Must have lost WiFi last night… help?

[BAMatter]

Looks like everything dropped, but my XP8 has not come back online. How do I manually connect it back? Getting Collective Broken. Everything else has reconnected and is working ok… thanks.

 

[JeffB418]

Try rebooting the collective via the app.

 

[BAMatter]

Try rebooting the collective via the app.

Thanks Jeff… I actually just rebooted the XP8 and it re-connected itself.

 

[Voodoo99]

Thanks Jeff… I actually just rebooted the XP8 and it re-connected itself.

Question: Even though your XP8 dropped it’s connection, did all the devices connected to it continue to operate as expected?

 

[BAMatter]

Question: Even though your XP8 dropped it’s connection, did all the devices connected to it continue to operate as expected?

Yes they did. Pretty impressed. Was the first drop I’ve had, and zero hiccups.

 

[BAMatter]

Question: Even though your XP8 dropped it’s connection, did all the devices connected to it continue to operate as expected?

Yes they did. Pretty impressed. Was the first drop I’ve had, and zero hiccups.i

Yes they did. Pretty impressed. Was the first drop I’ve had, and zero hiccups

I will say, however, everything connected to the XP8, tiles were red and you can’t manually do anything with them until you’re back online. Just figured I’d mention it.

 

[Voodoo99]

Yes they did. Pretty impressed. Was the first drop I’ve had, and zero hiccups.i

I will say, however, everything connected to the XP8, tiles were red and you can’t manually do anything with them until you’re back online. Just figured I’d mention it.

Thanks for the reply. That’s good info. How were you able to determine that the XP8 outlets were still operating correctly? Was there some way to see that the outlets were still switching on/off and following the programming?

 

[BAMatter]

Thanks for the reply. That’s good info. How were you able to determine that the XP8 outlets were still operating correctly? Was there some way to see that the outlets were still switching on/off and following the programming?

Well, we may need to take a step back thinking about it, to answer your question. My XP8 powers things like my return pump and protein skimmer, for example. How do I know they were still operating correctly? Well, the skimmer was skimming and the return pump was pumping. To dig in a bit more, and to address what I think you’re concerned about, I do not know if these outlets would respond since the tiles were red and I couldn’t even manually turn them off. So what would happen if, say, a leak detector tripped that was on the Control 4 and was programmed to turn the return pump off? That, I don’t know. I believe nothing until the XP8 was back online. But that’s a question for someone like @Carlos. That’s my one thing about the marketing around if one brain fails, then another one will still be able to control the system, but I don’t believe that anything on the failed brain will take commands, which is a bit confusing

 

[Voodoo99]

Well, we may need to take a step back thinking about it, to answer your question. My XP8 powers things like my return pump and protein skimmer, for example. How do I know they were still operating correctly? Well, the skimmer was skimming and the return pump was pumping. To dig in a bit more, and to address what I think you’re concerned about, I do not know if these outlets would respond since the tiles were red and I couldn’t even manually turn them off. So what would happen if, say, a leak detector tripped that was on the Control 4 and was programmed to turn the return pump off? That, I don’t know. I believe nothing until the XP8 was back online. But that’s a question for someone like @Carlos. That’s my one thing about the marketing around if one brain fails, then another one will still be able to control the system, but I don’t believe that anything on the failed brain will take commands, which is a bit confusing

Thanks very much. That’s exactly what I was wondering. I’ve gotten into 2 bad situations with the wifi strip in the past which prompted me to remove heater control from the Hydros entirely. I’ve been on the fence over investing another $500 CDN on the XP8 if I can’t be sure it really solves the reliability issue. I actually do have the rope leak detector hooked up and it is supposed to turn off my return pump, and rodi water solenoid if a leak occurs. I wish they could come up with a version that is wifi optional or that automatically fails over to bluetooth if wifi is unavailable. Is it really that hard to do?

