Define fixed IP for Homey

Hi all,

I’m cleaning up my network right now with the plan to provide fixed IPs to all regular devices. :slight_smile: Is there a way to define a fixed IP address in Homey?

Johannes

Mh ok… Exactly what I wanted to avoid :slight_smile:

Why would you want to avoid that? Your router is the only right place to do that.

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What happens if my router breaks or I change the ISP and get a different model? :grinning:

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Seems you do not get the point…

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Your router / DHCP server is the authority that hands out IP addresses to the devices in your network.
If you set an IP address on the device itself, your router does not know and can assign that same IP address to another device. And then one thing is sure; your Homey will respond even worse :grinning:

Your ISP only hands out the Public IP address of your router. If that changes, it does not affect your internal networks IP addresses.
If you change ISP and your router belongs to the ISP, you probably would have to redo the fixed Homey IP.

But, maybe even more important: what are you trying to solve? As for me, dynamic assigned IP works just fine on Homey.

Thanks for your input and for asking… I have some more devices running in my network and some talk to each other… Homey with MQTT, Hue Bridge… My desktop PC with my NAS and the printer and scanner etc etc.

If the router breaks (I do have a config backup though!) the authority over the IP management is gone. Therefore a clear recommendation in network setup is, that fixed devices of the network, like NAS, servers, etc are assigned a fixed IP. Devices which are more likely to be changed, such as your mobile, a friends ipad comming for a visit etc, go through DHCP. Because it does not matter if the IP changes.

For sure the DHCP range is not to be mixed up with the fixed adress part of your network. And you should maintain some order and tracking which IP you assign to which device. :wink: And no, if I change my router and set it up with the same adress space again, I do not have to change a single IP if those are fixed. :slight_smile:

I’ll drop an email to Athom and make a proposal to implement this function, maybe they hear me :wink:

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Ok, I understand.
I like to keep things central and transparant and let my network controller (UniFi USG) handle all that as well as the VLAN management. If it breaks (which to me feels like a lot smaller risk than for instance Homey breaks) I replace it, restore the backup and continu. Devices that are running when the DHCP server might fall out, will just keep running so no real risk there.

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I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with that. I also use DHCP as the IP-address authority in my network. I used to assign fixed IP-addresses on the devices themselves, but it became a PITA when I wanted to change DNS-settings which meant I had to change those as well on all devices (yes, some devices also support “Use DHCP with manual address”, but not all).

I also have a fair amount of devices (like Homey) that don’t have a way to set a manual (fixed) address, even though I want them to have one.

Lastly: when using DHCP, you don’t have to track which devices have which IP-address. I have about 15 to 20 devices with a fixed address in my network, and my router maintains the definitive list (so it can warn me when I want to assign a duplicate address). With the added bonus of configured device names being shown.

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I’m my head for no really good reason I find wired connection static ip candidate while wifi interfaces only dhcp.

There is no technical reason for it I just never put static on wifi.

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What you need to do is run a dhcp (and maybe local dns) server on a system in your network.
I pulled of the DHCP and local DNS from the router. I defined all my “static” ip adresses in the server. If the router changes my clients and internal network still have the same dhcp / dns (and wins) server running. Independent from the internet router (or dns)

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If you define a local dns domain you can even address your devices with homey.local.com for example.

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Can you recommend a good and easy DHCP server?

depends on the platform you use. I have an old Mac Mini serving as a file server and running the server App (dns) and standard bootps service.

You can run bootps on a linux box. Even a cheap raspberry pi would do.

I‘m running a Proxmox host with virtual machines. Guess the Linux version would work.

Agree DHCP with Reservations are general the standard practice.

Use linux or windows DHCP would be long term better then using statics and manually tracking it all.

You could also buy cheap USG use this as your DHCP server this will allow you to not have to worry about running a “server” for it, also its not tied to the router so if you swapped you keep the same config.

You can see the basic example here i use a Windows DHCP server as i have exchange running but if i didn’t have this i would have it all implemented via the Unifi USG


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I use a Raspberry pi running pihole. Pihole includes a full fletched DNS server. I disabled DNS for both IP 4 and 6 on the Ziggo router. All my home automation devices have fixed addresses grouped by primary like PC, tablet, Alexa, phone, Homey) and lights, thermostats, plugs, cameras etc. Works fine!

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This I’ve done. And even then the Homey thing stops working with different IP addresses from time to time. It is a fu…ed up thing that Athom can’t do fixed IP addresses. This renders Homey unusable as a reliable for ESP8255 chips with tasmota talking to the MQTT broker (ie. that unreliable Homey thing. All of the comments above are useless. Athom need to step up and fix this.

No. it is not possible. Athom should fix this. setting up fixed dhcp leases on a router is just meaningless

Hey Mate,

Are you saying the DHCP reservations failed to assign the same address when you set it on your router as that sounds very odd or is it something else that went wrong with Homey ?

Its a pretty standard process setting it up like this so very annoying it didn’t work properly for you :frowning:

Cheers

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