A Hue bridge with 13 light bulbs and 4 buttons (Wi-Fi)
2 Hue buttons directly connected to Homey (ZigBee)
2 Ikea Tradfri light bulbs (ZigBee)
7 Xiaomi Aqara (ZigBee) Wall Buttons
My problem is that my Homey crashes at regular intervals. I couldn’t say how often, but it happens quite often (about every 2 days) that the buds don’t work anymore and the box doesn’t respond for a few seconds. It then seems to restart before everything gets back to normal.
Could someone help me?
Is it possible to contact Athom support?
Start by replacing the power supply, the one supplied by Athom is known to break down (a lot!). A regular USB power supply that can deliver 2.5A or more should be sufficient.
It didn’t take long because it is already crashing.
To be a little more specific, it looks like everything doesn’t always crash at the same time. It seems that sometimes Homey is down but the ZigBee network is still working and vice versa.
Sometimes everything works fine but at other times nothing works anymore.
That doesn’t really make sense. Can you define what you mean by “down”? Homey has known networking issues that make the app say it’s offline even though it isn’t.
I can turn the lights on and off with a zigbee button so the ZigBee network is working properly. I can also open or close my shutters on the Z-Wave network using the application.
On the other hand, I have a ZigBee light bulb (TraFri) that I can’t add to the network because from the developer console it displays an error and when the error doesn’t display, I have a timeout error. Same thing from my phone.
Is the bulb actually supported by the IKEA app? Also, how many Zigbee devices do you currently have paired with Homey? Homey has a limit of 20 directly connected devices (meaning devices that connect directly to Homey, instead of to a router device in your Homey Zigbee mesh), adding new devices can result in timeouts.
I don’t know if the device is supported by the Ikea App but it should because it appears in the list. But my problem is not about pairing a device (I guess) because this issue is one among others.
To add some information, I was able to display my ZigBee network from the developer console. I then went to see the Z-Wave network just in case and here is the result:
It’s unclear to me if you have issues with Zigbee in particular, or Homey in general. Like I said, Homey has known networking issues that cause the app (and the developer console) to say it’s offline even though it isn’t.
If possible, try changing your WiFi router so it uses a fixed WiFi-channel (instead of “automatic”). Also try to pick a (2.4Ghz) WiFi-channel of 6 or higher, otherwise it may interfere with Zigbee.
You mean the fact that the network is indicated as offline is normal behaviour even if it’s online? Will Homey fix this? Seems like I’ve had this problem long enough.
I’ll take a look at my wi-fi. I’m using a router flashed by VPN Express that doesn’t offer to choose its own channel. I’m going to restore it to its original configuration so that I can change the frequency of the 2.4Ghz network and force it to a channel higher than 6.
Still, I don’t understand how a bug can be normal behavior. Also, do you know how to contact technical support (or maybe you’re a tech support person. Either way, thank you very much for your time to help me)?
I would also like to mention the fact that the zigbee network of my Philips Hue bridge works perfectly and wifi does not seem to be a problem for it. In addition, it is placed on the wifi router while the Homey is positioned further away (because I had already been told that this could create interference).
It’s not normal, but it happens to a lot of people, so it is a known problem. I don’t think anyone has ever come up with a definitive answer on why this is happening (mostly because Homey is basically a black box, so you don’t get to see what happens inside).
Homey has just proven itself to be very sensitive to network/WiFi circumstances changing and/or interference. Whereas most devices (even €2 ESP8266’s) have no problems with that, Homey in particular seems to get “lost” very quickly. Sometimes it resolves itself, sometimes you need to reboot Homey to get it to work properly again.
This problem is (or should be) known to Athom because it has existed since firmware v2, which was released about 18 months ago. Either they can’t fix it, or they don’t give it much of a priority. This is one of the reasons why a lot of people reboot their Homey on a daily basis.
I guess it’s not necessarily the kind of question that should be asked here, but are you aware of other similar systems that would be reliable? I think I will soon be investing in a Fibaro Home Center 3 but I’m waiting to see their announced ZigBee support at the end of the year. Fibaro seems to provide a much more professional service (more expensive too) than Homey but there may be other providers just as reliable.
In the past, I used Samsung SmartThings which works pretty well but I gave up because the software part was really lame. I also tried the Home Assistant (open source) adventure and it worked just as well but it requires a very significant investment in time because depending on updates, the system may suddenly stop working.
I dream of a world, even paying monthly, with real support and a reliable and efficient gateway but it seems that the multiplicity of protocols makes things much more complex than I imagine.
I use Home Assistant myself, Homey is still running but only so I can maintain a few apps. I haven’t had any update issues with HA (I typically update to the latest release pretty quickly) but before I update I make a backup so I can always revert back to the previous version if required (which has never happened).
HA is very stable (I use it together with deCONZ, which provides a very stable Zigbee implementation), but perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea. Lots of people like the simple user interface of Homey and think HA is too difficult, but as with any system, you need to invest some time into it.
Giving up this soon? Every domotic system has its own problems. Just check the forum for the HC3, Smartthings, etc etc. For every device there are other problems.
Unless you are an IT pro i guess you gave to deal with it. Switching to another device will give you other problems.
As Robert also stated, there are solutions for the problems you have. In my personal case rebooting every app every day and rebooting Homey every two weeks does the trick. Luckely this is possible with a flow.
If I look at your devices i would advice to look into the routing off your zwave and zigbee devices. Many problems occur if your mesh is not very good. More routers(every non battery device) could solve mesh problems
