Not 100% vera related , but here is a good start I think.
Today I am about 3000 miles away from home , and no connection to my house anymore. I expect my modem gave up ( which happends at least once a year). Or power failure or …??? I don’t know. Anyway , Internet is not working at my residence. No one is there to take a look or reset.
On my vera 3 I allready have the ping sensor and on the modem a wallplug which resets the modem when the ping sensor is “red”. Looking at teamviewer the internet was down arround 0200 AM. that’s about the time when vera does a heal.
Maybe the modem was switched off for a reset and during the heal or a vera restart the wallplug has not been switched on. Than it would be a self induced problem, which would not be there without the home automation. Anyway , friday night when I am home I need to investigate, but it is very frustrating.
But now , my question; if it is a modem breakdown , automation malfunktion , power failure or internet provider failure , I would like to have an internet backup.
Is there a ready to use sustem for this? I am thinking like , cellphone - internet , which switches on whenever the main internet connection is not working? But obiously , it only needs to recieve and send the important bits , not streaming Ip cams, donwloading stuff etc.
Anyone allready has something like that or has an idea how to set this up?
I was reading through the TP-link n150 and indeed , it looks very easy. On the GUI, just click how you want to set it up… Cool
About to order one of those things
Will there be any downsides?
Obviously I would like to know when the internet connection has changed to 3g\lite, I don’t see an option on the router to send a notification when the connection has switched.
You could query the public IP address and know from that??
E.G I have two connections - Vodafone and Three… I know the vodafone one is always in the 190.x.x.x range and the three one is always 89.x.x.x or 80.x.x.x
I have a Linksys Dual WAN router that I used to use with my DSL and Cable to provide alternate pathing. Ever since I switched to AT&T uVerse I’m unable to make it work. The uVerse only works with AT&T’s Motorola NVG589 and i have been unable to get it to simply pass through to my router, it insists on controlling everything. I’ve tried everything i can find on the Internet about pass through with the NVG589 but nothing seems to work for me. I think part of the problem is that I have a dedicated 5 IP block and the NVG589 doesn’t seem to like passing that through to the private router. I’ve been happy with the speed performance of the uVerse but I’m about ready to dump uVerse and go back to regular DSL.
I use the TP Link in a few locations and it works very nicely… Only issue I have found is that it takes awhile to switch over with DynDNS but more an issue with DynDNS that the router.
Your a smart guy so I’m assuming you tried everything but what you call “pass threw” is actually “Bridge Mode” I’m not sure if you searched that but searching google for “nvg589 bridge mode” comes up with alot of manuals and how to videos. Bridge mode should disable all internal routing functions and use it only as a modem.
I would assume that getting it into bridge mode would be as close as you can to get it working.
Yes, I’ve tried that and even been on the AT&T forum about it. Maybe my NVG589 is a different firmware rev or something but it simple will not work
Your a smart guy so I’m assuming you tried everything but what you call “pass threw” is actually “Bridge Mode” I’m not sure if you searched that but searching google for “nvg589 bridge mode” comes up with alot of manuals and how to videos. Bridge mode should disable all internal routing functions and use it only as a modem.
I would assume that getting it into bridge mode would be as close as you can to get it working.
I use a freedompop LTE hotspot along with a TP-link and a dual WAN router. The freedompop gives you 500mb for free every month, which should be enough for Vera traffic needs if/when your primary ISP is down. Of course, you would want to make sure the router kicks back over to the primary when it is available. You could connect these, your Vera, and a spare android phone to a UPS and have a tasker profile setup to send you an email when it detects it is on battery (UPS) power rather than AC power.
Actually, the detection of a changed external IP could be a useful bit of code or plugin for someone with better coding skills than me to write. It would eliminate the spare phone/tasker requirement. Any takers?
[quote=“ctguess, post:9, topic:186805”]I use a freedompop LTE hotspot along with a TP-link and a dual WAN router. The freedompop gives you 500mb for free every month, which should be enough for Vera traffic needs if/when your primary ISP is down. Of course, you would want to make sure the router kicks back over to the primary when it is available. You could connect these, your Vera, and a spare android phone to a UPS and have a tasker profile setup to send you an email when it detects it is on battery (UPS) power rather than AC power.