 

[Danny]

Well, we may need to take a step back thinking about it, to answer your question. My XP8 powers things like my return pump and protein skimmer, for example. How do I know they were still operating correctly? Well, the skimmer was skimming and the return pump was pumping. To dig in a bit more, and to address what I think you’re concerned about, I do not know if these outlets would respond since the tiles were red and I couldn’t even manually turn them off. So what would happen if, say, a leak detector tripped that was on the Control 4 and was programmed to turn the return pump off? That, I don’t know. I believe nothing until the XP8 was back online. But that’s a question for someone like @Carlos. That’s my one thing about the marketing around if one brain fails, then another one will still be able to control the system, but I don’t believe that anything on the failed brain will take commands, which is a bit confusing

If one controller fails you will loose the inputs and output that are on that controller but the other controllers will continue to work. If something on them uses an input that was on the controller that failed it will depend on the setting you set in the output settings for If input unavailable.

 

[BAMatter]

Thanks very much. That’s exactly what I was wondering. I’ve gotten into 2 bad situations with the wifi strip in the past which prompted me to remove heater control from the Hydros entirely. I’ve been on the fence over investing another $500 CDN on the XP8 if I can’t be sure it really solves the reliability issue. I actually do have the rope leak detector hooked up and it is supposed to turn off my return pump, and rodi water solenoid if a leak occurs. I wish they could come up with a version that is wifi optional or that automatically fails over to bluetooth if wifi is unavailable. Is it really that hard to do?

Yea, I see what you’re saying. But, I think the safety feature when wifi drops is the notification. That alone is a very good net. Everything was still operation as normal, and I knew which things to check out when notified. My XP8 powers my InkBird, so thats a layer of protection in itself as well, just to respond to your heater issue. The outlet remained on, and my temp sensor is on my Control besides my InkBird. So when set up that way, I was covered. In terms of a leak detector not responding, with my own system I can’t really think of an issue that would cause a leak due to a power outage, so if my UV plumbing decides to spring a leak on the same night my Wi-Fi drops for 3 hours then I’m going to buy a lottery ticket

what issue did you have with your heater?

 

[Voodoo99]

Yea, I see what you’re saying. But, I think the safety feature when wifi drops is the notification. That alone is a very good net. Everything was still operation as normal, and I knew which things to check out when notified. My XP8 powers my InkBird, so thats a layer of protection in itself as well, just to respond to your heater issue. The outlet remained on, and my temp sensor is on my Control besides my InkBird. So when set up that way, I was covered. In terms of a leak detector not responding, with my own system I can’t really think of an issue that would cause a leak due to a power outage, so if my UV plumbing decides to spring a leak on the same night my Wi-Fi drops for 3 hours then I’m going to buy a lottery ticket

what issue did you have with your heater?

 

[Voodoo99]

Yea, I see what you’re saying. But, I think the safety feature when wifi drops is the notification. That alone is a very good net. Everything was still operation as normal, and I knew which things to check out when notified. My XP8 powers my InkBird, so thats a layer of protection in itself as well, just to respond to your heater issue. The outlet remained on, and my temp sensor is on my Control besides my InkBird. So when set up that way, I was covered. In terms of a leak detector not responding, with my own system I can’t really think of an issue that would cause a leak due to a power outage, so if my UV plumbing decides to spring a leak on the same night my Wi-Fi drops for 3 hours then I’m going to buy a lottery ticket

what issue did you have with your heater?

In both cases, the wifi strip lost connection to the internet. Nothing else in my entire house had any issues at these times and I have a fair number of devices of all types. The wifi strip failed to automatically reconnect and as such the heater remained in the state it was previously in, so, in one case my tank sunk to the low 70’s and in the other it rose to just over 80. Both times, I had to manually unplug the C4 to get it to reconnect. Luckily I was nearby to do so. I don’t trust any critical functions to the C4 anymore. I purchased the Helio heating system and it has been FLAWLESS the past 8 months.

