Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router
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This product is dum.
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@blakeyrat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
This product is dum.
I was actually getting rather extremely close to building something rather similar for when my Cable Modem mysteriously locks up. But I'm 100% certain it would not have cost $60...
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@blakeyrat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
This product is dum.
I saw that. Couldn't imagine how it would know to reboot the router. I have a feeling the connection would go down MORE with that thing installed o_O
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@Vaire said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
how it would know to reboot the router.
Remove the power for a few seconds? It's not rocket science!
@Vaire said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
I have a feeling the connection would go down MORE with that thing installed
I would only hope there was some sensitivity setting for this somehow. Miss a ping to google.com? Reboot! :D
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Remove the power for a few seconds? It's not rocket science!
that's how it would reboot it, not how it would knwo it's time to
it's just a timer plug.
here. i found you one for 7$, just set it on except from 0300 to 0330.
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@Vaire said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Couldn't imagine how it would know to reboot the router
The smart plug will act as a WiFi client to test the Internet connection
The ResetPlug continues to cycle power every five minutes until the Internet works again.
This sounds like a good recipie for an endless loop?
Do you have devices that depend on your WiFi to be working?
Security cameras, Thermostat, Smoke alarms, CO alarms, Security alarmThat section is scary. Why would you let such devices depend on WIFI?
Security alarm/camera? It is trivial to jam WIFI.
Smoke/CO alarm? Let's hope the router has not burned, crashed, or that it is not endlessly power-cycled because internet connection is down.
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@Adynathos said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Smoke/CO alarm? Let's hope the router has not burned, crashed, or that it is not endlessly power-cycled because internet connection is down.
The most widely known smart smoke alarm only needs Wifi for extra features like speaking what room it's in aloud or downloading updates. It still functions as a smoke alarm when detached. I can't imagine it'd be legal or intelligent to do otherwise.
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I assumed it would call the firefighters. But in that case, it would be much better to do that through GSM, which is less likely to be down, especially during a fire. And it could even send a pre-recorded message to 112.
Thats what I would expect from a "smart" smoke sensor.@Yamikuronue said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
downloading updates
In case a new previously unknown type of smoke appears or PI changes its value. Good to be safe against that.
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@Adynathos said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
send a pre-recorded message to 112.
I guess firefighters will know my address by heart after a week, given how my wife cooks.
Automatic alarms do exist but use multiple triggers e.g. heat and smoke sensors going of on multiple locations
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Only problem is that this product is not called ITAPPMONROBOT.
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@accalia said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
here. i found you one for 7$, just set it on except from 0300 to 0330.
That would explain why a website-that-shall-not-be-named consistently has "maintenance" every day!
Also, terrible for uptime ratings. I'd rather have a "set it and forget it" solution that only happens to act when needed. This one seems like a "I set it, now I have to live with it" hack. ;)
My cable modem only locks up once or twice a month, but it's always when I'm not there to plug/replug it and ends up with me stuck at work listening to the texts come in about how the internet isn't working at home, and me guiding them through each time on what to unplug and replug (very carefully, because the wrong black box and things get much worse to fix).
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@Arantor said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
ITAPPMONROBOT
That sounds eerily familiar actually...
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@blakeyrat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
This product is dum.
Most quality routers cost quite a bit more than $60, so the article--which, coincidentally, I just read at lunch time isn't quite fair. I mean, heck, it even links to the Wirecutter's "best router" article, which right now--I just looked--is $109 on Amazon.
And the narrative was kind of silly, too. Having said that, it actually sounds like a good solution to a stupid problem, although $60 seems kind of pricy.
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@Vaire said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
I saw that. Couldn't imagine how it would know to reboot the router.
Probably connects to the wifi and pings 8.8.8.8 constantly. :)
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Remove the power for a few seconds?
Not how to reboot it, but when to.
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@FrostCat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Most quality routers cost quite a bit more than $60, so the article--which, coincidentally, I just read at lunch time isn't quite fair. I mean, heck, it even links to the Wirecutter's "best router" article, which right now--I just looked--is $109 on Amazon.
Yeah but $50 for a cheap router and $60 for this device is practically the same price as just buying the $109 good router.
