Sporadic problems affecting HomeKit Secure Video with iOS 15

AppleInsider · October 4, 2021 3:29PM

Some iOS 15 or tvOS 15 installs are causing problems for users that rely on HomeKit Secure Video, with troubleshooting looking at setups using a HomePod as a Home Hub.

HomeKit Secure Video problems appear to be affecting cameras from many or all manufacturers

AppleInsider has not been able to reproduce this, but a number of users have been experiencing issues with HomeKit Secure Video. Most report that it is no longer recording video, but others are also saying they are having trouble getting their security cameras recognized.

It's not confined to any one camera manufacturer. There is a recurring factor that HomePods are being used as HomeKit hubs, but it's not conclusive that HomePod or HomePod mini is somehow to blame.

HomeKit Secure Video was introduced with iOS 13.2, and now with iCloud+, it lets you connect any number of cameras. Or at least it does in theory.

"[Since] updating to iOS 15, my eufy indoor cameras are no longer recording any videos," says Reddit user badmaj5 in one typical discussion. "The last recordings are from Monday before the update, so now my wife isn't happy that I always want to update the new thing when everything was working just fine before."

In this case and seemingly the majority of them, wiping devices, removing them from HomeKit, and starting over again appears to usually be the solution.

"I decided to reset everything," continued badmaj5. "First I removed all HomePods from my HomeKit and iCloud account. Then I reset the Apple TV's and did a reset and update option, and removed them from my iCloud account as well."

The user also removed all the cameras from HomeKit, before then adding back the HomePod "and making sure it showed up as a hub." Following that and the addition of cameras, more HomePods and so on, "everything is working normally again."

It's a cumbersome workaround and since there is no clear cause for it, there's also no way to be sure this fixes the issue permanently.

Apple has yet to comment on the reports.

Read on AppleInsider

netrox · October 4, 2021 4:07PM

I suspect it's the inherent issue with home networking. Thread is supposed to solve that issue by automatically "self-heal" connections if they lose connections. The catch is that you need to have devices with the Thread support.

HomePod mini support Thread but devices like cameras and doorbells and alarms are also required to have Thread support in order to take advantage of robust networking.

rrabu · October 4, 2021 4:16PM

My circle view cameras no longer do notifications. I couldn’t watch any recordings so switched them to stream from “stream and record” and now I can not move them back. The home UI just spins a while then gives up with no error message.

Furthermore, the home app on my MacBook shows they are set to “stream and record” but not my phone so stuff is out of sync. Trying to remove and re-add the cameras proves futile.

Hope it’s a cloud issue that will get fixed but likely going to have to put in a ticket with support. Overall, not impressed…

itinj24 · October 4, 2021 5:47PM

BLUF: It has to be the Home Hub causing this.

I’m pretty convinced that this is an issue with the Home Hub. The other day, my dad visited for the first time since I set up HomeKit Secure Video with my Logi Circle 2’s. After he left, I went to add him as a recognized face in my home but noticed that he didn’t show up there. Found this strange since I do have a lot of cameras in and around my home. Also realized I stopped receiving camera notifications sometime early that day before he showed up. I went to check recordings of my cameras to see if any camera caught his face and noticed all recordings stopped at about 1030 that morning. This couldn’t be a camera specific issue. Checked which of my devices was the active Home Hub and it was an OG HomePod. Went to reboot it and it kept saying there’s no Wi-Fi connection. A-ha! Rebooted the AppleTV it was defaulted to and then unplugged the HomePod until it finally regained connection and sure enough all the recordings for that day were restored, my dad’s face showed up in facial recognition and notifications were coming alive.

Absolutely silly that Apple won’t let you choose the active Home Hub and keep it glued. Why they switch sometimes for no apparent reason beats the hell out of me but what I described above would’ve been the perfect time for my Home Hub to switch, but didn’t. I do notice varying HomeKit performance issues when certain devices are being used as the Hub. Would be nice to be able to select the best performing one on my own.

maxperts · October 4, 2021 6:07PM

I have a Logi Circle 2 camera and 2 Eufy Pan and Tilt camera models. Before iOS 15 my Eufy cameras were intermittently recording, then they both stopped. After IOS 15 install on all my devices nothing changed, both still not recording. The LogiCircle camera has maintained recording consistently. In an attempt to fix, I simply deleted one Eufy cam from my HomeKit app, then went back to the Eufy app and relinked it back to HomeKit and all is working! I repeated the process to the second cam and all is well! I did NOT remove them from the Eufy app, only HomeKit, then used the "HomeKit Portal" in the Eufy menu to reestablish each camera.

Note I have 4 HomePod minis and 1 2021 AppleTV 4K serving as home hubs. Hopefully that helps someone!

docno42 · October 4, 2021 6:16PM

itinj24 said:

Absolutely silly that Apple won’t let you choose the active Home Hub and keep it glued.

Indeed. Auto-detection crap is wonderful - until it stops working for whatever reason. It's always nice to have a way to hard code stuff; sadly Apple seems to be dead set against giving people the choice to at least specify their configuration as an option - in many places these days

welshdog · October 5, 2021 5:22AM

itinj24 said:

BLUF: It has to be the Home Hub causing this.