Actually, the detection of a changed external IP could be a useful bit of code or plugin for someone with better coding skills than me to write. It would eliminate the spare phone/tasker requirement. Any takers? :)[/quote]
Well I just checked out freedompop. Picture below of my options for my area which is SPRINT Wimax network (it sucks that’s what I have for cell phone now)
Looks like it’s just over 100.00 bucks to get the hardware to me and says monthly is free up to 1GB and .1 for each MB over.
Whats the catch? Only hoping you go over? Any monthly taxes or what else is involved?
Funny I was looking at exactly the same thing today. They are mostly wimax and the unit sometimes comes on sale refurbished for $50. The catch is indeed for you to go over. It seems like they charged a no activity fee of .99 too as some point but they have removed that.
All the “home” devices are WiMAX, which Sprint has publicly declared will be shutdown by the end of the year. I am fortunate to be in an area where they also have a strong LTE signal. I would think they would roll out LTE to everywhere that has WiMAX before shutting it down, but they may not.
If you go through the freedompop website and choose the on-the-go option (or whatever they market it as these days), you may see an LTE device. Mine is the Sierra Wireless 3-in-1 air card. Be careful when browsing/choosing…the description HAS to say LTE, otherwise they will call it a 4g/3G device and that is most definitely WiMAX.
Getting a “home” device with a normal LAN port would seem the most logical in terms of setup, but the combo of hotspot and TP-link does the same thing quite easily after configuring the TP-link to be in client mode and you get (if available) a decent LTE network that will be around for more than 8 more months.
Thanks for all the answers, that “Low end TP-Link N150 ~$50” looks quite nice. This week I wil ask the providerwhat the options are for databundles.
I came home last night and found the issue , as expected.
-The modem was switches off by the wall plug which resets the modem if needed ( via ping sensor on google), probably Murphies Law, during a heal the modem needed the be reset and vera never switched the modem back on.
A couple of questions:
the WAN light on vera 3 was blinking very fast, what does it mean in my case? ( the modem functions as a dhcp server and a fixed Ip adress is setup on the vera 3)
-Even with the modem off / no internet , does vera still perform it’s functions? I have read that vera needs internet to get the current time. Alhough vera most likely was not cut off from power , it does a LUUP reboot every night.
I have now a scene which swiches the wallplug on every 1 hour, that would mean that if it happends again , whatever happends , the wallplug will switch on after max 1 hour. Is this correct , taking into account the second question (internet off)?
[quote=“Cor, post:14, topic:186805”]A couple of questions:
the WAN light on vera 3 was blinking very fast, what does it mean in my case? ( the modem functions as a dhcp server and a fixed Ip adress is setup on the vera 3)[/quote]The flashing light could have a few root causes, but it means that a test of internet connectivity has failed. In your case, internet is down.
-Even with the modem off / no internet , does vera still perform it's functions?
Yesy
I have read that vera needs internet to get the current time. Alhough vera most likely was not cut off from power , it does a LUUP reboot every night.
By defailt Vera gets the time and initailly sets its clock based on an internet time server. Starting Vera without internet access will cause its time to be off and scheduled events will be unreliable. Once set, the clock remains fairly accurate and does not suffer too much drift from an internet outage, even one of several days. LUUP restarts do not impact the clock which is a Linux OS function.
I have now a scene which swiches the wallplug on every 1 hour, that would mean that if it happends again , whatever happends , the wallplug will switch on after max 1 hour. Is this correct , taking into account the second question (internet off)?
This will probably work as desired. Though I do wonder if we don't need a Rube Goldberg forum category for some of these "reliability solutions".
... Though I do wonder if we don't need a Rube Goldberg forum category for some of these "reliability solutions".
Good idea. I can contribute my Vera-Vera heartbeat that works like a charm but hasn’t had to since I got my Vera loading straightened out Murphy was a close personal friend of Goldberg, brothers from another mother
Best Home Automation shopping experience. Shop at Ezlo!
