomePod Mini’s (have 5) are all enrolled in the beta prog although all are still on 16.1.
Yet when I try to upgrade it won’t and I get this. I’m in the UK if it makes a difference.
Public audioOS 16.2 beta isn't out yet though, is it? I'm in AppleSeed, so that's a different distribution, and that one is out.
The latest AudioOS public beta (which the 'get beta updates' option refers to) is 16.1. You need the dev profile installed to get 16.2 - and counter-intuitively would probably need to also turn off the option to receive [public] beta updates if it's anything like the way dev betas work on ATVs.
I have the dev profile on my phone as that’s on 16.2 B1
I don’t see anywhere in my dev account to download a profile for HomePod Mini’s. 🤷🏼♂️
There's no "dev beta" for the HomePods in the dev portal. The dev beta for the HomePods is invite-only through AppleSeed.
For those wondering what this is actually supposed to do, it is making a welcome fundamental change to the way devices communicate with accessories, by promoting the Home hub to a more significant role. Instead of each individual client device (like your phone) talking directly to each accessory, it will now only talk to the Home hub, and the Home hub will handle connecting to all of the accessories, and managing their state.
Since the Home hub is a constantly powered and connected device, it will be much faster at communication directly to accessories, and will store updated status more reliably. When a client device opens the Home app, it will make a single query to the Home hub to get an update on the entire home...instead of needing to make n number of connections to devices. People with dozens of home accessories know that this only gets more and more painful the more you add, and this should now abstract that entirely.
In short, you should no longer see extended "Updating" statuses in the Home app, or worse incorrect states due to failed queries. Instead when you open the Home app, it should already be update to date, and accurate.
Since the Home hub is a constantly powered and connected device, it will be much faster at communication directly to accessories, and will store updated status more reliably. When a client device opens the Home app, it will make a single query to the Home hub to get an update on the entire home...instead of needing to make n number of connections to devices. People with dozens of home accessories know that this only gets more and more painful the more you add, and this should now abstract that entirely.
In short, you should no longer see extended "Updating" statuses in the Home app, or worse incorrect states due to failed queries. Instead when you open the Home app, it should already be update to date, and accurate.
I don't have a home hub. Does that mean enabling this new feature will do nothing? I'm still not going to do it, as I want to control my homekit lights from a non-iOS 16 phone.
Hopefully, this means OG HomePods are being dropped as Home Hubs. 16.1 has made all my automation no longer working, both time-based and location-based IF one of my OG HomePods running audioOS 16.1 is the "Connected" Home Hub. If I power cycle all my OG HomePods in quick sessions then one of our Apple TVs (4K Gen.2) becomes the "Connected" Home Hub and everything is working as expected again.
But as there are no options for setting a preferred home hub, or any way to simply tell Apple Home to ignore specific home hubs or anything this becomes a very frustrating "luck of the dice" scenario as I've got 2x Apple TVs and 6x OG HomePods so the chances of things no longer working is rather high as I have no real control over what is going to be the currently connected home hub.
And considering both our Apple TVs support both Matter and Thread, while our OG HomePods only supports Matter but not Thread and our OG HomePods are wireless only, and they don't even support 802.11ax/WiFi-6 so they are using 802.11ac/WiFi-5 while both our Apple TVs are running 1Gbps Ethernet I can't see any reason why we would ever want one of our OG HomePods to act as the home hub.
Especially with Apple pushing Matter with 16.1, and it seems like they are going to push even further with 16.2. Why doesn't Apple Home have some kind of preferencing going on to make sure that the two devices we have that have better support for Matter as they support Thread is getting preference over the devices we have that don't support Thread? At least give us the option to set preferences ourselves.
Automation has been working fine on 12.X, 13.X, 14.X and 15.X regardless of Apple TV or OG HomePod being the "Connected" home hub so this is most likely just a bug that needs to get fixed. But with this push into using and supporting Matter, why would a home that has devices actually supporting Thread want their devices not supporting Thread to suddenly become the connected home hub..
Because you're not supposed to need to set this preference, there are a lot of networking variables that could result in one device being promoted to primary in the Home hub list at any given time. That doesn't mean it is immune to bugs with other devices, like whatever bugs are afflicting your OG HomePods. Those need to be fixed. The idea behind multiple Home hubs is high availability that persists through common networking and routing issues. Letting you just choose one is not a better overall solution, even if it serves as a workaround for your immediate problem.