 

[BAMatter]

In both cases, the wifi strip lost connection to the internet. Nothing else in my entire house had any issues at these times and I have a fair number of devices of all types. The wifi strip failed to automatically reconnect and as such the heater remained in the state it was previously in, so, in one case my tank sunk to the low 70’s and in the other it rose to just over 80. Both times, I had to manually unplug the C4 to get it to reconnect. Luckily I was nearby to do so. I don’t trust any critical functions to the C4 anymore. I purchased the Helio heating system and it has been FLAWLESS the past 8 months.

Good to know the Helio system is working… a workaround, if you ever wanted to go back, is to hook up something like an InkBird controller to an outlet on a Wi-Fi strip, programmed as constant. You’d let the InkBird do the controlling, and have a backup Hydros temp sensor and if that sensor gets above the set temp, then it kills the power to the outlet until temp go brought back down to lower set temp. That way the outlet is always on, if Wi-Fi drops, it remains on.

 

[Voodoo99]

If one controller fails you will loose the inputs and output that are on that controller but the other controllers will continue to work. If something on them uses an input that was on the controller that failed it will depend on the setting you set in the output settings for If input unavailable.

So Danny. Have you tested what happens during an internet outage? If I had a simple setup with a C4 and an XP8, then lost wifi, what will happen? Will inputs/outputs still follow the programming even though the tiles are all red and unresponsive as BAMatter experienced?

 

[Voodoo99]

Good to know the Helio system is working… a workaround, if you ever wanted to go back, is to hook up something like an InkBird controller to an outlet on a Wi-Fi strip, programmed as constant. You’d let the InkBird do the controlling, and have a backup Hydros temp sensor and if that sensor gets above the set temp, then it kills the power to the outlet until temp go brought back down to lower set temp. That way the outlet is always on, if Wi-Fi drops, it remains on.

I wanted to do something like that and create added heater redundancy by connecting the Helio controller to the XP8 if it works the way I was thinking and hoping it might. I thought the XP8 was supposed to keep on working as per programming even if it lost wifi connection? Not sure anymore.

 

[Danny]

Ok, I unplugged the power to my router and used my android phone and had the Hydros app in bluetooth to communicate with the Hydros collective with no wifi and took a screenshot of it. The fan, heaters, Skimmer and fan are on a XP8.

 

[BAMatter]

I wanted to do something like that and create added heater redundancy by connecting the Helio controller to the XP8 if it works the way I was thinking and hoping it might. I thought the XP8 was supposed to keep on working as per programming even if it lost wifi connection? Not sure anymore.

You would need 2 layers of redundancy to fail in order for there to be an issue. The XP8 outlet will remain on if Wi-Fi drops. Your Helio will work as normal. You’ll be notified of the Wi-Fi drop via whatever notification level you’ve chosen, and can then figure out why it dropped. A simple reboot, which you can do remotely, or maybe it’s a router issue… either way, they’re not permanent problems, and we get notified so we can take action. I don’t think it’s as bad as you’re thinking.

 

[Danny]

I wanted to do something like that and create added heater redundancy by connecting the Helio controller to the XP8 if it works the way I was thinking and hoping it might. I thought the XP8 was supposed to keep on working as per programming even if it lost wifi connection? Not sure anymore.

The only thing you will loose with no wifi is the wifi power strips, wifi power plugs, wifi feeder, Mastertronic and Alkatronic. Anything attached to the control buss will still communicate with the other controllers via the control buss.

 

[Voodoo99]

Ok, I unplugged the power to my router and used my android phone and had the Hydros app in bluetooth to communicate with the Hydros collective with no wifi and took a screenshot of it. The fan, heaters, Skimmer and fan are on a XP8.

View attachment 2183

Thanks so much for the test Danny. So, what BAMatter experienced was abnormal? His tiles all turned red and there was nothing he could do except reboot his XP8?