Hi ! I’d like to be able to set the Network settings/configuration of my Homey Pro manually to a static configuration. Especially the DNS server settings are very interesting to get a little bit of more security&privacy by for example using the DNS servers of Mullvad(e.g. 194.242.2.5) and/or Quad9(e.g. 9.9.9.11).
Also when my router/firewall(=DHCP server is out of order because of an update or malfunction I still can reach my Homey).
You could implement a save/rescue routine to prevent bad settings by making this only available after the Homey device was successfully online for a certain minimum duration and save this as a backup to revert to these settings after the homey device is not online for a certain duration after the manual settings have been applied/changed. (Unifi/Ubiqiti does/offers something similar in their latest Network app/firmware. )
Please give us some more possibilities to make out Homey devices a little bit more secure & reachable.
Have you tried using DHCP Reservations to set specific DNS and a static IP address for your Homey. You can usually specify a reserved lease to never expire, then a router firmware update wouldn’t affect it.
I know about DHCP reservations and also did/configured this in my router(=DHCP server) for both(Lan & Wifi) connections of my Homey Pro (2023). But this is not what I’m asking in the 1st place for.
Every cheap-ass (android) TV box or many other (wifi) smarthome hubs/devices etc. Offers the possibility to specify its IP configuration/adresses manual without the need of DHCP server (reservation).
Why not also the Homey (Pro) ??
So once you change your router(=dhcp server) your Homey IP(‘s) do not change. Isn’t it more convenient to know that the IP(‘s) of your Homey (Pro) aren’t depending on another device (setup/configuration) ??
So please us the possibility of a manual IP(‘s) configuration (with auto revert to the last known working configuration if Homey is offline more that a certain duration.
If you don’t want to rely on your router’s DHCP, then just set up your own separate DHCP server, like on a NAS or a Raspberry Pi or similar. DHCP server is extremely lightweight, requiring hardly any processing power, and very little memory for any home network.
Or, like I have done, bin your ISP provided router… install and manage your own router, and use SDN to manage your network.
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a network approach that separates the control plane (decision-making) from the data plane (packet forwarding). It uses a central software controller to manage traffic and automate configurations, replacing the need to set up individual hardware devices by hand. Usually managed network device firmware updates. And centrally manages things like DHCP, so if you have to reconfigure or replace something like a router, it is automatically reconfigured with the correct DHCP settings. Brands like Omada and Ubiquity are main home user systems providing this functionality.
It is in every way better than trying to manage static IP configurations across multiple devices… that’s like the dark ages of networking ha ha
And another device again to manage this is not what I had in mind. My constant (household) power consumption/bill is already very very high. Something I just want to manage and lower through Homey
Only since the last few months every time Unifi OS ,Unifi Network or Unifi Protect updates are in progress my homey looses its IP/network connection. (Just 2 weeks ago I bought a U5G Backup. ) And my Homey has flows/triggeres to react on and longer Internet disconnection through Shelly & Switchbot powerplugs (restarting my cable modem (of course in bridged mode) and my other network devices through a short power outage.)
The basic/old manners by configuration on the device itself is for sure not outdated or unnecessary. I setup every device that had the ability to manual configure its network settings also manually after this is set and working, I setup also a DHCP reservation for the device with the same settings. With this I am 99,98% sure the device will have/keep its settings and has not one breaking point(=device) that could mess up these settings though a malfunction.
I believe you not experienced yet a malfunction of your router(=DHCP server) or the device itself suddenly loosing its configuration and by not been dependent on one central device to manage your most important devices on the network (or your smarthome, I have a Home Assistant server setup too/together with my Homey Pro 2023 “Advanced”).
Also a UPS power backup to my whole network and my most important devices/servers.) (I use as much as I can POE devices.)
Omada gateway, with OC300 controller and all 2.5Gb Omada switches, with a redundant 10Gb SFP+ fibre optic backbone to all switches. With 3 PoE WiFi 7 APs, and all Ethernet cables are CAT 6A or 7, all fibre optic runs out from my core switch to the various satellite switches are armoured multimode 100Gbs.
