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The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
How much power does Homey use...? Homey on a UPS
I recently bought myself a Varta powerbank to use as a UPS for homey. After my first unsuccessful tryout I concluded that a single 2.4A USB port did not supply enough power for homey to stay working.
After a very long search for a white USB Y-cable, it finally arrived. I combined the output of 2 USB ports 2.4A + 1.0A, expecting this to be enough. Unfortunately it turns out NOT to be enough... Homey restarts after pulling the 240V plug
Although I tested this about 15 min. after the new Homey 1.2.2 update it seemed that the powerbank did not have enough juice to keep homey working. What I also noted is that the 240V plug was quite warm, going to hot. Probably because of loading the remaining part of the batteries. The bank was about 75% full when connecting.
Does anyone know how much power Homey really needs in standby / idle mode?
After a very long search for a white USB Y-cable, it finally arrived. I combined the output of 2 USB ports 2.4A + 1.0A, expecting this to be enough. Unfortunately it turns out NOT to be enough... Homey restarts after pulling the 240V plug
Although I tested this about 15 min. after the new Homey 1.2.2 update it seemed that the powerbank did not have enough juice to keep homey working. What I also noted is that the 240V plug was quite warm, going to hot. Probably because of loading the remaining part of the batteries. The bank was about 75% full when connecting.
Does anyone know how much power Homey really needs in standby / idle mode?
Comments
The next question that comes up is why the total of 3.4 A would not enough to keep homey up-and-running on the powerbank? Pulling the 240V plug immediately changes the LED ring from rainbow (in my case) to yellow as when booting.
And homey is booting because it is not available anymore when refreshing the settings page. Once rebooted, with the 240V plug in the power socket, all works fine again.
Any UPS function does not work this way... Suggestions?
just to let you know though,
a lot of power banks are not designed for ups usage,
and take a few (milli)seconds of time to switch from charging, to output.
or when charging is stopped, it sometimes also turns off the output for a few (milli)seconds
(milli)seconds can be enough te let homey reboot
it varies from 0.29 A to 0.35 A.
Starting Homey it uses about 0.92 A / ~4.7 Watt at 5.12 Volt from the factory USB Adapter.
Tuning the default LED Spectrum on at 100 % raises the consumption to 0.92 A / ~4.7 Watt.
Quite cynical though, normally I buy all type of "unknown" brand products. In this case, for UPS purpose, I especially chose a VARTA brand product....
Now I have it all in white color, looking great in my living room; just not working....
It would have made such a practical solution when adding more devices. Just take homey along to the new device, install it and afterwards put homey back again. All of this without restart or interrupting already built mesh networks.
Does anyone know a powerbank that will function as a UPS 100% certain?
Oh, and for sale not a new VARTA powerbank
I don't know how the constant (trickle) charging affects the powerbanks lifespan, probably kills it over time...
Well maybe the lifespan maybe goes from 10 years to 5, whatever :P
Why I asked, is because I read that, when disconnecting the powercable from the Powerback, this sometimes also results in a power dip at the 5V output of the powerbank, which than results in a restart of homey.
But in your case, no powerdip, and not restart of homey as soon as you disconnect the charger from te powerbank?
So it is possible at least.
I've some kabels to also power my router so with 2 of them i'm able to alert me and send alarms with my battery door/ motion detectors.
True, but all local things keep working like z-wave
@RamonBaas:
Just a thought:
How does the RAVPower unit affect power consumption?
Like, if the charger is inefficient, the cost could increase to something really bad :-(
And thanks for sharing all the knowledge, all of you - great community!
Add:
What type of cable is running from the charger itself to the powerbank?
have to pull the cable through a small hole in a wall (a standard USB-plug is too big - have to strip some of the plastic around the plug to get it through)...