Recommended Period to auto reboot Homey?

[Busta999]

Trying to get some guidance on how often I need to reboot Homey to keep it working right.

I have found that I need to restart several Apps every 6 hours, Hue, LG, PBTH, Eufy Home etc to keep them working.

But now I am getting sporadic errors in Flows where functioning items become Unavailable, I have not figured out how to determine exactly what is unavailable quickly so each broken flow takes some examination.

One Flow was reporting a broken with the red tag in the corner but despite staring at it for several minutes could not determine what was wrong with it.

A reboot of Homey fixed ALL the broken Flows.

Hence my question, anyone got any recommendations for how often Homey should be rebooted to keep working?

If push comes to shove I will just start with a nightly reboot.

[Mike1233]

I only have to reboot my Homey Pro if it is updated with a new firmware and after the restart not apps have started well.
Normaly it needs no reboot.
Not all the apps I have are very busy but I have 47 apps installed.

You can try to turn off a few flows to see if the problem is getting back? If not, turn them on and turn off the next couple off flows.

Or try a new power supply with enough power. (A)

[Busta999]

Thanks for responding……

Using an Apple power supply, went through a cycle of replacing the USB to resolve issues of Homey crashing, going offline. Much more stable now by not using supplied power supply.

Only have 10 flows, is that high for the Homey?

I’ll keep an eye on the Homey to see if it continues to be flakey.

I have been radically reducing the Homey workload to try to improve stability.

Have substantially reduced apps and largely removed zwave devices as they were identified as causing Homey instability.

Will remove all zwave devices shortly as I run up an alternative Hub to manage them.

[Arie_J_Godschalk]

@Busta999

Only have 10 flows, is that high for the Homey?

For real?

You only have 10 flows?

I had, at the top, almost 900 (default) flows.
Then i created HOOP (Advanced-Flows-“Light”) and turned it into about 400 flows.

Now with AF i still have 243 default flows and 67 AFs.

So i would say, 10 flows, no, that is not much for Homey

Personally, i don’t reboot Homey by default, only on updates or when i really mess around with developing sometimes.

Rebooting Homey creates issues sometimes, like Sheindel not sending LUX anymore and then i need to remove power from the sensors to fix it. Stuff like that really make me not wanna reboot my Homey.

I have 51 apps installed and 171 devices (about 15 are virtual devices).

[Peter_Kawa]

Probably an app is running out of memory (over 70 to 80 MB’s), that causes “unreachable” issues here. Check Insights for every app’s memory usage.

This was with a 512MB Homey (when the RAM is fully used, it starts to swap to disk. Not recommended, but Homey still keeps functioning (but slower) ):
https://community.homey.app/t/how-much-can-a-512mb-pro-handle/49687

I think this flow & virtual device might be interesting to you:
https://community.homey.app/t/share-your-device-advanced-virtual-devices-from-device-capabilities/68676/12

[DirkG]

I also restart my Homey 99% of the time only when a firmware update is installed.

@Busta999

But now I am getting sporadic errors in Flows where functioning items become Unavailable, I have not figured out how to determine exactly what is unavailable quickly so each broken flow takes some examination.

The cause of this problem will probably be the restart of the apps. When an app is restarted, both the devices and their flow cards are unavailable for a while.

@Mike1233

You can try to turn off a few flows to see if the problem is getting back?

But after that, please restart Homey so that the used memory of the app can be cleared.

@Busta999

Only have 10 flows, is that high for the Homey?

Like Arie already wrote, this is really not much. Currently I have about >500 flows in use.
BUT, that Homey can become sluggish is mostly not depending on the amount of the flows. It could depend on how the flows are build. If all 10 flows are started every second this is of course a higher load on Homey than if 100 flows are started only every now and then.

@Busta999

Have… largely removed zwave devices as they were identified as causing Homey instability.

Who identified that Z-Wave devices make Homey’s stability worse?
I do not like such unspecific statements. I have 80 Z-Wave devices in use and I have absolutely no problems with the stability of Homey.
Z-Wave is not plug & play. You need to know certain requirements to create a stable Z-Wave network. Most of the requirements are Z-Wave specific, a few are Homey specific, e.g. that you should include the devices without security standard.

[Bernt_Randel]

I’m currently using Homey Bridge, and it was truly unstable. I bought an 3A power supply, and that helped a lot on stability. Still problems with Z-Wave, where Homey lost control and prompts “Z-wave update in progress”. Then i bought a timer, and tested several reboot cycles. Now it reboots 4 times/ 24h or rather every 6 hours. That did the trick. No problems

[DirkG]

@Bernt_Randel

“Z-wave update in progress”

This is a known issue with Homey Beta (Homey & Homey Bridge) as mentioned on the corresponding Webseite and has nothing to do with possible Z-Wave issues on Homey Pro.

[Busta999]

Unfortunately Homey has not been very stable since purchase and Support have been assisting and I have been following their suggestions.

Homey is frequently unavailable/offline or just runs very slowly.

It has substantially improved by changing out the power supply as advised, with an iPad power supply.