I run a pair of Pi-Hole DNS blocking servers, behind a pair of Unbound recursive DNS servers, so no queries forwarded to ISP’s DNS servers. As well as an NTP server accurate to 100-200 nano seconds, a NAS with approx 64TB usable tiered storage and a 1TB NVMe mirrored read/write cache. Also an NVR with 16TB storage and multiple 4K PTZ PoE cameras.
I have mesh VPN set-up so I can access any of my important devices/servers securely no matter where I am… zero port forwarding, for a more secure network, and definitely no UPnP.
No thank you. I probably can guess your shoe size from the kick under/on my butt. At least it fekt like that reading all that detailed & overwhelming information you gave me.
I use too the Unifi “Teleport” function for VPN access to my home network (without any port forwarding necessary.) Also a mix of Mullvad (VPN) public DNS servers,Quad 9 & DNS4EU DNS servers. Other dns servers are blocked. And I always route my whole traffic through several different VPN client connections that my router establishes. So everything on my network is either going through my main/default VPN (router client) connection or for specific destinations (countries/websites) through another or a specific source device or vlan through again another VPN. Since a couple of weeks I’m using/Testing Mullvad instead of Proton VPN for this.
My last Pi-hole raspberry got broken and didn’t have the time (and the urgency yet) to setup a new one.
Having worked in IT for 30 years, responses like that have a tendency to rub me up the wrong way… so I make no apologies for that. When I suggested to use DHCP reservations instead of static configured IP stack, I was genuinely trying to help, from experience.
I wholeheartedly admit my home network is totally overkill for a home network. But having maintained networks in the enterprise environment, I guess I got a bit carried away when upgrading my own network. If you enjoy doing it, why the hell not
But I stand by my original opinion, DHCP reservations are the better solution that’s easier to manage, and more resilient. Especially for the majority of less technical users (which is why I guess they chose that for Homey Pro).
No apologies necessary and thanks for the effort you took to help. It’s just not what I have in mind with this feature request. I just don’t like the fact that something relies completely on 1 devices and has a (deliberate) risc of point of failure . I always try to avoid something like that with a backup (setting/device etc.) . I can tell from my (work) experience at least that this 1 minute it takes to configure the network device itself and not rely only on DHCP reservations can save you sometimes a lot of trouble.
(And I can match your IT professional experience of 30 years, nowadays I use my skills only for my own personal hobbies) and your overkill network (hardware) setup with 1 router, 10 switches, 9 Wifi access points and in totaal 182 devices currently live connected to my network. (probably 10-20 more but some of the devices are in sleep/standby mode and need to me awaken (by Wake-On-Lan or a key-/button press). Some of the in two 19 inch server racks 36 U high).
I think Homey doesn’t really need a static IP. Mine definitely doesn’t have one, it’s just DHCP. The IP gets discovered automatically via Athom’s cloud service when you open the my.homey.app or the mobile app. Unless there are other apps that connect to your Homey via LAN without using the Athom Cloud API to determine the IP, there’s no real need for a static IP in my opinion.
And since it seems to be required in this topic: my home network has DPPSK for the IoT devices (each device a separate password for better security) and WPA3-Enterprise on the main LAN (with 2FA via captive portal also enabled for some devices).
Fair enough as you state as your opinion and I can understand & respect that.
Do you never use the Homey webinterface directly though Homey’s Lan IP ??
(That my default approach(/link/shortcut/bookmark in my browser ) and not the cloud interface on homey.app). But this uses the homey Ip in the url snd guess what happens when (over night the DHCP-server malfunctions and Homey didn’t get his IP renewal(correct/at all).
No, because my Homey Pro 2019 doesn’t support that. But even if it did, I would still use the my.homey.app since it’s always up to date and latest version (local web app is built into the firmware AFAIK, so it would always be slightly outdated).
