My opinion on this topic.
Using DHCP creates a dependency.
Here I have a good example of why manual adressing can sometimes be better.
A friend of mine uses Control4 to control practically everything in his house. Every Control4 device, like a switch, dimmer, whatever is connected to the network using a wired ethernet connection. Power is delivered over PoE.
One day he called me late in the evening. He had a huge problem in his house. He was unable to control anything anymore. Could not switch lights on or off, but more problematic, his central heating stoped working. The temperature sensors in various rooms were not able to send values to the Control4 controller and so the heating controller could not activate the heater. It was winter, about 4 degrees celcius outside and temperatures already dropped below 15 degrees.
The cause of his issues was that DHCP was used to provide all the devices throughout his house with IP addresses. This was done by the ISP internet router.
That device broke down on a Thursday afternoon. He called his ISP and a new one should be delivered a.s.a.p. But then a new problem arose, no deliveries in the weekend. So had to wait untill monday.
No problem one should say, but unfortunately the DHCP lease time was set to 24 hours. And so the next day the first devices started loosing their IP addresses and more and more functionality in his smart home started to fail.
Since I used to help him out with IT related issues he called me.
I had an old spare firewall laying arround and configured that as a DHCP server in his network with the same IP subnet and gateway as before and an few minutes later things started to function again.
Moral of this story is that you donât want dependencies if these are not required. Sometimes some extra time creating an IP plan and configuring things by hand created a more reliable configuration.
So Homey should add an âadvancedâ configuration option in a web interface alowing one to set a fixed IP with subnetmask, gateway and DNS servers. Preferably also a VLAN id option to use VLAN tagging if required.
Another thing I would realy like to see is that above the âProâ version an âPro Advancedâ version is added to the line up.
In this version the hardware is housed in a 1U high full width wide enclosure with embeded redundant powersuplies, two bondable 1Gbps ethernet ports and external antennas for Zigbee, Zwave, 433Mhz and Matter.
Such an enclosure would provide better cooling and allow for even higer spec hardware. It allows for a bigger pcb containing more ram and has space for other cool featurs like on a Raspberry Pi, like a display.
Whats also might be handy is a few external IO ports that can be configured in flows. This allows for example to open doors, set off a siren and/or use wires motion sensors. Much more is possible and way more reliable then using a wireless device.
Not using DHCP also creates a dependency, just a different kind. You still need to maintain an overview of which device uses which IP address to prevent collisions, which creates a dependency on Excel or whatever program you use to maintain such a list (plus the hardware on which you store that list).
I think the moral of your story is: donât trust your ISPâs internet router
Thanks for reporting it to Homey @Marius_Stensrod. I also think it should be added. I personally have no use for it right now but who knows, things can change.
Providing the flexibility for those who need it or when specific situation required it is a good reason on its own IMO.
Maybe Homey can add it in the developer tools if they donât want to add it in the main app. @Marius_Stensrod maybe you can edit your first post to add this suggestion if you feel it makes sense to you too. https://tools.developer.homey.app/
BTW I donât even think I can remember a single network devices who does not let you do this
Homey users arenât proper network engineers or system administrators, and I still remember the time when DHCP wasnât commonly used and IP collisions were quite common.
Again I donât need this feature right now but I donât see how it could badly affect Homey users if this settings is âhiddenâ under the developer tools and it will help some Homey users with their implementation
I donât necessarily think itâs a bad idea, but I donât think making an argument about proper network engineers or system administrators makes any sense in this discussion.
Anyway: how many network interfaces does an iPhone or Android have? And how many does Homey? And where are Homeyâs display and keyboard for when things go wrong and you canât access your Homey over the network anymore?
This! I can fully understand why Athom doesnât offer setting fixed IP, it is bound to increase their support workload and there are few, if any, use cases where it offers any tangible benefits over a reserved IP in DHCP.
