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A smart plug to monitor your router and automatically reset power if WiFi fails
- dkopi 11y agoThis is one of those ingenious inventions that make you ask: "Where have you been all of my life". Perfect for coffee shops, or when the router's in a room that you can't access without waking anyone up. Of course in an ideal world, wireless routers would be smart enough to reset themselves, without having to add another $60 to their price. But we are only in 2016.
- RGamma 11y agoNo, in an ideal world companies would stop making cheap, untested consumer shit that degrades after a few weeks uptime (looking at you, TP-Link). Luckily products unlike these exist, but not many might know about them, so this is a completely unnecessary product (hilariously overpriced as well) profitting from the ignorance of end users...
- fpoling 11y agoI second both the observation about TP-Link and the existence of products that have no market in an ideal world. And TP-link really cannot have excuse as OpenWRT on their hardware is more stable, so by producing custom software they wasting money.
- collyw 11y agoEven decent brands need a reset every so often.
- chris_wot 11y agoIsn't this just an example of the halting problem? As in, you can't prove that a program won't ever halt.
- veddan 11y agoFor many programs it's easy to decide whether they halt or not. int main(void) { for (;;); }
- icebraining 11y agoThe halting problem doesn't say that you can never prove that any given program won't ever halt, just that some programs (written in a Turing-complete language) are undecidable. You can write a program which can be proven will or won't ever halt. But the typical solution to this particular problem is to correctly employ a watchdog[1] that will restart your program if it halts. In fact, this wifi-monitoring plug is serving as a watchdog itself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchdog_timer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchdog_timer
- qb45 11y ago> Isn't this just an example of the halting problem? As in, you can't prove that a program won't ever halt. Not really, the HP is about writing a program which automatically proves halting/not-halting for every possible program you feed into it.
- jkot 11y agoSimpler version is mechanical timer with reset every N hours.
- fpoling 11y agoIn case of TP-Link routers in crowded WiFi space that would be 15 mintes.
- damian2000 11y agoI've never had a problem with TP-Link over about the last ten years and 3 modem/routers. I have heard lots of other people complaining about them though.
- nier 11y agoWhat’s different about your setup? Do you filter electricity with an uninterruptible power supply? Cable lengths? No other equipment nearby? Good ventilation?
- jdpage 11y agoI have a pair of TP-Link WDR-3600s. Both run OpenWRT "Barrier Breaker" and they've been rock-solid. One is on a filtered UPS (the main router), but the other one is just plugged into the wall and usually has a loaf of bread on top of it (the wireless relay in the pantry). Both have been fine, so I don't think it's the power supply.
- damian2000 11y agoI currently have a TD-W8960N that's been running 24/7 for about 3 years. Only a couple of outages which were due to ISP issues. Ventilation is nothing special, its just sitting on a shelf. No UPS, but the power board its plugged into does have some limited amount of power spike filtering I believe. Cable length from modem to phone socket on wall is less than 50cm. It shares the socket with an ADSL2+ line filter splitter and a standard telephone. Got about 10 WiFi devices in the house sharing access.
- rythie 11y agoI'd prefer a router with a AA battery slot, so it doesn't go down in the first place.
- ethbro 11y agoDifferent problem. To summarize: many consumer level routers tend to lock up due to firmware bugs, hardware defects, or overheating. Because they're closed devices, the solution is usually power off/power on & let the restart clear up any issues and restore proper wifi functionality. This device ingeniously automates that step.
- bhouston 11y agoD-Link routers are the worst for this. About every 2 weeks it would require a set. I found ASUS to be way more reliable.
- benmorris 11y agoA neat idea but why not take that $60 and buy a router that didn't require resetting. They do exist. My Asus router just never needs reset. I have it on an ups unit and the only time it is reset is to do firmware upgrades.
- Filligree 11y agoHow are you supposed to find out which ones don't?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Normal_gaussian 11y agoBasically good brand and not cheap as chips? Won't need resets. Also many come with decent warranties
- ISL 11y agoThat's not been my experience. Still haven't found a router/device combination that doesn't need resetting at least a few times a year.
- TillE 11y agoNo idea if they're available outside of Germany, but my ISP-supplied Fritz!Box has been rock solid for years. Only complaint is that the wifi signal isn't very strong. This is after several terrible experiences with expensive name-brand home routers, which I agree are usually trash.
- benmorris 11y agoNewegg/Amazon product reviews are a good starting point. Avoid new models until they are well tested and bugs patched.
- 11y ago
- damian2000 11y agoFor half the price you could buy a Raspberry Pi that just runs a simple watchdog program doing the internet connectivity check. Upon a problem, it could connect to your modem's web admin page and launch a restart from there.
- whoiskevin 11y agoAnd if the modem is not available?
