Odd behaviour with Apple home & hub devices

Combat squirrel · 13 Feb 2021 at 23:20

As title I have two homes as far as apple home is concerned (one my house the other my campervan).

In my house I have an apple tv and 2x homepods that can be the hubs.

In my campervan I have a homepod mini.

Sometimes I'll leave home and all works as you'd expect, I can still see my house cctv and use apple home.

Other times I'll leave and all of a sudden every hub is in standby and obviously my cctv can no longer be soon, which is useless.

However the hub in my van works fine and all apple home features work fine as you expect......in the home app only that mini as a hub is showing as connected and my real house isn't!

Of course in the home app I defo have them setup as 2 different homes.

Any ideas? I want my real house to stay online when I leave and all the hubs not to go into standby.

Combat squirrel · 14 Feb 2021 at 18:01

Anyone?

Combat squirrel · 15 Feb 2021 at 13:14

Anyone?

Feek · 15 Feb 2021 at 13:16

I have the one home setup and it stays online if I’m not here.

Bluecube · 15 Feb 2021 at 14:02

When I set up my HomePod as a Home hub, it automatically created an automation that turned off everything in my home if I left the house eg Hue bulbs, Hive valves, etc, etc. Is this maybe what your issue is?

Combat squirrel · 15 Feb 2021 at 23:28

Feek said:
I have the one home setup and it stays online if I’m not here.

Yes it worked fine before I put a 'home' in my camper van - it seems to keep wanting to use the camper vans home hub for everything as far as I can tell - which, if so, is STUPID because mega rich people with 2 separate physical homes surely have 2 separate hubs, like me - my vans hub is obviously on its own separate internet connection and wifi network.

Bluecube said:
When I set up my HomePod as a Home hub, it automatically created an automation that turned off everything in my home if I left the house eg Hue bulbs, Hive valves, etc, etc. Is this maybe what your issue is?

Yeah you'd think, but it shouldn't switch itself off should it ? - I can still use everything in my real house, lights, switches etc, except the CCTV doesn't work on the home app - it all of a sudden works fine when I have returned home - but again the 2 separate homes are 100% on completely separate internet connections and separate wifi.

The only theory ill have to try next time I leave is, switch off the home hub in my van and see if my actual house with its 3 available hubs kicks in and becomes a hub because the vans one gets disconnected?

If that works, it would seem there is an enormous design flaw in apples home app which is rather astonishing tbh.

UPDATE: I just pulled the power on the HomePod mini in the van, after an astonishingly long 3-4 minute wait eventually the Apple TV in my main house took over home hub duty - in which then my house CCTV Cameras came back to life in the home app - I have 3 in the house and 2 CCTV cameras in the van - but now, my vans CCTV cameras don't work! but all other devices do.

I am within the 5 camera limit of home hub cctv...........why isn't it doing this now, it was doing it a few days ago - seems apple has really messed up here - surely just use the home hub in house as one area and the hub in the van as another - its not rocket science ?