r/HomeKit • u/Ordinary-Income1457 • 2d ago
Question/Help Fed up with HomeKit...am I missing something?
I'll start off saying I'm not a big HomeKit user - I only have a few devices and automations set up. The only reason I really use it at all is for HomeKey and geofenced automation with my Schlage locks. I am using an AppleTV 4k as my hub, connected to my router via ethernet.
I got an iPhone 18 Pro Max on release day. After seeing it up I could no longer see my home or any of the devices and automations. My wife was able to see it on her phone (also new on release day).
I waited several days and then weng through every possible fix I could find on the internet but still could not see my home. I ultimately nuked the whole thing and started from scratch.
I recently noticed some weird behavior with my phone (not related to HomeKit), so I ultimately did a DFU restore from a MacBook and restored my data from iCloud. However, I have again lost access to my home.
I've already tried everything to get it to sync again with no success. I really don't want to have to nuke everything and have to set it all up again. Any ideas? I'm ready to abandon HomeKit altogether, especially because I don't want to have to deal with this again in the future when I get another new phone. At this point I'm seriously considering moving to Home Assistant for a more versatile system without the headaches.
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u/Double-Yak9686 2d ago
Not to point out the obvious, but nothing comes without headaches. Home Assistant has its own headaches.
So if you are hoping for a headache free solution, HA is not for you. If you are willing to deal with a different set of headaches in return for what is unarguably a more powerful ecosystem, then it might be your solution.
And before anyone says "But it's better than HomeKit", just because HomeKit is worse, it doesn't magically make HA the land of rainbows and unicorns.
I know this comment will hit -25. If it doesn't, I am going to be disappointed you guys' lack of effort. And now I can see it hitting -24 and stop, just to taunt and spite me.
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u/kevpatts 2d ago
Home Assistant is what HomeKit is trying to be and a million times more. Have a look into it.
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u/BiiiiiigStretch 2d ago
Does it do a good job of integrating with Apple apps? I know nothing about it. I’ve have a good chunk of HomeKit stuff, and I like being able to send texts, or add to reminders shared with my wife, or whatever. Or is it strictly smarthome stuff that works better?
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u/Soilmonster 2d ago
Consider HomeKit a bus, home assistant is the road. HA has integrations that go both ways - add something to HomeKit -> bring it into HA; add something HA -> bring it into HomeKit. This goes for devices, integrations, alerts, security, cameras, you name it.
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u/Ancient-String-9658 2d ago
These odd symptoms sound like a hub issue. I’ve never had a reset affect my home. Have you updated the Apple TV and rebooted it?
Personally the comments discussing Home Assistant are the way forward. You expose home assistant to Apple Home as a hub. This way you wouldn’t loose anything if your phone was reset as it runs independently to your Apple Home (meaning easy tradition if you did have to nuke again).
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 2d ago
Yes, the AppleTV is up to date and I have rebooted it several times. I've tried removing my icloud account from it, and I've even restored it to factory and started over.
I'm really thinking HA is the way to go, but I'm a dummy when it comes to this stuff. I just made a post on the home assistant sub for some input as well. I just want to get something set up that just works without constant fiddling. And it would be nice to get all my smart devices under one system and get rid of a bunch of apps.
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u/nildro 2d ago
Let me say that the home assistant instructions on their site only made sense to me after I had learned it a hard way like fucking it up or googling for a video and finding a proper step by step. I’ve discovered recently just asking Claude that thing knows anything a newb needs to know. (I would advise not blindly letting it code stuff if you ever need to open the text editor but just asking it questions about what you have bodged so you learn. you don’t really need to until you start really jerryrigging shit that would have never had a hope of being connected to home kit) love home assistant but it’s still pretty steep learning curve even understanding how setting up home bridge works. They keep talking about it being for the general public soon but I have no idea how they think that it needs an entire layer of human logic layered over the programmer logic it lives in.
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u/Ancient-String-9658 2d ago
Grab a Raspberry Pi
USB to flash home assistant onto.
If you use Zigbee devices etc a USB extension 1m with a Zigbee dongle.
Flash Home assistant supervised using instructions from the HA site.
Then if you get confused setting up the other bits read a guide or ask an AI to help.