- yoda_sl 11y agoSee my other post where I am using my Pi and reset my Wemo... Initially I was going the route to reboot the modem through the web interface until I noticed my stupid modem doesn't offer such option in the web interface! Since I had a spare Wemo Plug I was not using for a while I used that instead.
- swiley 11y agoConnect a transistor to a gpio pin to drive a relay and power the modem through that.
- yoda_sl 11y agoSomething I need to try... I haven't yet dig into all the wonders of the Pi gpio and that sounds like a fun project.
- nolite 11y agoWhere's the EU version?
- yoda_sl 11y agoInteresting to see that. It turns out that around a month ago after seeing the Raspberry Pi project that send a tweet to Comcast when internet connection is slow, it gave me the motivation to use my Raspberry Pi 2 to do the following: A- every 15 minutes check my internet connection: connectivity (reaching Goodle DNS host), B- if connectivity fail, execute D-2 below, if not see next step below C- then use SpeedTest download / upload; if download/upload speed are too slow then attempt a second test 30 seconds later D- if the second attempt fail again then: 1- send an SMS with Twilio to my cell phone to let me know the modem will reboot, and wait 10 seconds 2- issue a "off" command to my Belkin Wemo (cable modem plugged into it), then wait another 30 seconds and issue a "on" command On top of that I have installed InfluxDB + Grafana on my Pi so I can log the connection latency to Google DNS, and the download/upload speed. Example: https://imgur.com/gallery/dgeFR https://imgur.com/gallery/dgeFR The Belkin Wemo command do use only my local Wifi, so even if the modem is down since my Pi is on the same LAN it can control the Wemo without problem. It was a fun little project for my Pi. All written in Python. If anyone interested I can probably post the code somewhere. [updated for formatting]
- draw_down 11y agoIs it normal for routers to need to be reset periodically? Seems like a pain.
- witty_username 11y agoYeah, rarely ever have I needed to restart my modem, if at all, I just reboot it from the web interface to save the 10 secs of walking.
- anotheryou 11y agoI have one that looses the internetz when a newer macbook or an iphone cause noticeable traffic. After a reboot it's fine for a while. ISPs in Germany can force you to use their router. I have a proper one which remains unused :/
- vetinari 11y agoJust connect your own router to ISPs one, set it to the bridge mode and disable wifi on the ISP router. Done.
- anotheryou 11y agoIt's not actually the wifi that fails, it's the internet connection. tried that
- recursive 11y agoIt's certainly not unusual. It is a pain.
- pix64 11y agoISPs give out the cheapest possible routers.
- mavhc 11y agoI assume they take into account the cost of support calls, replacement hardware, and loss of future business because people think they're crap
- LukeB_UK 11y agoThis is just the American version of the Kankun wireless plug with a script on it. The Kankun plug is like 1/4 of the price: http://m.aliexpress.com/item/32613551938.html http://m.aliexpress.com/item/32613551938.html There's a whole community about hacking these plugs: https://plus.google.com/communities/115308608951565782559 https://plus.google.com/communities/115308608951565782559
- chris_wot 11y agoSomeone needs to oppose the pending patent then.
- mdip 11y agoI can't imagine what they have a patent pending on. They could claim nobody has put all of these features into a single device, but I'd challenge even that. WiFi switches have been around for a long time and there's a myriad of open projects for a variety of "development platforms" (RPi, Arduino, etc) that do things like this or similar to this. As far as detecting and cycling a device based on network activity, I've personally built something that performs this exact function ten years ago using an old laptop with an X10 serial device and a router/modem plugged into an X10 device. There's got to be a ton of prior art out there.
- chx 11y agoThanks! My work requires using a certain device which I figured how to use remotely but occasionally it needs a reboot and the devices I found were very expensive.
- dang 11y agoThanks! We changed the URL to that second link, which seems like it might be the most substantive. The originally posted URL was http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BU2ALGO/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BU2ALGO/.
- qb45 11y agoWould be nice if this information was more visible. I was quite surprised that the link leads to some random G+ page about "smartplug" hacking while people here are talking as if it was a commercial product.
- lordnacho 11y agoThe WiFi may work without the internet working. Is there a plug that checks that? I get a lot of outages on the internet link side of things, not so many on the local wireless.
- chris_wot 11y agoOh great, there's a patent pending.
- swiley 11y agoSBCs are so cheap at this point just grab one of those and put hostapd and iptables on it.
- recursive 11y agoIn order to do that, I'd first have to learn what any of those things are, and why I'd want to do that.
- lucio 11y agoIt's like a physical IISreset. A recognition and acceptance of failure and/or generalized bad quality.
