Well, this whole "HomeKit" and use your Apple TV (Gen.4) as your home hub has to be the least "it just works" solution I have ever encountered from Apple. This truly is a complete mess I can't seem to wrap my head around.
I've got a Apple TV (Gen.4), I've got a Philips Hue setup with four spot lights in the living room, and one lamp in the bedroom and both myself and my fiancee got two iPad Air 2's and one iPhone 6S Plus and one iPhone 6S and we would like to get everything working through HomeKit and the new Home-app in iOS 10.
We have tried to get this to work during the iOS 10 and tvOS 10 developers previews but we gave up. But now we are on the golden master candidates so we expect that things should start to work.
So I decided to do a full blown recovery of the Apple TV, restoring it with the tvOS 10 GM IPSW, and we updated all iPad's and iPhone's to the iOS 10.0.1 GM's. We also decided to do a full factory restore of the Philips Hue HomeKit Bridge, just to make sure everything is back to zero before we begin the whole HomeKit setup process.
The first thing we start with is setting up the Apple TV. I use the device / bluetooth approach so it gets connected to my Apple ID and after setup process has completed I go through all the various system settings to make sure they are configured the way we like them to be. Then I download the few apps we use, like Plex, YouTube etc..
Then I move over to my iPhone 6S Plus, fire up the Home-app, create my "Home" and go forth and add my Philips Hue bridge as accessory within the app. The Home-app then tells me that I need to use the official Philips Hue app in order to get all my lights added to the bridge.
So I fire up the Philips Hue app, gets the Bridge authenticated within the app. Add our lights, give them proper naming and goes back to the Home-app.
Now the Bridge, and all our lights are shown within the Home-app. At this point we can just delete the Philips Hue app from our phone as we are able to configure the lights, configure groups, light temperatures and everything using the Home-app. Everything is good.
But then we want to start creating automation's, like having the bedroom light automatically start before we are supposed to wake-up in the morning. But this is not possible. The tab for "automation" in the Home-app tells us that in order to use home automation we need to get a home hub. It recommends the new Apple TV (Gen.4) or a "always at home" iPad.
This is where everything goes down the drain. As stated above, we already got a Apple TV (Gen.4), we just restored it using the tvOS 10 GM ISPW and I configured it using/adding it to my Apple-ID. Still the home-app on my iPhone 6S Plus (using the same Apple-ID, if that matters) and yet the home-app keeps telling us that we need to either get a Apple TV or dedicate the iPad for use as a home hub if we want to enable automation or use the home-app while being away from home.
I then decide to go to my iPad, launch the home-app and see if the iPad recognises the fact that fact that we actually have a Apple TV (Gen.4) on our network. But no, it just prompts us with the same information that we either need to get a Apple TV or use a iPad as a home hub in order to gain access to home automation and to be able to control HomeKit while being away from home.
I try to restart both the Apple TV, my iPhone and my iPad. I even try to reboot my entire network. Both the Apple TV and the Philips Hue are both connected using cable on the same network. And there is no way the phone is not recognising the Apple TV as AirPlay from the phone to the Apple TV works perfectly.
Rebooting does not help one bit. So I then decide to log out of iCloud / my Apple-ID on both the Apple TV, my iPhone and my iPad and then log back in all the devices. Doesn't help. Someone claims that I need to have two factor authentication enabled, but I already got that enabled as it was required to get the fancy new "unlock with Apple Watch" feature in MacOS Sierra to work.
Our at the Philips Hue Developer forums someone recommended me to get the Connect Sense app from the AppStore, as that app can create automation's that directly integrates with HomeKit so they get automatically added to the home-app. Unlike the official Philips Hue app which only creates automation's on the bridge itself, not communicating with HomeKit at all.
I downloaded the app, and started creating "rules" and just like the person over at the Hue Developer forums claimed, the rules I created automatically got added under the "automation" tab in the home-app.
But this didn't really solve anything. Because the home-app just tells me that "Home hub not connected. To ensure your automation's run as expected, connect a home hub. Learn more". When I click learn more I get back to the same page telling me to get either a Apple TV or to use a always at home iPad as a home hub in order to use automation's etc...
Just for fun I tried to use my iPad Air 2 as a "Home hub" and that works out just fine. The iPad gets recognised and automatically added to the Home-app which gives me access to create automation's and everything without issues.
But the thing is, my iPad is not "always at home". It doesn't really make any sense for me to use my iPad as home hub, especially not when I already got a Apple TV (Gen.4) much more suited for the task.
