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HomeKit iPhone Battery Usage HomeKit

Itinj24

Itinj24

Contributor
Original poster
Nov 8, 2017
4,605
2,638
New York
This is new… Is anyone else getting high battery usage for HomeKit? Mine is always at the top of the list. Never seen this kind of behavior before. Wonder if it’s HKSV now with the unlimited cameras. I have quite a few on there.
iPhone 13 Pro on iOS 15, 15.0.1, 15.0.2

1634045773003.png
 
That's interesting, Mine shows 4% however I don't have any HKSV connected at the moment. Using a iPhone 13 Pro on 15.0.2

I'm going to keep a close eye on it and see what happens.
 
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srl7741 said:
That's interesting, Mine shows 4% however I don't have any HKSV connected at the moment. Using a iPhone 13 Pro on 15.0.2

I'm going to keep a close eye on it and see what happens.
Click to expand...
Yeah this has been going since iOS 15. It’s maddening lol. Mine used to be in the low single digits
 
Mine is at 1% over the last 9 days. I don’t have any HKSV going on so maybe that’s the culprit.
 
The processing of HKSV is done from the AppleTV, HomePod or Mini. It shouldn't be hitting the iPhone battery.
In that menu shown tap the "Home" app and see what it shows for actual use time? background vs Screen.
 
It’s not much. I force closes the Home app and tried hard rebooting the iPhone by that didn’t help. Probably gotta figure out why so much background activity. Should I take off background app refresh?

1634075082476.png
 
I do not have any camera's linked to the home app and mine is at 10%.....edit: iPhone 12 Pro on 15.0.1

DC114A99-74F9-44F5-8793-F82643D4CFA9.png
 
I would try setting the background app refresh to "only while using" and see if that makes a difference.
 
srl7741 said:
I would try setting the background app refresh to "only while using" and see if that makes a difference.
Click to expand...
Can only do “Off” “while on Wi-Fi” or “while on Wi-Fi and cellular”. Think you confused it with location lol. I switched to Wi-Fi only and see what happens.
 
My error, I was referring to location services under privacy settings where you can select "While Using", Ask Next Time..., "Never" ect.
 
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srl7741 said:
My error, I was referring to location services under privacy settings where you can select "While Using", Ask Next Time..., "Never" ect.
Click to expand...
Of course, no worries. I knew what you meant lol.

I’m at 21% now. Something is being processed on the iPhone in regards to HomeKit. I gotta get to the bottom of this before it kills my battery health lol.
 
My iPad battery suffers of HomeKit usage and I don't understand why ! My wife's iPad is not affected.
Curiously, my iPhone seems to be preserved (I have a good overnight battery drain).
 
Last edited:
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On my iPhone yes but my not on my iPad which is not used for geofencing.

Yesterday I made 2 things, I have disabled some locations services in Settings and I have killed all apps (I have read a long time that it was not useful but I thing it can be good sometimes...)

Curiously, it seems to be better but I prefer to wait before being happy, I have a battery drain issue since a long time even with my new iPad Air.

I have made an automation which turns off wifi and bluetooth at 23:00. Because sometimes I don't use my iPad for 2 or 3 days, it not useful to keep wifi on.

For the moment, it's perfect... (perhaps it's linked to 15.1 Beta 4 installed yesterday ?). Because sometimes, even with Wifi OFF, my battery lose 5% during the night

ipad.png


I don't have an older capture but it was not beautiful to see !
 
I also experience this behaviour (Home being currently on top of the list with 23% usage; 8m foreground, 3h52m background).
 
Since I first looked at this post I have added a Starling hub back into my HomeKit setup. Prior to that my Home app usage was a steady 1% of my battery drain. Now it’s at 4% with time showing up for background use. Not exactly huge numbers (yet) but it is a jump so either the Starling is causing extra work (which I’m ok with) or it’s the cameras being added to the mix.
A2ECD691-4813-4E6B-B9F8-8A8F035C12BE.jpeg
 
TonyC28 said:
Since I first looked at this post I have added a Starling hub back into my HomeKit setup. Prior to that my Home app usage was a steady 1% of my battery drain. Now it’s at 4% with time showing up for background use. Not exactly huge numbers (yet) but it is a jump so either the Starling is causing extra work (which I’m ok with) or it’s the cameras being added to the mix.
View attachment 1876705
Click to expand...
Interesting. I’m running a Starling as well, but soon getting rid of it for other reasons. Works great but I want to put all my cameras in HKSV, now with unlimited support.
 
Itinj24 said:
Interesting. I’m running a Starling as well, but soon getting rid of it for other reasons. Works great but I want to put all my cameras in HKSV, now with unlimited support.
Click to expand...
As soon as someone makes an affordable HKSV doorbell that can handle being (clears throat) outside, I’ll make the official switch. I’m going to give this another few days and the disconnect the Starling and see what that does for battery.
 
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I’m seeing the same issue. Home being the single largest consumer of the iPhone battery.

I’ve been on holiday for the last week and it has only started since I’ve come home.

I have Arlo cameras added to HomeKit but they don’t support HKSV. My iPad, Apple Watch, and other iPhones in the house don’t show the issue.

Hoping 15.1 solves the issue!
 
Since I did not change anything on the camera configuration for well over a year now, I'm not sure it has to do with cameras. Well, today 15.1 is supposed to land, so let's wait and see.
 
I have the same issue, both on my A12X iPad Pro 12.9" and M1 iPad Pro 12.9". The former loses around 6 to 10% in about 8 hours with Home getting three to four hours of background activity and the latter around 4% with about 1.5 hours of background activity.

The iPads are not used as home hubs. I have five HomePod mini's, two HomePods and an Apple TV which can all act as a home hub. I have one Logitech Circle camera with HKSV.

Did a complete DFU restore of iOS 15.1 on both and started from scratch (did not import any backups). Did not solve the issue.

When I put the iPads in flight mode the issue disappears. The battery will still be at 100% the next morning.

I usually charge my iPhone 13 Pro Max during the night - so I am not sure if it has the same issue, but Home does get quite a bit of background activity - around an hour per night. Battery life during the day (light use) seems less than stellar...

The issue started a few months ago, not quite sure when. I was so used to not ever having any battery drain on any iOS devices that I wasn't paying attention to it :) I was running the iOS 15 betas from the start, but I think it started happening later.
 
I posted similar issues on another thread. My phone has no issue but the iPad Pro did. My culprit was my Arlo Basestation. Deleted it a week ago and instead of 20% loss on standby overnight…back to around 2-4%.
 
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