Homekit architecture upgrade issues

I have done exactly that today. Removed everything from my home, Apple TV's, HomePod Mini's and masses of EVE accessories and Philips Hue. I then delete the Home and created a new one with a different name. I then reset all of my devices and added everything back again. It was fine for about 6 hours and then I started getting HomePod Mini's reporting that they were unresponsive.

I've got a great deal of HomeKit equipment - all of it up to date with Thread Support and I actually had to replace my Hue Lightbulbs with dumb ones last night just so that I could turn lights on and off.

By all means go ahead and zap everything - Apple will probably suggest it - but it didn't help me much.

It maybe purely coincidence but the problems did start occurring very soon after I added my Philips Hue kit into HomeKit.

I have logged a support ticket with Apple and I think everyone needs to so that they do understand how much of a problem it is.

I was one of the few who upgraded to 16.2 and then took the option to "Upgrade" to the new Home architecture before Apple pulled that option due to feedback / problems.

I suspect I'm stuck on the new architecture now.

Dave

I'm considering so many causes for this at the moment. One thing I did notice that if I scan my lan IP's using a utility called LanScan on my Mac when I have this problem - often the HomePod mini which isn't responding fails to return a ping. However I still thinks it's connected to Wifi and the internet. It's like its software has crashed and it's just failing to communicate with the other HomePods. It's like dominoes - when one stops there is a train crash and the lot start to misbehave.

Now - its a longshot but maybe Apple have updated the wifi firmware in the HomePods. I use Netgear EAX80's wifi Mesh Access Points.

What do you use ?

If there is any correlation between wifi/router makes/models it would be nice to find out.

Also - try keeping the Philips Hue separate for a few days - inconvenient as it will be not being able to use Siri.

If it remains stable - add it in again and see if anything changes.

Dave

Similar issues here. I use a synology RT2600.

Sadly before reading your useful advice I zapped by entire home and started again.

On 16.3 on Apple TV/HomePod Minis and iPhone. Upgraded to new home architecture when it was an option with 16.2.

My issues started when I noticed that one of the HomePod Minis temp/humidity sensors was not working. I reset the homepod and then rebooted my router for good measure.

On rebooting my router my entire home was unresponsive. As an experiment I added a few devices. Stuff worked. I rebooted...it stopped.

I'm not convinced my thread network is working properly. The eve app says transport is via 'Bluetooth'.

I have an old BT HomeHub and might try to see if I can get stuff working on that, but not sure I can be bothered today.

I did wonder if router settings were messing with HomeKit, but not sure what to tweak.

Although thread and matter claim to be able to heal network problems I am convinced that at the moment any messages that are created by sensors travel around then entire thread “mesh” and if they encounter a node with does not respond then you end up with a huge traffic jam. This is why when one homepod is offline you end up with a message on your home app saying that all your hubs are not responding.

I think the thread functionality is potentially 'broken' with the new home architecture. I've just looking on the eve app to get an idea of my thread network. I have 3 Eve energies and some nanoleaf essentials. Currently they are all connected to my 'border router' via BlueTooth and not thread. To be clear it says transport: Bluetooth. However, my everoom (with is a thread endpoint) is connected to one of my eve energies via thread (e.g. transport: Threat).

So it appears Border Routers -> (via Bluetooth) Thread Router -> (via thread) Thread Endpoint .

When is comes to the thread connection method shown by eve - I think the eve app is getting the data from the HomeKit service running on the iPhone. So sometimes you will be able to see a more up to date view if you power off your phone - restart and then load the eve app again - you make see the eve app saying that it’s waiting for HomeKit.

Many thanks. Giving that a go.

Now it does indeed say

Border Router -> (via Thread) Thread Router -> (via Thread) Threat Endpoint.

With set up my other bulbs now - see how long it lasts. I find my system will be stable until I reboot my router.

Good luck. I did a test case by deleting five devices, factory resetting them, then adding them back to HomeKit. It all worked perfectly until the next morning, when they were all unresponsive again. Sigh. Glad I didn't go to all that trouble with all 30 of my devices. I understand Apple intends to fix this in 16.4. I will wait for that before doing anything as drastic as deleting the entire Home. I am very glad I got switches that work on HomeKit AND Alexa, because Alexa is still working -- thank God. I just don't believe Apple has left us with totally wrecked devices for this long. All my HomePods are still "configuring", and my garage door opener which is HomeKit only is dead. The 16.3.1 update yesterday didn't fix any of my problems.

Re the HomePod stuck configuring. When I had that issue I found that the only resolution was to do a full reset and setup using a different Apple ID - not part of the house. I borrowed my sons iPad. Once that worked I was able to reset and add back to my Apple ID / home.

Like yourself I did many individual device resets with no apparent progress - I think the fundamental problem was the HomeKit Config and my HomePods.

So I personally had to take a leap of faith and create a new home - do a reset of every HomePod / Apple TV which could act as a home hub and add them into the new home - then add all the devices back in one at a time. It was a full days work.

16.3.2 seems to have improved the reliability of the hubs. I no longer get this domino effect where one would go offline and take them all offline.

i use almost exclusively EVE devices with thread support and if I can get them all to use thread they work well. Sometimes some of them will use Bluetooth- especially if I’ve had to reboot my Wi-Fi and getting them to go back to thread can sometimes involve rebooting all the HomePods.

good luck

Total disaster with HomeKit after upgrading to 16.3. Nothing works on HomeKit.

Oh I forgot to mention- in my experience it’s important that all devices capable of being a hub are on the latest release- so if you have Apple TV as well as HomePod then do those as well.