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@accalia said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
here. i found you one for 7$, just set it on except from 0300 to 0330.
That's great--well, possibly cromulent--if your internet goes out at the same time every day. If it cuts out at unpredictable intervals and rebooting it cures the problem, then this device actually makes sense, if you don't know that most cable-company-provided routers are shit and that you'd be better off buying a good one.
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@Adynathos said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
This sounds like a good recipie for an endless loop?
Nah, it shouldn't take even the kind of bottom-of-the-barrel router Verizon or TWC ships more than a minute or so to reboot fully, if even that long.
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@FrostCat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Not how to reboot it, but when to.
Oh, sorry. Parser error or something.
When? In theory if the DHCP-provided gateway is no longer responding, wifi is no longer connected, TCP connection to arbitrary IP fails or times out repeatedly. I'm sure that software is where that $60 is going. ;)
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
me guiding them through each time on what to unplug and replug
The old paperclip-in-the-reset-button-hole ( ?) doesn't work?
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@loopback0 said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Yeah but $50 for a cheap router and $60 for this device is practically the same price as just buying the $109 good router.
Well, you already have the cheap router, so I don't think it's really fair to include that in the comparison. Plus, for most people the router's probably "free" with cable.
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@Luhmann said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
I guess firefighters will know my address by heart after a week, given how my wife cooks.
Ofc it should not do it instantly, but for example give you a few minutes to deactivate the alarm if you know it is fake.
But if it does not call for help, and does not activate some extinguishing mechanism, what is the point of it at all?
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@FrostCat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Well, you already have the cheap router, so I don't think it's really fair to include that in the comparison.
Fair point.
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@Adynathos said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
what is the point of it at all?
Hipster points
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@FrostCat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Nah, it shouldn't take even the kind of bottom-of-the-barrel router Verizon or TWC ships more than a minute or so to reboot fully, if even that long.
But if the internet connection itself or the thing they are pinging is down, it will break your LAN.
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@FrostCat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
The old paperclip-in-the-reset-button-hole ( ?) doesn't work?
The cable modem's reset hole is small, dark, and not obvious.
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@Adynathos said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
But if the internet connection itself or the thing they are pinging is down, it will break your LAN.
Right, that's why I suggested maybe just pinging the gateway IP (which is usually the router) or checking if wifi is connected.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Miss a ping to google.com? Reboot!
I have a script that does something like that for my vpn.
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@Adynathos said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
But if the internet connection itself or the thing they are pinging is down, it will break your LAN.
Well, it's clearly not a perfect solution.
If that's likely to be a problem, another idea that presents itself is that while you're doing the smarter-albeit-more-expensive-than-this-thing thing and buying a better router, instead, you buy a separate router and switch.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
The cable modem's reset hole is small, dark, and not obvious.
Get some red paint. Draw a circle around it.
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@FrostCat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Get some red paint. Draw a circle around it.
Thing is, I don't want them touching the equipment in the first place. ;)
My
Wall Of Blinky Lights
must remain scary enough nobody's going to think it's easy enough to press an Easy Button to get the Internet working again.
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@Yamikuronue said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
The most widely known smart smoke alarm only needs Wifi for extra features like speaking what room it's in aloud or downloading updates. It still functions as a smoke alarm when detached. I can't imagine it'd be legal or intelligent to do otherwise.
OK, then is the point of it...? This seems like a solution looking for a problem.
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@Tsaukpaetra Ok, but if that's your policy, you don't get to complain when they call you up because the internet's out, because you made it so they can't fix it.
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@accalia said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
that's how it would reboot it, not how it would knwo it's time to
it's just a timer plug.
here. i found you one for 7$, just set it on except from 0300 to 0330.You joke, but years ago we worked with a non-profit that was just getting started up and had ~$0 budget for IT. They had moved in to a space that had an existing wireless infrastructure with one issue: roughly every 4-6 weeks it would lock up and traffic would start getting dropped and everything on wifi ran like shit.
We proposed replacing it, but the price was too high for their budget. I finally proposed a "temporary fix to get them by until they had more funding" by hooking the PoE switch and wireless controller in to a digital timer that shut the wireless system off every Sunday night at 3:00AM and turned it back on at 3:01AM.
