I have modified the fake_controllers.yaml in my robot config package as described here. It has this final state:

controller_list:
  - name: fake_manipulator_controller
    joints:
      - shoulder_pan_joint
      - shoulder_lift_joint
      - elbow_joint
      - wrist_1_joint
      - wrist_2_joint
      - wrist_3_joint
  - name: fake_endeffector_controller
    joints:
      []
initial:
  - group: manipulator
    pose:  home

And modified the SRDF file to add a new group_state omitting the joint elements here:

<group_state name="home" group="manipulator">  ...  </group_state>  

When I run roslaunch ur5_moveit_config demo.launch the robot doesn't take the initial home pose as I defined it. Although I can select home in the Select goal state dropdown menu and clicking update changes the goal state to the pose I defined in the SRDF file.

Can you point me what I may be missing?

I'm running ros-kinetic on Ubuntu 16.04. The robot is ur5 and I use the provided ur5moveitconfig package.