Can you post a screenshot of the hello home action?
If the hello home action does a mode change, then it doesn’t run if the house is already in that mode. It doesn’t matter what else the hello home action is supposed to do, it doesn’t do anything if it has a mode change and the house is already in that mode.
That’s why I said he might end up needing two different hello home actions.
If the current hello home action triggers when either spouse arrives, and if the current hello home action triggers when either spouse arrives, unlocks the door, and changes the mode to home, then if the mode is already in home it will not unlock the door.
It’s just how hello home actions work.
If that is the situation, you fix it by making two separate hello home actions
One hello home action changes the mode to home when either spouse arrives. And that’s all it does. So if it doesn’t run when the second spouse arrives home on the first spouse already is home, it doesn’t make any difference.
A different hello home action unlocks the door when either spouse arrives. And that’s all it does. It does not change the mode.
The set up with two hello home actions will work to unlock the door even if one of the spouses has already come home and mode changed already.
But if you combine those into one hello home action, it will only unlock the door when the first spouse comes home because since the mode is already in home it completely ignores everything when the second spouse arrives.
I hope that’s clear. There’s nothing in the documentation I know that tells you that that’s what happens. (The hello home action doesn’t run at all if it includes a mode change and The house is already in that particular mode.)
But it is what happens. There’s been a lot of discussion in the forums, especially around motion detectors “that don’t work”. The motion detectors do work, but the entire hello home action gets ignored because there’s a mode change and House is already in that mode.
Not sure if that’s what’s going on here, but that would be my first guess for something to look at.
note: beginning with the V2 version of the mobile app, “hello home actions” are now called “routines”. The same logic applies though: if the routine changes a mode, then that routine will not run at all if that mode is already in effect.