HomeKit hubs all stuck in standby

This happened to me yesterday. I noticed it after updating to iOS 15.6.1 and thought it may have something to do with that, but maybe it’s unrelated.

I have an Apple TV and two HomePods. The HomePods act as hubs, and I previously disabled the ATV as a hub after having frequent issues.

When I’ve experienced this issue before, I could physically unplug the HomePods and plug them back in and that would get things going again. Not this time. Hubs are stuck in standby, and I don’t even have the option of toggling the ATV hub status. Very frustrating.

I had this and even manual interventions didn't help, my HomePod remained standby and it did not airplay or react to personal requests. I eventually ended up taking it to the apple support center in my town and they reinstalled the firmware on it and for now airplay is working.

You can also reinstall the firmware yourself tho

For me it happened when my at home care person pulled the plug of the HomePod out without asking me if she could do it.

I have the same after updating to 15.6 (I am not home and I updated just to 15.6.1 so I cannot say yet if it has become better or worse) with one of my HomePods. The other was stil working well but I don't know how that is after 15.6.1

This seems to be an issue with original Homepods after updating to 15.6 or 15.6.1. I had similar issues a few days ago. Luckily I seem to have fixed it by unplugging the Homepods then changing the Apple TV 4K from ethernet (cable) to wifi connection and restarting it.

The ATV then became the only home hub. I plugged the Homepods back in and they became standby hubs.

I found I could then change the ATV back to ethernet and Homekit is working as before (15.6) - one of the Homepods is currently the active hub.

So,it seems to me that it is something to do with handshaking the Homekit info between devices.

It concerns me that Apple may not be fully testing the original (discontinued!) Homepods when updating its software.

Sounds like an issue you should report via Feedback - HomePod - Apple.

tt2

Have you tried unplugging your ATV and or the HomePods? I assume all of these devices otherwise work as designed.