Share NEW HomeKit Device

[friedmud]

I have successfully setup HomeKit with many Hue bulbs and some iHome Smart Plugs.

I've successfully shared all of this with my wife's iPhone and it's been working great.

Today I added two more Hue bulbs. In the "Siri Voice Control" settings of the Hue app I needed to "sync" the new bulbs. Once I did that I could immediately control the new bulbs using Siri on my phone. Further, I use the "Home" app for organizing my HomeKit devices and I was able to go in there and see my new bulbs, control them and add them to a new HomeKit Room and control them using Siri using the Room name.

In short: everything looks good.

Except one thing: the new bulbs and Room will NOT show up on my wife's iPhone. Does anyone know how to get her iPhone to sync the new stuff?

 

[friedmud]

Update: eventually the bulbs did show up on her iPhone... But NOT the new room. I tried to delete and re-add the Room using my iPhone, but that didn't help.

Next step is to probably revoke her access and re-add her. Last time I tried that it wouldn't work so I had to completely reset my HomeKit setup (including wiping and setting up all my Hue lights again!)

 

[friedmud]

Update 2: ok got it working. Here's how I did it:

1. Revoked her access to our Home using my iPhone.
2. Removed "Home" from HomeKit Settings on her phone (shouldn't be necessary, and first sign that this wasn't going to go well)
3. Tried to re-add her using my iPhone. However: her phone would never receive the invitation. This happened to me before...
4. Canceled her invitation
5. Turned off both phones
6. Turned on both phones
7. Unlocked each phone and waited for them to connect to Wifi.
8. Tried to send HkmeKit sharing invitation again
9. SUCCESS! Everything showed up on her phone this time, including the new room!!

This is a damn mess! Every time I have to modify my HomeKit setup it somehow gets borked up. Thank Jobs that I didn't have to reset my entire HomeKit setup again!!! It takes me hours to get it all set up again and hooked up to all of the services and Harmony remotes and everything. Really dodged one there!

Anyway... HomeKit is still new: but man it needs some bugs worked out of it!!

 

[kid2010]

Adding/Removing spaces (Room/Zone) should trigger a sync across all shared users. Next time when this happened, you may want to give HomeKit a little more time so that it can sync properly across all users. The syncing mechanism used by HomeKit is really slow ...

 

[friedmud]

Adding/Removing spaces (Room/Zone) should trigger a sync across all shared users. Next time when this happened, you may want to give HomeKit a little more time so that it can sync properly across all users. The syncing mechanism used by HomeKit is really slow ...

Thanks. I'll try a bit more patience next time

Is it normal for the new device to show up first... and then the Room on a later sync? That's what made me think it was broken: that the devices showed up but not the Room. But maybe I just needed to give it more time...

Thanks again for your reply!

 

[kid2010]

Thanks. I'll try a bit more patience next time

Is it normal for the new device to show up first... and then the Room on a later sync? That's what made me think it was broken: that the devices showed up but not the Room. But maybe I just needed to give it more time...

Thanks again for your reply!

It suppose to be all together. However, based on the timing that sync being triggered, it's possible HomeKit on the other side thinks it had the latest home configuration (with only accessory). In that case, you'll have to make some changes to your home and then HomeKit will sync again.

 

[friedmud]

I see. Thanks!

 

[thelookingglass]

Just curious, but do you guys feel the Hue bulbs are worth it if you don't care about different colored lighting? It seems awfully expensive to have to change those out over the course of several years, as opposed to a solution where regular bulbs can be used.

 

[friedmud]

If you don't care about color you can get the Hue "white" bulbs. They are only $15.

I'm not quite sure what you mean about "change those out". Hue bulbs are LED and should last about 15-20 _years_. That's one of the reasons why the higher pricing is easier to swallow