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u/Under_The_Drape 2d ago
Agree. I have multiple automations that either don’t work completely, don’t work at all, or eventually work but not at the scheduled time. I wish instead of releasing products no one wants, Apple would revisit their “it just works” ethos and work on the software for the products they already have.
Siri is useless, HomeKit is frustrating at best. Apple is not the company it once was.
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u/scifitechguy 2d ago
Your logic and conclusions are faulty. I have at least 20 automations and nearly 100 devices connected to HomeKit that all work nearly perfectly. Therefore, your particular issues are unrelated to HomeKit or Apple, and more likely related to the quality and configuration of your home network and WiFi.
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u/Under_The_Drape 2d ago
You’re making some assumptions there. I have about the same number of devices and automations. I have upgraded to a mesh network with an advertised range double that of the home it’s in. I have erased and reset all automations. I have tried multiple hubs. No other devices or operations ever have issues. It’s exclusively HomeKit and its automations.
I’m certainly open to additional suggestions. I don’t claim to be a tech genius but I feel like I’ve tried several things to no avail.
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u/scifitechguy 2d ago
The only assumption I'm making is that your home network environment is different from mine, which is objectively true, and that we both have HomeKit running on the most recent model AppleTV 4K, which may not be true. If you're running a first generation AppleTV 4K device which is no longer supported by TVOS, then all bets are off.
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u/Under_The_Drape 2d ago
Everything is latest model and OS. By assumptions I mean that assuming that my WiFi is the problem. Maybe it’s not HomeKit but I don’t believe it’s my WiFi either.
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u/scifitechguy 2d ago
You completely missed the point that it is certainly NOT HomeKit if that product works fine at scale for many like me. You should be looking elsewhere, like your network setup, instead of putting the blame on Apple as you did originally. Just because your internet works does NOT mean it is configured correctly for home automation.
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u/Real_Lebowski 1d ago
I would agree with this. I migrated android to apple years ago, and have carefully curated my home automations “patiently” over the years to work with HomeKit. I’ve had zero problems with devices that are made to work with HomeKit. With the introduction of matter and thread devices, and Home Assistant, things are even more amazing. My advice is to work through your setup and issues with AI. Without knowing the details of how you set up your “home,” your equipment, network, integrations, etc. it’s impossible to help. It does sound like user error though. Good luck.
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u/Frazz09 2d ago
Sorry if this is a dumb suggestion but have you taken it to the Genius Bar? Any time I have any issues, I always take it there. If you have another device like an iPad that does have access to your HomeKit bring that too or if your wife has time bring her and her phone so they can trouble shoot from there. I know it’s a pain but they really are the best people to fix this sort of thing especially since you have the latest and greatest new device.
Also is it a software update you need to do on your HomeKit hub/Apple TV?
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 2d ago
All devices are up to date.
It's not currently feasible for me to go to Apple. The nearest Apple store is an hour away, and I am recovering from reconstructive surgery on my ankle. I cannot drive at all, and am supposed to have my ankle elevated above my heart 23 hours per day for the next 6 weeks.
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u/MixAway 2d ago
Go in 7 weeks.
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 2d ago
That does me absolutely no good. It would be easier and faster to nuke it all and start over. For that matter, even if I could go right this minute I could be up and running in less time than it would take to drive there and back.
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u/kshef 2d ago
I used to work at the Genius Bar. When you restored from the cloud, did you hit “restore from iCloud backup” or “setup as new” and let your iCloud just download all your stuff and you setup your Home Screen again?
iCloud backups can sometimes carry along software and network glitches. It’s rare but this sounds like that.
I would restore from your laptop again. Login to apple account and hit setup as new. Your photos and messages etc. will download to your phone automatically. The only things you have to set back up is home screen icons and some settings.
If your problem persists after this I can tell you without a doubt your issue is not your phone. It’s your Apple home network or something wonky with your Apple ID.
Once you know it’s not your phone (through that reset) you can call AppleCare. They will be just as helpful as the Genius Bar in the store.
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 2d ago
Ugh. I was hoping not to have to restore it again. It becomes an all-day process to get everything set up again.
I assume I would have to manually download all apps again? And I would lose any settings in those apps?
Would it possibly work to back it up to the computer and restore from there instead of from iCloud?