But the local web app would be more difficult to find in that case, that’s true. But I always just use Fing whenever I need to find an IP, I find it too much hassle to set static IPs for all of my devices. I can remember most MACs anyway (or at least the prefixes)
And imagine you have setup a flow on your Homey that is ,let’s say, “suboptimal” and can’t reach the interface because another (self assigned/without the proper gateway & dns settings to reach internet) IP address.
I have many of my gear peripherals(like monitors, printers but also my TV’s ) connected to power through at least one smart power plug(shelly or switchbot) with power monitoring (and of course (lidar) presence sensors) in every room. And also my modem, router & switches (on which the access points are connected through PoE).
And now homey is going haywire because of its lack of an internet connection. (For example restarting your modem or your switches with the connected accesspoints every 21 minutes through these smartpowervolug to restore internet connection.
@smarthomesven True, but it does make life easier. Also, my Homey monitors and alerts me to connectivity/availability issues of most of my important devices on my home network. But what monitors the monitor… I have a ping monitoring script on one of my Pi’s, but that only works if the IP stays the same.
I also try to keep all comms between all devices local, and avoid relying on cloud API’s as much as possible, as I have no control over the cloud.
Personally I use the officially supported local URL connection method (another reason I have a static DHCP reserved IP) of:
https://.homey.homeylocal.com/
Which I believe uses the most up to date version of the web app (not that there is much in the way of updates to this, as Athom primarily focuses on the mobile app apparently) but connecting to your Homey Pro locally.
@DoctorBazinga May I politely suggest that if your Homey is regularly loosing it’s DHCP connection, that your network possibly has bigger problems. I have had my Homey Pro (2026) for approximately 6 months now. it has been using a DHCP reservation IP that whole time, and never once in 6 months failed to get it’s IP. My Home Bridge is the same, except that is WiFi rather than wired Ethernet. Even if your router/DHCP server is rebooting every night overnight, once it comes back up it should then automatically dole out any DHCP IP requests again. So unless it is rebooting at random times, the lease start and end time shouldn’t keep colliding with the reboot.
Also, the DHCP protocol has built in redundancies for this. How DHCP Renewal Works
Timer 1 (T1 at 50%): The device reaches half of its lease time and tries to unicast a renewal request to the original server.
Timer 2 (T2 at 87.5%): If the first request fails, the device broadcasts a request to find any available server on the network.
Expiration: If the lease expires completely, the device drops the IP address and starts a fresh discovery process.
You also need to make sure your DHCP lease time is set to a decent amount of time General Best Practices by Network Type
Standard Enterprise / Static Desktop Networks: Use 8 days or longer (or 1 to 3 days) to minimize network traffic and log noise.
Home Networks: Use 24 hours, which provides a stable balance for fixed household devices.
General Office / Mixed Environments: Use 8 to 12 hours (a standard working day) to balance address reuse and server load.
Guest Networks / High-Turnover Public Wi-Fi: Use 30 minutes to 2 hours to quickly reclaim unused IP addresses from departed users.
Key Considerations for Tuning
Address Pool Scarcity: Shorten lease times only if you are running out of available IP addresses due to high device turnover.
Log Management: Excessively short leases create chatty network traffic and bloated audit logs, making security analysis difficult.
Static Assignments: Assign DHCP reservations for critical infrastructure (printers, servers, VoIP gateways) rather than relying on short leases.
I presume you mean mmWave radar, if not please elaborate? I’ve never seen a smart home presence sensor that uses LiDAR before.
No, it’s not. my.homey.app is the only up-to-date version at the moment. The homeylocal domain just uses the same page as the direct IP, it only exists so that the Homey mobile app and my.homey.app can use HTTPS on your local network instead of HTTP, which improves the security.
In my case, most of my devices use cloud connectivity (most devices are Tuya, but also some others). But that might be a reason why you’d want to set a static IP for a specific device, but the Homey itself doesn’t need one (at least if you don’t use the local webapp) since its IP will be automatically discovered via the Athom cloud or mDNS.
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