- mdip 11y agoI'm a little skeptical about this product having had experience with some of these WiFi plug devices and as echoed by others, the price of this device is much higher than it should be. I've been using Ankuoo and Maginon devices quite a bit at home -- they run around $25, are easy to setup, conveniently communicate information to Chinese owned domains (ok, that bit bugs me, but I've blocked the communication) and they are a script away from this product. If this is based on the Marvell Chipset that so many of these devices are based on, I wonder how frequently it'll reset the router not because WiFi went out but because the device dropped off the network due its own problems. I've had some very spotty results with a device that I had plugged into the same power strip as my router and a large number of other devices. Despite being 4 feet from the router, it continually dropped off the network until I moved it to a wall outlet far away from the power strip (I'm guessing interference from the myriad of moderately high wattage equipment I had plugged in but I'm no EE). Something like this could be made on-the-cheap with a CHIP and a relay ($10 for the CHIP $5-10 for the relay, $~1-5 for USB power) and a little bit of scripting. Personally, I've wanted a feature like this since my router and cable modem are not easy to get to when I (rarely) need to cycle them. I purchased a 4-port relay and plan to pair it with a Banana Pro, wire it to Ethernet, set it up on WiFi and coupled with software running on my OpenWRT router, have it decide which to cycle in the event of an outage. Even with that complex of a build, I'm looking at $55.00 including power (which doesn't count much for me since I've got a USB block with an available port that I plan to use).
- acd 11y agoYou can also add a watch scripts that pings a known address and if does not work it reboots the router. Zero hardware required which is better than throwing electronic waste in the environment.
- MrQuincle 11y ago"Identification of a modem: automatically reset modem when anomalous behavior is detected." https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dobots/crownstone https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dobots/crownstone Prior art. So you can just get our open source power outlets without patent-pending stuff.
- lttlrck 11y agoA super cheap way to do this is proactively reset your router every night at 3am by power cycling it with a $12 plug-in timer. Of course it doesn't fit every use case and it doesn't solve every problem , but it will alleviate problems related to long running that all to many routers seem to suffer.
- roylez 11y agoInterestingly, this thing, made in China, has almost zero sales in China. Its price is a bit high, if compared to TL WR703n, which can do a lot more things. http://world.taobao.com/search/search.htm?_ksTS=1457807913660_20&spm=a21bp.7806943.20151106.1&search_type=0&_input_charset=utf-8&navigator=all&json=on&q=kankun&cna=ZcrJDkAKZxgCAUCmbHpzICzD&callback=__jsonp_cb&abtest=_AB-LR517-LR854-LR895-PR517-PR854-PV895_2461 http://world.taobao.com/search/search.htm?_ksTS=145780791366...
- jarnix 11y agoWhere/when do you live guys ? Who buys a router that needs to be restarted (and even fails) ? :) I have a Netgear something that acts as a wifi router and I do not have to restart it, I don't understand :)
- justin_vanw 11y agoJust buy a new router if you have a buggy one that needs restarted all the time. This is silly and illogical, if you have a reliability problem fix it, adding more parts is not likely to help. What happens when this smart plug malfunctions and restarts your router every 5 minutes?
- RKearney 11y agoAgreed. Without naming the brand of router I have in an effort to not start a brand debate, I must say when you actually end up spending more than $40 on a wireless router, the quality greatly improves. When I lived with my family, I thought resetting wireless routers was the norm (all my friends agreed it was a normal thing). Then I moved out and bought my own equipment. 5 years and counting and the only time this thing has been power cycled is when my home lost power in a storm. You'd be far better off putting the money you'd spend on this gadget towards a better wireless router and call it a day.
- qb45 11y ago> I thought resetting wireless routers was the norm (all my friends agreed it was a normal thing). Trust me, hanging or rebooting is the best of the bad things your router can do to you. I had one which would pass LAN->WAN packets without NAT translation if the endian-swapped destination address matched the LAN address block. Want to access X.1.168.192 on default settings? Sorry, not today. And, of course, I didn't use 192.168.1.0/24 but 10.0.0.0/8. It took me weeks to figure out that the thing those few websites which suddenly stopped working had in common was IPs ending with .10 . This was few years ago and since then I haven't bought a single router which wouldn't run OpenWRT or at least DD-WRT.
- qb45 11y ago> What happens when this smart plug malfunctions and restarts your router every 5 minutes? It's obvious, you get another gadget which bypasses the plug when it switches off despite network being up. Capacitors in the router will keep it running for the few milliseconds it takes to enable bypass.
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- DiabloD3 11y agoI have a Netgear WNDR4300. I reboot it about once a year, as in, it has been rebooted three times that didn't involve firmware updates in its entire life, or about five times total. If your router is that flakey, just replace the router.
- SideburnsOfDoom 11y agoThe @internetofshit Twitter account is already on this one: https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/708565761330176000 https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/708565761330176000 "On one level: this is a great idea On another level: WiFi routers shouldn't be so shit that this exists" "So many people saying they actually want this thing?! It's apparently real"