Occasionally, devices not connecting miss schedule
under review
Jim Diaz
I've noticed that sometimes my devices lose their connectivity to the network. This is not ideal, but they usually have their connection restored after a few minutes. However, I have noticed that sometimes, the device fails to turn on when the schedule comes up. This seems to happen if the device temporarily loses connectivity when that time comes.
Would it be possible to create some kind of smart feedback system? Maybe alert my app that the action failed and ask me if I want to try again after a few minutes or ignore the failed schedule? Or perhaps I could tell it to keep trying.
Obviously, this wouldn't be desired for all devices, a bulb with the switch turned off should just do nothing when it can't reach the device. But my smart plug that controls a USB power cable should turn on when I want it to, so, being able to set behaviors on each device when the scheduled actions fail due to device connectivity issues would be fantastic.
Kenny Lam
under review
Antonin Carre
Hi Jim :) Well, sorry to hear about the connectivity issues... that's not really what we wanted to have on the menu for you guys :/
Let me clarify a few things about how the system works, and then we'll look into the troubleshooting.
- Device connectivity (both local network and Cloud connections) is essentially not correlated to which app is being used. Whether you've got a v1, a v2 or no app at all nearby, devices are still expected to behave the same and maintain a stable AND constant connectivity
- To improve reliability, especially in case your Wi-Fi goes down or connection is lost, the schedules are actually stored in the memory of the lights, which keep their internal clock running as long as they are powered on. So even if the light is offline when the schedule is supposed to start, it should work since the start does not rely on any external element (such as receiving a message). So in your case, I would assume the issue is not so much with the connectivity but with something else inside the firmware.
Regarding your suggestion about schedules, we can think about a few things to try to help. What do you think of those?
- "rejoin the schedule": if your device was powered off or in state where it could not start the schedule, it will get back to the expected schedule behavior as soon as possible. e.g. one light is supposed to be green from 6am to 10am. It is powered on at 8am only. After a few seconds, it "rejoins" the schedule and changes to green.
- "offline" alerts: possibility to receive app notifications when one or multiple devices get offline for too long.
We can have a look and try to troubleshoot why your schedules aren't working as they should. Could you share your home ID, or the MAC address of one of your devices? That should be in the device settings in both app v1 and v2.
Thanks!
Jim Diaz
Antonin Carre: My Home ID is 2901046
The biggest offender has been a smart plug with the mac id a8bb50e01a61. It has a tendency to go offline a lot and fail to turn on when I set the schedule. This went on for a week or so with me needing to manually push the button to turn it on or off. This would not happen every time, but it happened frequently enough to be aggravating. A couple days ago I unplugged the entire smart plug (I needed the outlet) and plugged it back it. I haven't seen it miss its schedule since then but it's only been a couple days so I'm not sure.
The other offender has the mac id a8bb50e711ba. This is a smart light that has in the past consistently been about 5 minutes fast when schedules come up, and often disconnects from the network entirely so I can't adjust it with my phone.
My other devices seem to work okay.
Both of those ideas sound amazing as well. Rejoin the schedule would be very helpful on both of my bedroom lights. I'd love to be able to just turn the switch off as I leave the room to go about my day, and then flip the switch on as I come back in and have it switch to whatever setting the schedule is set to at that time. I can dig offline alerts as long as there is an option to silence them. I imagine you're thinking the same thing.