That "temporary fix to get them by until they had more funding" lasted 2+ years. After they had funding, they did not want to replace it as the solution that they had worked well enough and did not interrupt their work. It only got replaced when they moved spaces. Now that I think about it, I wonder if there is another cash-strapped NFP in that space now using that same system?
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@accalia said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Remove the power for a few seconds? It's not rocket science!
that's how it would reboot it, not how it would knwo it's time to
it's just a timer plug.
here. i found you one for 7$, just set it on except from 0300 to 0330.
That's what was thinking too, except last time I needed a timer plug I only paid €2,60 or so for two.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
The...hole is small, dark, and not obvious.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
My cable modem only locks up once or twice a month, but it's always when I'm not there to plug/replug it and ends up with me stuck at work listening to the texts come in about how the internet isn't working at home, and me guiding them through each time on what to unplug and replug (very carefully, because the wrong black box and things get much worse to fix).
Eh? What? That sounds like a problem that an extra power strip could solve. Get a sharpie and write "WI-FI" on it and plug everything that needs to be powercycled into it.
@Tsaukpaetra said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
My Wall Of Blinky Lights must remain scary enough nobody's going to think it's easy enough to press an Easy Button to get the Internet working again.
...nevermind, then.
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@FrostCat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
That's great--well, possibly cromulent--if your internet goes out at the same time every day.
i'm thinking more for those cable modems that run fine for a couple of days and then start acting weird.... a good nightly reboot keeps them from going weird, and at 0300 you should be asleep anyway.
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@PleegWat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
except last time I needed a timer plug I only paid €2,60 or so for two.
the non grounded ones are cheaper, and the holiday special ones are dirt cheap after 12/24, but i'm not sure i'd trust my 1200watt power supply to one of those.
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@accalia I doubt any home router has a 1200 watt power supply.
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@loopback0 said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
@accalia I doubt any home router has a 1200 watt power supply.
no, but my computer does and it could use a nightly reboot to make sure i'm not accidentally gaming past 0300
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@accalia said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
@loopback0 said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
@accalia I doubt any home router has a 1200 watt power supply.
no, but my computer does and it could use a nightly reboot to make sure i'm not accidentally gaming past 0300
I think that can be solved in software.
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@accalia said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
no, but my computer does and it could use a nightly reboot to make sure i'm not accidentally gaming past 0300
Windows 10 has that feature built in by default.
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@accalia said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
my computer does and it could use a nightly reboot to make sure i'm not accidentally gaming past 0300
Oh? Well, just update to Windows 10 then, it regularly forces you to reboot "when it looks good", typically 330 by default... ;)
@FrostCat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
you don't get to complain when they call you up because the internet's out, because you made it so they can't fix it.
I'm not complaining (much) about them not fixing it, I'm complaining that it needs to be fixed in the first place!
Heck, for the WiFi problem, so long as it's still connected to the internet (and it usually is, just that the wifi part dies unexpectedly), I just remote into on of the servers and have it send a POST request to 192.168.1.1/apply.cgi and it restarts the wifi service (because apparently changing anything in the router's UI mandates a software reset of all the things).
In the case of the cable modem, there is no such thing as a reboot once it's locked up, even from the inside.
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@accalia said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
those cable modems that run fine for a couple of days and then start acting weird
I admit to never having seen one that bad.
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@Polygeekery said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
Windows 10 has that feature built in by default.
You mean the feature where you ignore the warnings that it needs to reboot for 3 days, until it does it for you? I'm, uh, asking for a friend.
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@FrostCat said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
@accalia said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
those cable modems that run fine for a couple of days and then start acting weird
I admit to never having seen one that bad.
you don't have to deal with Comcast do you?
lucky bastard.
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@Yamikuronue said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
I can't imagine it'd be legal
So, we make dumb ideas illegal now...
I miss the days where the ideas were dumb instead of the people.
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@accalia said in Instead of buying a quality router for $60, buy this special plug that reboots your shitty router:
you don't have to deal with Comcast do you?
lucky bastard.Of all the providers out there, I think they're the only one I haven't. TWC, Cox, Charter, Verizon, AT&T...