Apple halts update to HomeKit's new Home architecture

AppleInsider · December 22, 2022 2:23PM

Following multiple reports of problems with HomeKit's new update, Apple appears to have withdrawn the option to upgrade to the new architecture.

The latest update to iOS 16.2 caused problems for some HomeKit users, as detailed on AppleInsider's dedicated HomeKit Insider podcast. Now without any notification, Apple appears to have halted the update and removed the option from the Home app.

Previously, users of the Home app would be prompted with "Home Upgrade Available." The prompt also explained that "Home now has a new underlying architecture that will improve the performance of your home."

Now this prompt reportedly no longer appears, as first spotted by MacRumors. In our own testing on Thursday morning, the option to update the whole architecture is inaccessible. Existing updates already applied seem to remain intact, however.

Curiously, the removal comes within 24 hours of Apple updating its HomeKit support documentation to include instructions on how to update to the new Home architecture. There's no mention of any delay in that document, nor has Apple commented publicly.

Read on AppleInsider

skeptical · December 22, 2022 2:26PM

Another update, another set of problems. Yay Apple.

cheesefreeze · December 22, 2022 2:33PM

My upgrade was a total disaster. I sent my complaint to Tim Cook (obviously not expecting an answer) and two days later the executive support team called me to provide support. By then I re-installed ALL computers and mobile devices, reset my HomePod and more. It was so much work, and the error messages were so cryptic that it didn't provide any clues to where to look. But we had to fix it fast because we have over 70 smart devices in our house (sounds like a lot, but with smart lights, cameras, etc this number is met quickly).
Apple made a mistake providing this update the way they did. The roll-out was messy.

davicon · December 22, 2022 4:36PM

Fortunately, mine went perfectly smoothly the day after 16.2 was released. Grateful for that, but an update like that shouldn't rely on luck. I feel for those who ran into trouble.

jdgaz · December 22, 2022 5:03PM

I tried 3 times to upgrade but I kept getting a message that my wife would be locked out of the home. All devices were at the right release level. Turns out my wife’s phone had a MyHome registered in addition to our named home. Once I deleted that from her phone all went well. IMHO Apple back to work full time in their buildings can’t come fast enough. Testing and documentation have really fallen.

netrox · December 22, 2022 5:27PM

So glad I don't have issues but I got plenty of complaints about Apple's inferior implementation of smart home automation.

wonkothesane · December 22, 2022 6:07PM

If you run into trouble with HomeKit issues (such as inability to add shared home users), I recall that Apple used to send affected users a special profile to instal on your phone with which you could totally erase any HomeKit settings. It should be enough to google “reset HomeKit profile”. Obviously, you will need to start from scratch, but it seems this resolved issues in manny cases that otherwise could not be resolved.

thrang · December 22, 2022 9:07PM

Mess for me too, though I don't know if it was the Home architecture upgrade or the Original HomePod 16.3 update which were rolled at the same time.

Either one or both broke the default audio out from the Apple TV 4k (2nd and third generations) to the HomePods (all original, some single, some stereo pairs). Busted. Broken.

You can use the Temporary Audio Out, sometimes, but even if you do, this then interferes with later Hey Siri requests to the HomePods, where it says it's having trouble connecting to Apple Music. You have to turn that off, or force music from your phone to the HomePod to shake Siri awake it seems (and they seems to turn off the Temporary speaker setting.

Quite a mess. Before this news, Apple support also hinted at a roll back option, but said it would wipe out my entire Home (devices/rooms/automations/scenes). The fact that they even offered a roll back was a huge indication something was wrong, as that nearly never happens. But starting from scratch is a no go for me (more than 100 devices, many automatons and scenes etc.), so I have a case open with Apple to pursue this until they fix with an update. Atrocious, and why they would even release this 10 days before Christmas/Years, when I would suspect there is an increased using in music and lighting control, is beyond mystifying...

I tried a developer 16.3 tvOS beta to see if it would fix the issue - no dice. There was a 16.3 pushed to the one HP Mini I have (that's not in a room with an Apple TV), but thus far no 16.3 for the original HomePod.

Tim, this is a mess, and I think Apple should address this screw up more proactively and clearly. Tech support is constantly clueless, a problem that is worsening over the past few years for Apple.

Huge Apple family here, but I don't like the cracks I am seeing.

welshdog · December 23, 2022 3:08AM

EarIier this week I updated two iPhones, two iPads and two Apple TVs to the lastest OS. Also an M1 Macbook Air and 2017 MBP were both updated to Ventura's lastest. I have a few Homekit devices and never received the notice about the Homekit architecture update. I suppose the 2012 Mac Mini that is limited to Catalina might be holding things up? It doesn't participate in My Home, but is on the primary Apple ID.

anilu_777 · December 23, 2022 4:41AM

Update had a couple of logical hitches where my OG HomePod and HomePod Minis had to be updated first. That took two tries. Then I had to make sure my old 5S and SE weren’t using the Home (they weren’t even though they’re on the same Apple ID). No trouble after that. Got lucky I guess.

loopless · December 23, 2022 4:45AM

This maybe be a harbinger of what will happen when google/apple etc try to roll out matter and thread....

