Remote wifi router reset

Lowrollin70gmc

Lowrollin70gmc

Flatland Wheeler
Joined
May 20, 2020
Member Number
762
Messages
316
Loc
SE NoDak
Here's my dilema:

Wifi router needs to be manually rebooted at my parent's place. They're in Tejas for the winter, and their place up here is about 50 miles from me. Propane gauge, thermostat, and cameras are on wifi and good to see if everything is good all winter. Internet company could see the modem is good, so it's likely a router issue. Unplug and plug it back in is the answer 98% of the time for router issues.

I can go and manually reset the router, and will this time, but I was thinking about when it happens in the future. In the past I was at my rental shop/ their place weekly so no big deal. I'm there less and less now so a 100 mile round trip for a router seems a waste.

My thought was simple: a Christmas light timer, set to turn off and back on at its shortest interval. Probably around noon or late at night. Would restart the router every night. I don't see this as bad for the router, but that's more on&off than normal. I already have one, and it could be easily removed when they're back.

What say the nerds of irate?
 
benw said:
I don't see any issue with power cycling it daily.
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Seems like the most stress you put on a lot of electronics is initial power up. Routers have ram and flash memory and the more startups, the more likely something is to corrupt.

Since it's a semi-temporary deal, I'd throw a $15 smart plug at it and program it to cycle maybe once a week or two. I've had routers behave similarly and it was usually several weeks or months between mandatory reboots.


My solution was a Digital Loggers Web Power Switch - it has an "auto ping" function that will just ping a website you choose at an interval you set. When it can't reach that site for a set number of intervals, you can tell it which outlets to power cycle and in what order, and how much time to wait between turning each one on. I had mine set to cycle the modem, router and switch just to be safe. I was on the road for weeks at a time for work and had a server at my house that I really needed to be accessible all the time.

A little pricey for OP's short term problem, but a good solution for anyone else who may be in the same boat with travel.
 
bgaidan said:
I'd throw a $15 smart plug at it and program it to cycle maybe once a week or two.
Click to expand...

I was going to suggest the same thing (i use them all over the place) but how is he gonna tell the smart plug to turn back on, if the wifi is off? :laughing:
 
Sceep said:
I was going to suggest the same thing (i use them all over the place) but how is he gonna tell the smart plug to turn back on, if the wifi is off? :laughing:
Click to expand...

Most smart plugs will follow their schedule even if they're not connected to wifi. I was suggesting one of those because the modem really doesn't need to be rebooted every single day. I'd set it for once a week or so. Sure, if it goes down on day one, he might have to wait a few days, but it'll eventually come back up vs. what he has now where the only way it'll come back up is if he drives there to do it manually.
 
Actually, apparently the market has responded since the last time I looked in to this. I had to buy the $200 power switch I posted above back then. Now if you search "router rebooter" on Amazon, there are tons of products that will do exactly what he needs for $40 or so.


I'd prefer one that is hardwired to ethernet vs. wifi like most of those are, but it sounds like he probably has a combo modem/router so if one goes down so does the other.
 
bgaidan said:
Most smart plugs will follow their schedule even if they're not connected to wifi. I was suggesting one of those because the modem really doesn't need to be rebooted every single day. I'd set it for once a week or so. Sure, if it goes down on day one, he might have to wait a few days, but it'll eventually come back up vs. what he has now where the only way it'll come back up is if he drives there to do it manually.
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I might try this.

I had thought of a smart plug, as i use a couple of them at my house and have an extra. But then I was thinking how I'd turn it back on without wifi.

I can test it easy enough, turn off my home wifi and see if the grandfather clock's night light still comes on at dusk. It's a pretty pimp clock.

If that doesn't work, a weekly dumb switch would probably be good. It's the provider's router (I know, I know) so if it does die a year or two sooner I'm not worried, but weekly would probably be just fine.
 
Check into the settinga available on the router, many of them already have scheduleable reboot settings.

Edit: just saw it's a provided router. This method is probably unlikely.
 
bgaidan said:
Actually, apparently the market has responded since the last time I looked in to this. I had to buy the $200 power switch I posted above back then. Now if you search "router rebooter" on Amazon, there are tons of products that will do exactly what he needs for $40 or so.


I'd prefer one that is hardwired to ethernet vs. wifi like most of those are, but it sounds like he probably has a combo modem/router so if one goes down so does the other.
Click to expand...
I know the ISP was able to check / rebooted the modem remotely. Small ISP and a retired Dad, so I told him to call as the worst that happens is nothing changes.


I wonder if I could run one of these upstream of the power strip, to cycle modem / router / security DVR at the same time.

And if I could do it remotely, as the cameras sometimes need to reboot. Not critical, thermostat and propane is more important.
 
Lowrollin70gmc said:
I know the ISP was able to check / rebooted the modem remotely. Small ISP and a retired Dad, so I told him to call as the worst that happens is nothing changes.


I wonder if I could run one of these upstream of the power strip, to cycle modem / router / security DVR at the same time.

And if I could do it remotely, as the cameras sometimes need to reboot. Not critical, thermostat and propane is more important.
Click to expand...
I wasn't sure if you had a separate modem/router or a combo unit. I would put the router and modem on a single rebooter and probably put the NVR on a separate smart switch. That's another thing you don't want to just power cycle unless it actually needs it. Since the router rebooter thing will make sure your internet is always up, if you find that you can't reach the NVR, you'll be able to use the smart switch's app to power cycle it. That way you also won't have to power cycle the modem and router when you only need to do the NVR.
 
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