HomeKit Multiple hubs - which takes precedence?

[jpmeyer]

I have a remote, part-time home that has Homekit set up for almost 6 years. I have had occasional, now almost always, problems with certain accessories going "Not Responding". I just ran an experiment while I am remote from the home. 4 acc. "Not Responding. Checking settings and see that the iPad (with me) is the connected hub and the AppleTV is "standby". I turn off the iPad and wait a few minutes, then check the home settings from my iPhone (12 mini). The AppleTV is now the connected hub AND ALL accessories are responding correctly! Turn on the iPad, wait a few minutes, and the iPad has commandeered hub functionality and 2 accessories are not responding. I tried turning off HomeKit on the iPad, but it says that Homekit is MANDATORY if the iPad is logged into my iCloud account.

BTW, the iPad is a 2017-model iPad Pro 10.5" , so it is showing its age. It is running 15.4.1 and the AppleTV is also updated to the latest.

Does anyone know of a way to force the local AppleTV to be the "dominant" hub? Or, a way to disable hub functionality on the iPad without keeping it logged out of my iCloud account? Or, some other solution? Would a HomePod mini co-located with the AppleTV become a "dominant" hub? What even determines which hub takes precedence?



Thank you in advance!

 

[Itinj24]

In the years using HomeKit, I’ve seen no rhyme or reason as to which hub is the active one. I’d have a solid HomeKit network going for a few days (usually when an AppleTV is the hub) and then it would switch for no apparent reason and the whole HomeKit setup goes bonkers. It’s very frustrating and I’d venture to say a lot of HomeKit issues arise from this. I currently have 9 HomePod OGs, 8 Minis and 8 AppleTVs. The HomePods, I come to realize, are awful as Hubs and are usually selected as the active one. Shameful you can’t disable it like you can AppleTVs and iPads.

You can try rebooting the device you want as the active hub and that usually forces it, but don’t expect it to stay for long.

As for the iPad being required to be selected as a hub, I’ve never seen that behavior before. I have an iPad Pro (2018 11”, had it since 2018) and never had the hub slider selected nor was I ever required to.

Welcome to the frustration…

 

[Apple_Robert]

My Apple TV is listed as a hub, even though I didn't set it up that way. I believe it does that by default. I also have the problem where the HomePod will routinely give me the error message of having trouble connected to the internet, even though the hub is working fine. I have also had sporadic problems of having to make sure my iPad or phone loads the HomeKit app on the correct WiFi. Otherwise, I get error messages with some or all the HomePods. The HomeKit app and setup is not very well designed, in my opinion, not to mention the bugginess I encounter. I still my HomePod minis but, it gets frustrating at times.

 

[jpmeyer]

In the years using HomeKit, I’ve seen no rhyme or reason as to which hub is the active one. I’d have a solid HomeKit network going for a few days (usually when an AppleTV is the hub) and then it would switch for no apparent reason and the whole HomeKit setup goes bonkers. It’s very frustrating and I’d venture to say a lot of HomeKit issues arise from this. I currently have 9 HomePod OGs, 8 Minis and 8 AppleTVs. The HomePods, I come to realize, are awful as Hubs and are usually selected as the active one. Shameful you can’t disable it like you can AppleTVs and iPads.

You can try rebooting the device you want as the active hub and that usually forces it, but don’t expect it to stay for long.

As for the iPad being required to be selected as a hub, I’ve never seen that behavior before. I have an iPad Pro (2018 11”, had it since 2018) and never had the hub slider selected nor was I ever required to.

Welcome to the frustration…

Thank you. After a couple of hard resets, I was able to disable hub functionality on the iPad. Now the AppleTV stays connected as the hub and all accessories show as responding when I use my phone or watch. Also, what I thought was unrelated bad behavior on the iPad (periods of no response to touch) now appears to be resolved. I guess that a recent update caused some HomeKit-related sw to be corrupted. I may try a backup and restore of the iPad, but I may leave things as they are. Seems a very odd design choice for Apple to have excluded the option to force a selection of a particular device as the default hub.

 

[jpmeyer]

My Apple TV is listed as a hub, even though I didn't set it up that way. I believe it does that by default. I also have the problem where the HomePod will routinely give me the error message of having trouble connected to the internet, even though the hub is working fine. I have also had sporadic problems of having to make sure my iPad or phone loads the HomeKit app on the correct WiFi. Otherwise, I get error messages with some or all the HomePods. The HomeKit app and setup is not very well designed, in my opinion, not to mention the bugginess I encounter. I still my HomePod minis but, it gets frustrating at times.