jamnap · December 23, 2022 3:10PM

My issues with thread-only devices began a few months ago exactly at the time I upgraded from iOS 15 to 16 (no Betas). I did do the upgrade offered in 16.2 but Thread devices (Eve/Nanoleaf/Wemo) work for a few hours and then "no response" takes over. Apple Home is not reliable: everything works fine as long I elect not to use any Thread devices, and all the Thread devices worked flawlessly in iOS 15. Go figure!

lilpir8 · December 23, 2022 4:21PM

My main phone is an iPhone 6s so I don’t want to update to the new architecture but my iPhone 6s still shows a pending 16.2 update for my HomePod mini. Should I update the HomePod Mini to 16.2 or leave it where it is. My Apple TV HD is the active Home hub.

robin huber · December 23, 2022 4:25PM

For me it was outdoor smart plugs (Meross) for landscape lighting. Either show up as no response, or when they are live fail to go on and off as automated to do. Sheesh!

new123 · December 23, 2022 4:27PM

My upgrade went fine, but then adding devices wouldn't work unless I turn off 5GHZ on my router, as requests are now made from the HomePod mini rather than your phone to any new device.

thrang · December 23, 2022 4:35PM

Apple, are you going to give us a holiday gift (Home and HomePod updates), or do those coals remain in our collective stockings???

dewme · December 23, 2022 4:58PM

Yeah, Apple really screwed the pooch on this one. My Home configuration is totally trashed.

lkrupp · December 23, 2022 5:40PM

davicon said:

Fortunately, mine went perfectly smoothly the day after 16.2 was released. Grateful for that, but an update like that shouldn't rely on luck. I feel for those who ran into trouble.

I don’t think you were lucky. As always you were like in the vast majority. We only hear about the failures, never the successes. That Apple has apparently withdrawn the update definitely means there is a problem but I doubt it is as widespread as the tech blogs make it to be. It’s never is. Notice they always use the term ‘some users’ because they have idea how many, but two is enough to declare a catastrophe in the tech blog universe.

dewme · December 23, 2022 7:25PM

New123 said:

My upgrade went fine, but then adding devices wouldn't work unless I turn off 5GHZ on my router, as requests are now made from the HomePod mini rather than your phone to any new device.

Interesting ...

As far as I know HomePod mini only supports 2.4 GHz. When I originally configured my 2 minis (as a stereo pair) I did it from my iPhone Xs Max, which I keep on my 5 GHz radio since I have my SSIDs partitioned (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz use different SSIDs). Everything was fine until I upgraded everything to 16.2 at which point I could never get back into the Home app from any of my Apple devices whether they were on the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz radio or connected via Ethernet. I reset everything to get past the infinite spin on the attempts to get into the Home app from any device.

After blowing away my Home app configuration the Home app would open but everything was gone. Total emptiness. I had to unplug the minis and run through the initial setup again. The first attempt failed, so I started over after setting up my iPhone set to use the 2.4 GHz WiFi. Whether coincidental or not everything worked the second try and I got both minis configured and configured as stereo pair. Once I got this point the Home app on all of my COMPATIBLE devices worked regardless of how they were accessing the network.

Digging a little deeper I discovered that my Late 2012 iMac 27" (Catalina) and 2013 MacBook Pro 13 Retina (Big Sur) no longer supports Home. The app loads but it doesn't populate with any scenes or devices. Lastly, I tried a 2014 Mac mini with Monterey. The app loads but displays a warning that the "hardware" does not support the Home app. At least it tells you. Since none of these devices are now compatible with Home I disabled the Home checkbox in the iCloud settings on these devices.

I didn't realize that the latest version of Home had a hardware dependency that older Macs could not support, especially since straight WiFi is a fully supported protocol under the Matter standard. Thread support is not a requirement as far as I know. But we've seen other cases where Apple deviates from standards, albeit usually for greater support of Apple devices. Earlier versions of Home only supported Thread compatible devices from Apple. All of these older Macs worked perfectly fine with Home prior to the 16.2 rollout. Of course none of this should be related to the failure linked to the new Home architecture, unless I missed the release notes that said that all of these older Macs were no longer compatible, and by the way, your current Home configuration is going to be nuked.

Something smells like it escaped Apple's dev process without being fully tested, part of which should include backward compatibility testing and clearly documenting all breaking changes. No way to spin this one.

scot1 · December 23, 2022 7:46PM

robin huber said:

For me it was outdoor smart plugs (Meross) for landscape lighting. Either show up as no response, or when they are live fail to go on and off as automated to do. Sheesh!

Same for us. Outdoor Meross outlet works manually (voice activated) but timer is no longer working to turn Xmas lights on and off

bala1234 · December 23, 2022 8:37PM

loopless said:

This maybe be a harbinger of what will happen when google/apple etc try to roll out matter and thread....

Uh... I thought this is the update to enable matter/thread? Trouble seems to be that the update requires all third party devices to update their firmware as well. That's a daunting ask if true. Google apparently has updated all most of its devices to support matter and thread. But I really haven't tried to add any new thread only devices. Will try it out in the new year. Keeping my fingers crossed.

edited December 2022

Apple halts update to HomeKit's new Home architecture

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