Mine also drops off WiFi occasionally and I’ve found that if I power cycle it, it comes back online and works well. I’ve started a log to keep track of how often I need to reset it so I can speak more precisely about the frequency and symptoms but it feels like every couple of weeks I need to remove and restore power to the thing. There seems to be something in the programming that breaks over time.
I have an esp8266-based OpenSprinkler device running App Version: 2.2.4, Firmware: 2.1.9 (7) and Hardware Version: 3.0 – AC. It’s also hooked up to home assistant so I can monitor it easily. The last time I power cycled the unit to get it back online was 5/22/21. This morning I noticed from the home assistant logs that my OpenSprinkler device was dropping offline periodically, today, only dropping for a few seconds every hour or two in the last 24 hours. I kicked off the program without resetting OpenSprinkler from the OpenSprinkler webpage and noticed that the clock froze after counting for a few seconds. I refreshed the page and it was counting correctly and after a few seconds it stopped again.
I brought up the console and refreshed again. When the clocks stop I see this message appear in the console:
app.js:1 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘wl’ of undefined
at HTMLHtmlElement.n (app.js:1)
at HTMLHtmlElement.dispatch (app.js:1)
at HTMLHtmlElement.g.handle (app.js:1)
at Object.trigger (app.js:1)
at HTMLHtmlElement.<anonymous> (app.js:1)
at Function.each (app.js:1)
at x.fn.init.each (app.js:1)
at x.fn.init.trigger (app.js:1)
at i (app.js:1)
at Object.<anonymous> (app.js:1)
This was very repeatable! I did it five or six more times, even did a ctrl-F5 on Chrome to have it wipe all the cache away and that didn’t matter. This was a problem that the device was sourcing. I just went out and power cycled it and kicked off a sprinkler zone to see if I could get it to do that again and I couldn’t. It’s almost like the FW gets into a funk over time and needs to be power cycled to refresh some variables that get corrupted.
I suspect that this is an issue for a lot of people. I’ve googled for “OpenSprinkler wifi drop” and variations of that over the last year as I keep experiencing this problem and found a lot of threads on the subject but no solutions. One guy said that he put a WiFi-controlled relay in between OpenSprinkler and its power supply so he could reset it at will. I’ve been thinking about employing the same solution because if I’m away from my house and I can’t get to OpenSprinkler I have no recourse to get it back online.
@Ray, I don’t suppose you could add a feature into the firmware for a daily or weekly forced-restart option? I know that security cameras have this feature because they know that their firmware may become problematic and that’s an easy way to flush out any problems regularly. Obviously, it’s a bandaid and not a root-cause corrective action but from what I’ve experienced with the device having used it for just over a year, it works well for a few weeks and then the WiFi either disconnects or gets spotty and the device needs a restart.
Thanks,
-Greg
P.S. Also, I’m using a Unifi AP AC Pro and it’s located in my garage about 20 feet from the OpenSprinkler device with nothing but air in between them. I have four ESPHome smart home devices connected to the same access point which are all ESP8266-based, have run for over a year and they have no problems like this.