I’m pretty convinced that this is an issue with the Home Hub. The other day, my dad visited for the first time since I set up HomeKit Secure Video with my Logi Circle 2’s. After he left, I went to add him as a recognized face in my home but noticed that he didn’t show up there. Found this strange since I do have a lot of cameras in and around my home. Also realized I stopped receiving camera notifications sometime early that day before he showed up. I went to check recordings of my cameras to see if any camera caught his face and noticed all recordings stopped at about 1030 that morning. This couldn’t be a camera specific issue. Checked which of my devices was the active Home Hub and it was an OG HomePod. Went to reboot it and it kept saying there’s no Wi-Fi connection. A-ha! Rebooted the AppleTV it was defaulted to and then unplugged the HomePod until it finally regained connection and sure enough all the recordings for that day were restored, my dad’s face showed up in facial recognition and notifications were coming alive.

Absolutely silly that Apple won’t let you choose the active Home Hub and keep it glued. Why they switch sometimes for no apparent reason beats the hell out of me but what I described above would’ve been the perfect time for my Home Hub to switch, but didn’t. I do notice varying HomeKit performance issues when certain devices are being used as the Hub. Would be nice to be able to select the best performing one on my own.

See this is where I feel Apple almost always drops the ball. They come up with nice hardware we all want and then the software implementation seem to be lacking. Their updates to fix issues are slow in coming and sometimes don't fix everything. I just don't get how a company their size, depth and power and with their reputation, cannot do a better job of polishing the software experience. It's generally good, but there always seems to be little annoying shortcomings that they don't take seriously - at least as I perceive it. Siri is the evergreen example of this. I will give them credit for fixing Maps and making it excellent, but did that happen because they got publicly embarrassed by Maps debut?

itinj24 · October 5, 2021 6:05AM

welshdog said:

itinj24 said:

BLUF: It has to be the Home Hub causing this.

I’m pretty convinced that this is an issue with the Home Hub. The other day, my dad visited for the first time since I set up HomeKit Secure Video with my Logi Circle 2’s. After he left, I went to add him as a recognized face in my home but noticed that he didn’t show up there. Found this strange since I do have a lot of cameras in and around my home. Also realized I stopped receiving camera notifications sometime early that day before he showed up. I went to check recordings of my cameras to see if any camera caught his face and noticed all recordings stopped at about 1030 that morning. This couldn’t be a camera specific issue. Checked which of my devices was the active Home Hub and it was an OG HomePod. Went to reboot it and it kept saying there’s no Wi-Fi connection. A-ha! Rebooted the AppleTV it was defaulted to and then unplugged the HomePod until it finally regained connection and sure enough all the recordings for that day were restored, my dad’s face showed up in facial recognition and notifications were coming alive.

Absolutely silly that Apple won’t let you choose the active Home Hub and keep it glued. Why they switch sometimes for no apparent reason beats the hell out of me but what I described above would’ve been the perfect time for my Home Hub to switch, but didn’t. I do notice varying HomeKit performance issues when certain devices are being used as the Hub. Would be nice to be able to select the best performing one on my own.

See this is where I feel Apple almost always drops the ball. They come up with nice hardware we all want and then the software implementation seem to be lacking. Their updates to fix issues are slow in coming and sometimes don't fix everything. I just don't get how a company their size, depth and power and with their reputation, cannot do a better job of polishing the software experience. It's generally good, but there always seems to be little annoying shortcomings that they don't take seriously - at least as I perceive it. Siri is the evergreen example of this. I will give them credit for fixing Maps and making it excellent, but did that happen because they got publicly embarrassed by Maps debut?

Maps is fantastic now but I fear it’s too little too late. I live and work in the NYC area. Tons of iPhones and tons of traffic but the self reporting feature in Apple Maps is a wasteland. Likely because people have been on feature rich Waze and Google Maps for so long and just don’t use Apple Maps. I’d even bet most people don’t even know the feature is there in Apple Maps now and aren’t bothering to even learn about it.

Back to software, I can absolutely appreciate that Apple is adding more features to the multiple OS’s to enhance the user experience but at what cost? Feels like taking one step forward and then three back and it’s driving me nuts. Polish a feature and then destroy it in the next update. A good example is rich image notifications on the Apple Watch with HomeKit cameras. They just disappeared somewhere early during iOS 14/WatchOS 7 and finally returned with iOS 15/WatchOS 8. Just gone for about a year. Another is auto connecting/simultaneous connecting of iPhone/Apple Watch/Air Pods Pro. Just gone now. Have to manually connect each time to my Watch even when my iPhone is on me. I’m no software engineer or coder by any means but if you polish a feature and then have to tweak it to accommodate another feature, just make sure you go back put together what you took apart. Thought the iOS 13 debacle was going to correct this but it appears iOS 15 is headed in the same direction. Tons of bugs, in my experience at least.

crazyexcalibur · October 5, 2021 1:02PM

I’ve had these issues as well with my Logitech Circle 2. I’ve done all the things mentioned here and sometimes it goes back to normal, but there is still always some kind of issue with recording. It worked fine for about 3 straight days after all the resets, then one of the four cameras stopped recording. Then another, and it’s so random. Definitely all this started after the upgrade. It dirás appear sometimes that HomePod makes things worse but I notice issues when my Apple TV is the hub too.

Sporadic problems affecting HomeKit Secure Video with iOS 15

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