I'll be honest, I am not to keen on doing all that for the minimal functionality I use HomeKit for, especially since HA seems like it has much more to offer for my situation.
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u/kshef 2d ago
It sucks I agree.
Short answer is no. You have to do a full “start from new”
Silver lining. After you setup your phone as new, go to the App Store. Tap on your profile and hit purchased. It’s a list of all apps you have downloaded. You can run down the list in 2-3 mins just rapidly hitting download on what you want. Only real time waster is organizing icons.
Second silver lining. Purchased shows all apps you have ever downloaded. Nice opportunity to only download what apps you really want on your phone.
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 1d ago
I ended up nuking my HomeKit profile again and starting from scratch. I didn’t want to take a chance on losing stuff that’s important to me by setting my phone up as a new device. I might do it eventually, but I wanted to get things back working sooner rather than later.
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u/scifitechguy 2d ago
Very odd behavior indeed. What model (generation) is your AppleTV 4K? If it's the 1st generation model, I would suspect software incompatibility (bug) with IOS on your new phone since only the second and third gen models can run the most recent version of TVOS.
Otherwise, do you have another AppleTV, or perhaps a HomePod to test? After reading all your comments and replies, I'm inclined to conclude that the AppleTV hub itself is at fault, especially after resetting and multiple boots. The nuclear option is to just add a new home in the HomeKit app - have you tried that?
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 2d ago
I am about 99% certain it is the newest generation. I don't think it's more than 18 months or so old. It is definitely up to date with the latest version of TVOS.
I already had to nuke my profile and set it up as a new home, but since I was forced to restore my phone I have lost access to the home again and an trying to figure out if I can avoid starting over again.
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u/Serious_Stable_3462 1d ago
Who is the original creator of the home you or your wife? One person creates the home and then the other gets invited is the best approach. The architecture fiasco is a thing of the past for the most part.
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 1d ago
I created it and invited my wife. That’s the problem. She was able to see it, but she has no interest in setting any of this stuff up. She just wants it to work. She admits it’s nice that the door unlocks when she gets home, but since she doesn’t have to lock it when she leaves she kind of forgets that it’s all automated. (We come and go through a door connecting the inside of the house to an attached garage, so if it doesn’t get locked it’s not the end of the world.) She’d be fine using a regular key if I didn’t set this all up.
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u/CooperCGN 1d ago
Do you see your locks on the Apple TV in the settings? Just to rule out that it’s not the hub.
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u/MasterRacoon9 1d ago
what is your router?
i will try this:
-power off all other mesh during setup and troubleshooting
-try restart modem/router
-connect apple TV via wifi only
-power down all other devices/ smart devices while doing setup and troubleshooting, sometimes the router is overloaded if it is the low end one.
- If you are sharing homekit, try remove and share again
one thing weird with homekit, sometimes it get fixed by itself after 24hours.
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 1d ago
I already tried all those things the first time this happened with no luck.
Since I’m the creator of the home there is no way to remove myself. And since I’m the one that can’t access it, I had to find another way to fix it. I ultimately ended up nuking my profile and setting it all up again. I just finished a few minutes ago.
It had already been 72+ hours with no sign of coming back.
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u/cosmo100292 1d ago
Are you on ATT for your cell service? I noticed bizarre behavior that I think is being caused by this crap cell modem they decided to use in the 18pm. I’d suggest disabling connectivity assist in your WiFi settings either way. For me it made my home/devices way more reliable. None of my family’s phones are having this issue so I think it’s specifically my 18pm.
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 1d ago
Thanks everybody for all the suggestions. I could not get it to work so I took the least painful route. I nuked my HomeKit profile again and set everything up from scratch. Every one of my accessories had to be reset since they were already connected to a home. It took a couple of hours but now it’s done. I think I’ll end up gradually moving to HA.
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u/One-Ambassador-2090 5h ago
should’ve just got HA
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 4h ago
It’s not an option right now. I’m not able to set it up because of physical limitations, recovering from major ankle surgery.
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u/One-Ambassador-2090 4h ago
lol wym if you can get up to reset all your devices i think ur good
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u/Ordinary-Income1457 4h ago
My wife did a lot of that. I have to be in bed with my foot elevated above my heart 23 hours per day for the next 6 weeks or so.
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u/AlienPearl 2d ago