So why on earth won't HomeKit and the Home-app recognise the fact that I've got a Apple TV (Gen.4) on the same network and on the same iCloud account? What am I doing wrong here?
I've got a Apple TV (Gen.4), I've got a Philips Hue setup with four spot lights in the living room, and one lamp in the bedroom and both myself and my fiancee got two iPad Air 2's and one iPhone 6S Plus and one iPhone 6S and we would like to get everything working through HomeKit and the new Home-app in iOS 10.
We have tried to get this to work during the iOS 10 and tvOS 10 developers previews but we gave up. But now we are on the golden master candidates so we expect that things should start to work.
So I decided to do a full blown recovery of the Apple TV, restoring it with the tvOS 10 GM IPSW, and we updated all iPad's and iPhone's to the iOS 10.0.1 GM's. We also decided to do a full factory restore of the Philips Hue HomeKit Bridge, just to make sure everything is back to zero before we begin the whole HomeKit setup process.
The first thing we start with is setting up the Apple TV. I use the device / bluetooth approach so it gets connected to my Apple ID and after setup process has completed I go through all the various system settings to make sure they are configured the way we like them to be. Then I download the few apps we use, like Plex, YouTube etc..
Then I move over to my iPhone 6S Plus, fire up the Home-app, create my "Home" and go forth and add my Philips Hue bridge as accessory within the app. The Home-app then tells me that I need to use the official Philips Hue app in order to get all my lights added to the bridge.
So I fire up the Philips Hue app, gets the Bridge authenticated within the app. Add our lights, give them proper naming and goes back to the Home-app.
Now the Bridge, and all our lights are shown within the Home-app. At this point we can just delete the Philips Hue app from our phone as we are able to configure the lights, configure groups, light temperatures and everything using the Home-app. Everything is good.
But then we want to start creating automation's, like having the bedroom light automatically start before we are supposed to wake-up in the morning. But this is not possible. The tab for "automation" in the Home-app tells us that in order to use home automation we need to get a home hub. It recommends the new Apple TV (Gen.4) or a "always at home" iPad.
This is where everything goes down the drain. As stated above, we already got a Apple TV (Gen.4), we just restored it using the tvOS 10 GM ISPW and I configured it using/adding it to my Apple-ID. Still the home-app on my iPhone 6S Plus (using the same Apple-ID, if that matters) and yet the home-app keeps telling us that we need to either get a Apple TV or dedicate the iPad for use as a home hub if we want to enable automation or use the home-app while being away from home.
I then decide to go to my iPad, launch the home-app and see if the iPad recognises the fact that fact that we actually have a Apple TV (Gen.4) on our network. But no, it just prompts us with the same information that we either need to get a Apple TV or use a iPad as a home hub in order to gain access to home automation and to be able to control HomeKit while being away from home.
I try to restart both the Apple TV, my iPhone and my iPad. I even try to reboot my entire network. Both the Apple TV and the Philips Hue are both connected using cable on the same network. And there is no way the phone is not recognising the Apple TV as AirPlay from the phone to the Apple TV works perfectly.
Rebooting does not help one bit. So I then decide to log out of iCloud / my Apple-ID on both the Apple TV, my iPhone and my iPad and then log back in all the devices. Doesn't help. Someone claims that I need to have two factor authentication enabled, but I already got that enabled as it was required to get the fancy new "unlock with Apple Watch" feature in MacOS Sierra to work.
Our at the Philips Hue Developer forums someone recommended me to get the Connect Sense app from the AppStore, as that app can create automation's that directly integrates with HomeKit so they get automatically added to the home-app. Unlike the official Philips Hue app which only creates automation's on the bridge itself, not communicating with HomeKit at all.
I downloaded the app, and started creating "rules" and just like the person over at the Hue Developer forums claimed, the rules I created automatically got added under the "automation" tab in the home-app.
But this didn't really solve anything. Because the home-app just tells me that "Home hub not connected. To ensure your automation's run as expected, connect a home hub. Learn more". When I click learn more I get back to the same page telling me to get either a Apple TV or to use a always at home iPad as a home hub in order to use automation's etc...
Just for fun I tried to use my iPad Air 2 as a "Home hub" and that works out just fine. The iPad gets recognised and automatically added to the Home-app which gives me access to create automation's and everything without issues.
But the thing is, my iPad is not "always at home". It doesn't really make any sense for me to use my iPad as home hub, especially not when I already got a Apple TV (Gen.4) much more suited for the task.
So why on earth won't HomeKit and the Home-app recognise the fact that I've got a Apple TV (Gen.4) on the same network and on the same iCloud account? What am I doing wrong here?