Thank you. It seems that Apple sometimes get really excited about something like HomeKit and then lose focus while they pay attention to something else. They don't get that some of their users build their latest fetish into their daily lives and then spend lots of time being frustrated while waiting for Apple to pay attention to fixing obvious bugs.

 

[Justin Cymbal]

That’s good that you were able to get it fixed through the hard reset

There is a way to disable the hub status on your iPad. Go to settings and then scroll down on the left until you see home and then there is a toggle switch to disable this setting

I’ve attached a screenshot of where you can find this setting on your iPad

 

[jpmeyer]

Thanks, Justin. I was trying to toggle that switch, but it would just "pop back" to the on state. Only after several resets would it allow me to toggle it off and leave it there. Certainly a sw problem, but since no one else seems to be reporting it, corruption during a recent update seems most likely.

 

[Justin Cymbal]

Thanks, Justin. I was trying to toggle that switch, but it would just "pop back" to the on state. Only after several resets would it allow me to toggle it off and leave it there. Certainly a sw problem, but since no one else seems to be reporting it, corruption during a recent update seems most likely.

Well that’s good that you got it fixed! Yeah, resetting your iPad every once in a while is never a bad idea in terms of getting rid of any bugs that carried over in updates.

I had a bug on my iPad a few months ago that was downloading a ton of gigabytes in the background (noticed it on my eero) and I couldn’t narrow down what was causing it so a hard reset finally got rid of that. Even though I had to re-download all of my apps and start from scratch, it was definitely worth it

 

[Itinj24]

Thanks, Justin. I was trying to toggle that switch, but it would just "pop back" to the on state. Only after several resets would it allow me to toggle it off and leave it there. Certainly a sw problem, but since no one else seems to be reporting it, corruption during a recent update seems most likely.

A lot of sliders broke with iOS 15. They don’t stick when you toggle them. The most frustrating one for me is the alarm on my kid’s HomePod Minis. I’ll toggle it on and it switches itself off. After doing this multiple times, it eventually sticks. I’ve seen this behavior in other places throughout the software UI as well.

 

[Itinj24]

Thank you. After a couple of hard resets, I was able to disable hub functionality on the iPad. Now the AppleTV stays connected as the hub and all accessories show as responding when I use my phone or watch. Also, what I thought was unrelated bad behavior on the iPad (periods of no response to touch) now appears to be resolved. I guess that a recent update caused some HomeKit-related sw to be corrupted. I may try a backup and restore of the iPad, but I may leave things as they are. Seems a very odd design choice for Apple to have excluded the option to force a selection of a particular device as the default hub.

There a few threads here discussing why we can’t select the Home hub and/or can’t disable the HomePod as a hub. Think I’ve seen it discussed in Reddit too. Hopefully Apple is paying attention and the next OS update will allow it.

HomeKit would be great, performance wise) if it just let me stick any one of my hardwired AppleTVs as the hub. I know right away when the active hub is switching to a HomePod. HomeKit starts acting up for no apparent reason. Cameras go offline, notifications are sent for times that shouldn’t be notifying, devices go No Response, etc and those issues persist until the devices are rebooted.

 

[jpmeyer]

Thanks, Itinj24 and Justin, your replies have helped me understand my situation. There is clearly some weird logic going on within HomeKit/iCloud when a hub hundreds of miles away and connected to the home network only via a sometimes dodgy cellular hotspot is preferred over an AppleTV located in the home and connected to the router via ethernet! But, at least my set-up appears to have been stable for about 24 hours after disabling the iPad as a hub. I have since reset, restored and then restored from backup the iPad and it also seems more stable. It seems that it cannot seem any of the accessories in the home unless it is enabled as a hub, but I can do what I need from my phone and watch.

 

[Justin Cymbal]

Hey! I just saw this article on MacRumors today and thought I’d share it with you.

Looks like Apple has decided to discontinue home hub support for the iPad in iOS 16 so that should solve your problem with this issue if you haven’t already solved it. Hope you have a nice weekend!

iPad Home Hub Support Apparently Being Removed in iOS 16

As part of its rebuilt Home app experience in iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, Apple appears to be removing support for using an iPad as a Home Hub. For those...

www.macrumors.com