Hi guys, I’ve seen several posts about devices losing connection, but none of them seem to match my exact issue.
I have 5 WLED devices (2 ESP8266 and 3 ESP32), and all of them randomly lose connection after a few days. The connection is not reliable at all. To fix it, I have to power cycle them, which isn’t always easy to do.
I live in a small apartment and have a good Wi-Fi signal with no issues on other devices, so I don’t think it’s a router problem. Also, I’m not using level shifters on any of them, but the distance to the first LED is very short (about 1 inch), so I doubt that’s the cause.
Does anyone have any tips? Is there a way to automatically restart the device if it can’t ping the router anymore?
I am new here, but have spent a ton of time using WLED in a project I have been working on. Mine all connect to a 2.4 Ghz router which is about 40 feet away and also in my basement. I don’t think the lack of a level shifter has anything to do with it, because that would probably cause problems with the lights staying on and the connection to wifi would most likely still be connected. If you are connecting to your router using DHCP (not a static IP address), DHCP IPs have leases which expire sometimes after 24 hours or so. Being that not even 1 of the 5 stay connected, it is more likely to be something with your network than WLED. I would gather some real data. If you know how to access your router logs, you might be able to find the connection and disconnection timestamps. Or you could just use pen and paper, but it will be less accurate. Try to record some of the timestamps and after you have 5 or so, see if there is any type of pattern, like time of day, duration, do all 5 lose connection at the same time. Maybe set WLED to show a specific Preset on Start, and make sure to use a different preset when waiting for it to disconnect. If you see the lights changed, you will know it restarted.
As far as trying to connect back. On mine if I lose connection to the router, I use my phone to connect to the built it WLED-AP, and then I can access the UI on my phone. The app is also useful to see my list of devices and their IP address when connected to the router.
I’m using the carrier’s router (it’s not that bad…), and I’m not able to set a static IP address. I know it’s not ideal, but I don’t know if this is the reason for the disconnections. They’re unpredictable and happen randomly — for example, one light loses connection after a few hours, while another only after several days.
I’m using home assistant! Maybe you find the cause. I’ll try disabling those options below (sorry, my HA is in portuguese), it’s something like “Enable newly added entities” and “Enable update polling.”.
