HomeKit Shortcut bug fixed in iOS 15.1 / tvOS 15.1 / iPadOS 15.1 / HomePod Software Update 15.1

The bug introduced in iOS (and tvOS, etc) 15, seems now to have been fixed in the 15.1 update. If you used any of the workarounds in my earlier posts, those would of course continue to work.

The Home app also seems a lot little bit more stable when writing longer HomeKit shortcuts.

9 thoughts on “HomeKit Shortcut bug fixed in iOS 15.1 / tvOS 15.1 / iPadOS 15.1 / HomePod Software Update 15.1”

    1. Haha, I’m actually always waiting at least between half a day to a day before updating just be sure I’m not bricking everything. The more one is relying on HomeKit automations, the worst it is when nothing works 😄

    1. 👍 I updated the AppleTV 4K gen 2 in the living room and the HomePod Mini in the hallway last night, but of course as I did that, HomeKit transfered the active hub status to the bedroom AppleTV 4K gen 1 (which was still on tvOS 15)… and my wife was watching Netflix on it last night, so I couldn’t update that before this morning 😂 (Just explaining why it took a little bit of time before I got this post out #marriedlife)

      1. LOL, for me when I realized both of my HomePod Minis are the causes of automation failures after upgrading to iOS 15.0, I rushed out and got an Apple TV 4K Gen 2 just so that it was still on iOS 14 and had powered off my Minis ever since waiting on 15.1.

        1. Well, that was a good reason as any to get the new AppleTV 😁
          Since being burned by the tvOS bug in 13.3, my modus operandi has been to always keep one of the AppleTVs on an older version before being able to do thorough testing. So no automatic updating for me 😉

  1. Stefan;

    Trying to determine the occupancy of a room. When people are asleep they usually don’t move, making using even a pair of motion sensors useless in the manner I have used them in the past. So I put them near the doorway about 10 cm apart. This way get triggered about 0.25 second apart as someone enters or leaves the room. I use this to determine whether somebody enters or exits the room. What would make this idea easier is if I could establish a variable in HomeKit that would add as people entered the room and subtract as people left the room. The room would be empty if that variable was zero.

    Right now unsuccessfully I have a hodgepodge set of “dummy switches” which in a sort of ladder fashion determine occupancy. In other words, if dummy_switch_one equals one, if someone enters the room that turns on dummy_switch_two, and so on. Yes, I use the Homebridge plugin “Dummy Switch” for this. I would rather use the plugin “Logic” if I could get it to work but it messes up my Homebridge setup.

    Any suggestions?

    Dave

    1. Hi Dave,

      This is an interesting problem, and one that I don’t think HomeKit is equipped to handle. I know some people use cameras that detects and recognizes people and pets to determine occupancy, but I’m not a big fan of installing a lot of cameras in the home, especially in the bedroom.

      Your solution is clever, but I have a feeling it’s hard to implement it in an accurate way in HomeKit. I’m not doing occupancy detection in rooms in my automations, but I do use dummy switches as state variables, and I’ve put a Hue Dimmer Switch by the bed with a button programmed to turn on “Sleeping” and another to turn off “Sleeping”.

      This is of course not something that exist at the moment, but weight sensors under the floor could be a future way of determining occupancy. But I have a feeling cameras will be the real solution (preferably cameras that don’t use visible light and that are not connected to the internet).

  2. Stefan;

    It is difficult to say the least. But it’s not a solution in search of a problem thought. It would be a lot easier if I could could get the “Logic” plugin to work. It appears to be abandoned by it’s author. Saying the problem might by solved with a camera might be pretty close to answer. Someone suggested using a CCD as a sensor. Apparently a CCD can detect very minuscule changes in light and that might be akin to “seeing” without seeing. On cameras they normally have all sorts of filters to get rid of the light the doesn’t immediately mean anything to us. I have a feeling getting my binary logic to work with a series of “Dummy Switches” is the answer for now. When we went down the HomeKit path, my wife liked that all the light would go on automatically whenever they were needed. I liked that they automatically went off when they were not needed.

    Thanks for the prompt reply.

    Dave

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