Problems with Sonoff reliability

[Mike P]

For the most part my sonoffs are pretty reliable.  But I have one that's problematic - it appears that every once in a while it loses it's file system and I need to reload it.  This particular sonoff is part of a pair that's often completely powered off (a light switch turns on a smaller light, then sends power to two sonoffs that can be used to turn on two larger lights).  A bit odd I know, but it was either that or use two more sonoffs on the wiring which would be overkill.

I know a few others have experienced some odd behavior with them - care to share?  Was there a way to fix it?  I'm still keeping an eye on the one that's causing me trouble.

[steve]

I'm one who has had problems with Sonoffs.  I set up two Sonoff SVs to control garden irrigation solenoid valves, one to top up my pool and one to water some pot plants.  One of the Sonoffs was rock solid, but the other was - well, NOT!  I had ongoing problems with it dropping off my network, spontaneously restarting , etc etc.  I was using them in what is called "isolated" mode, which means the power they are switching is different from the power that runs them.  The power to actuate the valves needs to be 24V AC, so that was supplied by a plugpack.  Power to run the Sonoffs was supplied by a second 5V DC plugpack.  I thought the problems might be related to power (voltage being pulled too low), so I changed the plugpack that runs them to a 12V DC one (the SVs can run off 5-24V DC).  But it made no difference.  It's not the filesystem corruption issue mentioned above - if I put the failing one back on the programmer, everything is still intact and it responds normally.

This setup was intended to replace two Wemo Switches, each with its own 24V AC transformer - they worked, but it seemed a bit clumsy to me to use two transformers when really only one 24VAC source should be necessary.  But I could not resolve the problems, so with considerable disappointment I went back to the Wemos - clumsy yes, but they have the huge advantage that they do actually work.  I might investigate some other brands of ESP8266 relay controllers, but for the moment I'm out of the game, sadly.  Trying to think of something else I could use the good Sonoff for!  ;-)

[Mike P]

Hi Steve - it may be worth one more shot at it with the latest fimware if you get a chance.  I did fix some bugs related to what happened when the wifi dropped, the IP changed, or the sonoff couldn't lock onto the wifi signal.  And now there's some recovery options that help avoid having to remove the sonoff from it's installed location.

[Bilim35CI7]

Steve,

Interesting you are having problems with the SVs.  It sounds like you might have one with a hardware defect.  I have had a 120V Sonoff go bad.  I haven't run into any issues with any of my SVs  I use them to control an inverter and a linear actuator on a small 12V solar array.

[John Seymour]

Not had a problem so far myself, but sometimes these kind of devices can be susceptible to the type of loads that are switching, even via a relay. Inductive loads (like motors or solenoids) in particular can create high voltages (sparks across relay contacts) that can cause enough interference on a low voltage low power processor to crash it.

It can be quite difficult to stop this happening with some loads and board layouts - as I know to my cost as an ex-design engineer from MANY years ago :-p

Watchdog code and always being able to reboot to the last state as near as possible can go some way to working around it, but good component selection, circuit design and layout is the only proper fix.

[Curtis E]

I have 10 SONOFFs actively working and another 10 to be installed.  I have had one total failure, no postmortem yet, but seems to be the power supply.  These have all been working fine for months then I started getting some odd behavior.  Aside from the failure, I have several that at times do not respond to GPIO14 button.  I have not updated in many weeks until tonight.  I have also seldom used AM to activate these particular fixtures.  Sometimes they lock up and will do nothing for several minutes.  Sometimes I will use AM to activate them and it will not work, but the button then works immediately.  Sometimes nothing will work except AM which works fine.

My concern is long term reliability.  Anyone having similar issues or a remedy would be great.

I find the total failure more acceptable than the intermittent problems.  Wife is not interested in a switch that does not work...........

[Mike P]

My regular sonoffs seem pretty stable, but I have had to reformat the power and DHTs a few times.  But they've been so stable lately I suspect it was my code that was the problem.

Make sure you're on the latest V1 or V2 firmware (using AM Manager is the easiest way to do that).  If you're using the very early MPP base firmware (like v5 or earlier) you may want to reflash them.