I built the zwave network the same as my zigbee network, first by adding 20 mains powered devices that also double as relays, positioning increasingly further from Homey until the extremities of my home are covered. Once stable add battery devices.

I was experiencing intermittent issues with zwave devices I was advised on the Homey Forum that the issue was related to the zwave devices being added as secure by default. To fix the problem I had to remove zwave devices off Homey and re-add them using a community app that forces the zwave devices unsecured.

I suspect the biggest issue that is causing Homey problems is the Athom Hue app, it was routinely hitting 80-90 mb of memory and was causing Homey to crash often.

Homey support identified the issue, but as so few people are experiencing the issue there is little interest in prioritising the issue. The work around is to restart the Hue app every 6 hours.

Unfortunately every light in my house is Hue, about 90 of them, all my 25 sensors are Hue sensors, distributed between two hubs. I really don’t want to have to replace them and they work very very well and are extremely reliable.

Homey is great with Zappi, Victron, Shelly, Aqara and doing well as long as I don’t over tax it, and it manages BMS, car charging, an outdoor floodlight and the blinds.

I originally planned on using Homey as the main hub for house, but in order to get it stable I have not got past the basic roll out of mains powered devices, and I am taking the zwave devices off it to reduce loading so it can focus on the things it is doing really well.

I am leaning now towards running targeted hubs, Hue, Tado, Homey, Hubitat, HA, MQTT zigbee and having them do what they do best and put Node Red over the top.

[Caseda]

@Busta999

Unfortunately every light in my house is Hue, about 90 of them

Yeah, this definitely is the cause, that app polls all light individually every +/-5 seconds, that’s a lot of work and data to poll 90 light every 5 seconds, that other apps are most likely also slowed down because of this, especially with the not so great networking Homey sometimes has.
I believe sensors are polled as well, but even on a higher poll rate, though this might have changed since then.

[robertklep]

@Caseda

that app polls all light individually every +/-5 seconds

Someone should just write a new Hue app that support local push as Athom is clearly not interested in improving it if they’re still polling…

[Busta999]

I would love to see Homey stable and trusted, I am confident I can achieve it if I remove Hue from the equation, but that involves spending another £4K to replace it, or just not have the Hue lighting/sensors on the Homey hub, but that would reduce Homey functionality substantially.

My hope is that Athom fix their App or another is developed that does not cause so much grief to Homey.

[Peter_Kawa]

I’d like to advice to send your hopes also to directly to Athom

Submitting a support request

[Busta999]

Already done, as stated following Athom support’s advice on mitigating issues caused by their App.

[Homey2]

I’m sorry to see you’re suffering.

Without knowing the details i think you’re pointing to the wrong direction, first zwave, then Hue.

I’ve had my share of this, but with hundreds of flows, zwave and Hue, Homey is rock solid since about 1-1.5 years. I’m tinkering all the time. Not rebooting ever.

Here’s my 10 cents:
1.
If you really have just 10 flows with so many devices, I wonder what/how much are you doing in those flows. Are these advanced flows? What do they do?
2.
A phone charger is not right for home automation devices. They require solid and constant power up to 3 amps. Even the thickness and length of the charging cable is key. Phone chargers vary their output. Please try with a premium priced adaptor. At the time I ordered 3 from AliExpress and found out that 2 of 3 worked well.
3.
Try without Hue or zwave on seperate occasions and analyze further. The feedbacks you saw in this thread were from very experienced users so you should not have the issues you experience now.

There is hope.
Good luck and share more detail!

[groetting]

@Busta999

Will remove all zwave devices shortly as I run up an alternative Hub to manage them.

What vendor zWave devices do you have? I have a good lot of z-wave devices, mostly Fibaro, a couple of Aeotec heavy duty smart switches and one Aeotec multi sensor, and I never have any z-wave problems.

[Busta999]

1. I actually have 16 Flows not 10 - miscounted as I did not include the ones in the ‘folders’
   

   
   
   Not been too much with it so far due to generally unreliable nature of them. Been focused on stabilising the platform before increasing the workload.

2. Absolutely agree Phone charger not good for the Homey, so was using an Apple iPad Pro charger, 3A, they tend to be of a good quality.
   Once it was clear that the supplied power supply was insufficient I replaced it in consultation with Homey Support.

3. As documented I am removing the wave devices. I do know that the Atom Hue App is problematic as reported by Homey Support, one of the Flows is just about managing Apps that consume too much memory. I suspect if I remove the Hue App the Homey will be much more stable, but not having access to all my motion sensors, temp /Luminance sensors and all my lights is not really viable.

[Busta999]

Greenwave, Fibaro, Neo Coolcam, Aeotec - I have not tried adding battery devices yet.

[Homey2]

@Busta999

Atom Hue App

I’m not using Atom Hue App.
I’m using Philips hue app.
All Hue devices report to the Philips hue app, so no load on Homey.

[Peter_Kawa]

@Homey2

I’m not using Atom Hue App.
I’m using Philips hue app.

Please be clear which Homey app you mean

Athom app, which needs the Hue bridge:

Johan Bendz app, it uses zigbee without a Hue bridge: