Remote restart of the relay

pghburgher 2017-04-20 19:39:46 UTC #1

Does anyone know of a way to remotely restart the relay. I was recently on vacation and just kept getting the "Relay seems down" notification. If you cant restart it remotely what good is the product. Its for automation you cant just stop what your doing and fly home to reset the relay. I am starting to have real concerns about product stability.

thudhead 2017-04-22 13:11:44 UTC #2

My relay needs power cycling about once per month. Looks to me like a memory leak, or perhaps a priority inversion. The very thing you would need for a remote restart - a functioning stack- is frozen.

BobC 2017-04-23 02:24:21 UTC #3

A solution I've used for other equipment is a switch that I can access remotely via my VPN (not a vendor's cloud).

It is best when the solution doesn't rely on (or have anything to do with) the equipment having problems.

It can be extremely inexpensive, such as one of the Itead Sonoff switches, or something fancier.

thudhead 2017-04-23 12:36:39 UTC #4

A solution I have used in products I have built is a watchdog timer.

BobC 2017-04-24 08:03:51 UTC #5

I've had hardware lock up so hard that even the internal WDT failed. An external power cycle is always the best hope of recovery.

One of the Sonoff ESP8266-based power switches can be programmed to periodically do a simple transaction with the Relay, then cycle power if the Relay fails to respond.

Or program it to be an external WDT, with a rule on the Relay to poke it every so often.

pghburgher 2017-05-08 22:45:01 UTC #6

Bob I took you advice and purchased a few Sonoff switches. It work great considering the issue WIGWAG should consider some sort of similar integration into their device if they continue to enhance their products.

BobC 2017-05-09 02:59:03 UTC #7

Well, if they did it would be another point of failure. When it comes to IoT, fewer functions means fewer bugs and faults. The Relay is so full of features that adding anything more would likely be literal overkill.

From the other perspective, independence is important. Independence in both hardware and software. So a completely different device is extremely unlikely to share any hardware or software faults with any other different device.

Taking the above together, more separate little things is far better than one do-it-all thing.

pghburgher 2017-05-09 19:52:25 UTC #8

I agree that it would be another possible point of failure but isn't the goal to provide a useful stable product in its current state I see it as far from stable if it locks me out while traveling. I just think a reset function makes the product better. Not that I wish to argue with your observations they are very insightful and clearly well thought out. Hell I took your advice and am very happy with the results your suggestion yielded. I hope this forum continues to grow and solve problems with such unique resolutions. Thanks again Bob.

BobC 2017-05-12 15:46:23 UTC #9

Yeah, the Relay should at least try to monitor its own state and try to do a self-reset when needed. (Even if only via a WDT.)

It should also try to let the owner perform a remote reset. An external device is always an option, but it shouldn't be a required option!

As a last resort, the Relay should support scheduling a periodic reset, perhaps every night.

The Relay is fortunate, being wall-powered. Battery-powered devices are a more difficult problem (but are hopefully also simpler and less likely to lock up).