Sonos Move won't pair to another HomeKit Home

Hi @sniarn 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Although I can’t assist you with HomeKit, the fact that you’ve had issues in the Sonos app means there may be some network issue getting in your way. I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team, who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network. If we can fix the networking issue, perhaps HomeKit will then work as expected.

That was on another network with other speakers.

The speakers all work just fine, they just do not want to be added to HomeKit. This is a well-documented issue if you search this community. Once added to one HomeKit “Home”, it’s difficult to get them moved to another. Like I said, I managed to do this with my other speakers. The Move is just particularly troublesome in this regard. It’s pretty clear that the Sonos HomeKit support is very janky.

Hi @sniarn 

Are you able to see your Move in the AirPlay connection list? If so, please connect to it with AirPlay, and then try Apple HomeKit discovery again.

If not, you may need to remove the Move from the previous HomeKit system before it can be added to this one:

To remove the accessory: Apple Home app > Home tab > Long-press on the Accessory name > Tap on "Settings" gear icon at the bottom right > Scroll to the bottom and tap on "Remove Accessory".

A reboot of the device that you’re setting up HomeKit on may also be needed, or trying on another Apple device may help.

Hi @Corry P 

Sorry for the late reply. I’ve been keeping busy.

Yes, I can see the Move in my list of AirPlay devices and I’ve done as you requested. HomeKit discovery sees the device but I still get a “couldn’t connect” when adding it. It has already been removed from the the previous HomeKit.

I will give this another try. I have powered down the Move (held down the power button until it “beeps” and the lights went out) and removed it from the dock. I will keep it like this for 72 hours until it disappears from the Sonos app and try the whole thing again… Reset the Move, add it to the Sonos system, and try pairing with HomeKit.

A little backstory for those interested: The reason for the situration arising in the first place is pretty complicated. I am a member of two HomeKit homes: my own home and my parents’ home. My router is directly connected as a device on my parent’s network (this is temporary, so please don’t ask 😄). By mistake I paired my parents’ Move with my own home. Whoops. The situation right now is that I can still pair the Move to my own home without issue. But when I try pairing it with my parents’ home I get an error. So the Move is now seemingly permanently tied to my HomeKit home.  

In the past when I’ve done something similar, a factory reset of the speaker has always sorted it - Post setup, the device appeared as an accessory to add to HomeKit in my case. I have seen situations mentioned where a speaker didn’t show up as an accessory and there were two things that sorted that issue for other users, either:

1. A reboot of the local router and/or speaker
2. A deletion of the WiFi network connection on the iOS device and setup a new WiFi connection after the iOS device has rebooted.

Maybe those things will sort the matter?

So i tried again today. Sonos Move had been switched off for almost a week. The speaker was not connected to a HomeKit home and it was not visible in the Sonos app. I powered up the speaker while holding the reset button (or connect button) until the Move flashed orange. Added it as a new Move in the Sonos app. But, as before, when adding it to HomeKit it fails. Adding it to the HomeKit home it has previously been associated with works just fine. Again… just as before. So it still seems like it’s tied to a particular HomeKit home.

I tried bringing it back to the store but was, as I had somewhat expected, turned down in a way. Basically I was told that I would have to pay a fee in case no fault could be detected with the product. The guy in the store added that he would not be surprised if they did not find anything wrong at all and suggested that the problem was with Apple HomeKit. Now, given the amount of trouble I’ve had with Sonos speakers and HomeKit lately, I find that less likely. I guess the plan is to now try and find someone I know that has Apple Home (and possibly Sonos) and try adding it to their HomeKit home… just to see whether it works or not. If it does not then I’ll have more confidence that I won’t have to pay a fee when I send it back.

This has been FAR from a good experience. Fed up with the Move right now.

Perhaps try these steps instead: 

1. Remove the speaker from your old Home (if you still have access to it).
2. Remove the voice assistant from the speaker (if applicable).
3. Factory reset the Move, as mentioned in this LINK.
4. Setup your speaker in the Sonos App (using ‘Add Product’) and assign it back to its original room.
5. Install any voice Assistant (Google/Alexa) on the device, if required. 
6. Now add as an accessory to your new Apple HomeKit Home.

Let me know how you get on with those steps.

@Ken_Griffiths Those are the exact steps I already followed.

@Ken_Griffiths I’m embarrassed to say that deleting the HomeKit home and starting over did the trick. The speaker added right away. Now I have to recreate all the stuff I had configured in HomeKit. So it seems the Sonos unit was not the issue at all.

Thanks for all your help.

Just as a test here and to perhaps try to assist you @sniarn, I have just factory reset a Sonos ‘Move’ here and set it back up in the Sonos App as ‘Bathroom’ (its original name) and then opened HomeKit on my iPad and chosen to ‘Add Accessory’ and the speaker immediately shows up in the accessory list… I’m able to add it to the Home without any issue.

I have taken a couple of screenshots (attached). So I strongly suspect it’s likely to be something to do with your Apple Home, assuming you started by factory resetting your Move.

@Ken_Griffiths Please see my previous post. Thanks again!

Ah that’s okay, it happens to the best of us.

Whilst you were doing your recreation of the Apple Home, I did go off to test things here as you can see by my last post. I just wanted to be sure there wasn’t an issue with the current ‘Move’ speaker software/firmware, or the Sonos/HomeKit Apps. 

Anyhow, the more important thing is the outcome …and all’s well, that ends well.