This is the forum archive of Homey. For more information about Homey, visit the Official Homey website.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
Status of homey backup option?
B3rt
Member
When can we expect a backup option within Homey that will create a full backup and restore option?
Still waiting for a option to create a backup, save it in the cloud and which i can use to restore Homey in case of a crash/defect/replacement
The backup should contain all paired devices (zwave, kaku, ir etc ect), all apps, users, settings etc..
So in case of a real problem an option to restore home to the point of the last backup.
Anyone an idea when this will be available?
Still waiting for a option to create a backup, save it in the cloud and which i can use to restore Homey in case of a crash/defect/replacement
The backup should contain all paired devices (zwave, kaku, ir etc ect), all apps, users, settings etc..
So in case of a real problem an option to restore home to the point of the last backup.
Anyone an idea when this will be available?
Comments
MIOS Vera has a backup/restore option for both the zwave network and the system itself.
Even if the restore gave you everything back but not linked up.. that would save an enormous amount of time in rebuilding flows etc///
Also i really cannot understand why there is no backup option default since firmware 1.0 in Homey, how can you explain to your customers if something went wrong (defect, crash, wrong update etc) that you have to restore everything manually..
Luckely some apps have backup options (which i use) but they are useless if for example all my devices are 'suddenly' missing, when this happens (or i have to do a full reset) i have to add all my devices again and then create all flows again, because the backup of these apps cannot be used on 'new' devices. (re-adding them is same as new devices).
Actually athom should be a shamed that there is no backup function in it from day one!
If not a fully automated cloud/remote backup function then a (simple) backup function to download the config file from homey direct with at least all paired devices, system settings, list of installed apps (with auto download on restore, as used in mobile phones etc).
So i am really curious what athom is going to do about this....
(tip: maybe release an addon/plugin from athom itself to add this basic function)
Just like i said earlier because of your internal ID of the devices it's gonna be hard to make a backup/restore it. Comparing it with other devices/ or just like @konradwalsh did with Vera can't be done because Athom needs to find a way to backup all devices each with a different protocol where Vera can just only look at z-wave.
When Athom has news on this matter they will let us know in the software update and as long it's not there it's not soon. Did you make a github issue for this because that is where Athom is keeping track of feature requests / bugs? The forum is not the place to request features, forum is a place for discussion.
I'm not missing the backup solution while i am on developer preview so things break a lot. When being on developer preview / experimental people choose to live on the edge and things may break. Stable updates from Athom for the OS may not break your Homey since 1.0 and didn't occur since. Somethimes apps may break like KaKu / BL last week but those where fixed by an update from the app, no reset/backup was needed.
If your devices are missing and you re-add them none of the restored flows will work!
Ofcourse you can create devices backups, look at vera or other brands (fibraro etc), they all have these options.
Just copy the current id's etc and restore them as they where, ofcourse it will not be possible to just restore 1 device, it will always be eveything or nothing on a device restore.
Actually i believe it will be 'very simply' to make a full backup, just make an image of homey and store this somehere.
On restore of the backup image you will have a full backup of the last version, so everything is back again as it was.
The typical user is what we are talking about here.. CLI backup..is not for the typical user
Vera actually restores multiple device types and plugins with settings.
They may have an internal id system.. BUT.. that internal ID system still links back to a device ID.. They must have a table with that device ID to match the internal ID...
But then.. even if they cant.. the point still stands... what are they doing about an essential service/product feature that was promised
Restore is a lot more difficult then just putting the image back so device X is on memory spot X in homey, there are a lot of things dynamic and or defined on the spot.
There are chips inside homey that have data stored separately from homey on their own chip, looking at, zwave and zigbee now.
There are chips that have so called dynamic libraries in them to talk between the chip and homey, looking at 433 mhz, 868 mhz and the infrared controller.
Only which are created/updated with information on inclusion so homey can listen to theses signals without having to tax the cpu itself.
So that is not on the main homey chip itself.
And there are a few other things stored on homey that are really hard to restore the backup from, the cloud ID with its coupled bearer token for example.
And then there is the chance that an app has been updated in the meantime (after inclusion), now the driver is being used that was there on inclusion so that a new added capability won't break a device, since an update of the driver can break a device, thanks to the newly added capability.
And this is just an example of what needs to be though of, before even considering a backup function. Or de we want broken homeys because the backup wasn't right? Getting the purple ring off doom, and need to send homey back to let it get unbricked/forced reset
How this should work i don't know but i do not believe that it is simply not possible, maybe not easy..
Maybe the solution is to create an app or function within Homey to import devices and recreate this way the current id's.
So the external chips (zwave, 433mhz) are not backupped only the internal Homey chip with its id's which are used in flows etc.
When the backup is restored it will dynamicly create new ID's in the external chips but the script will link them to the existing ID's which are in your backup you are restoring.
This way your external chips are stil dynamic and your internal chips is restored with the same ID's so your flow backups will still work.
About app backup, it should only download the apps again which where installed, not save them in the backup.
This way you always have the correct driver and version.
Most apps which have there own data (better logic etc) already have there own backup option, you can use this to restore the app content/data. But as mentioned, this app restore is useless if your have to add devices again or a device backup does not exist.
Hope a athom genius has a great idea an creates a wunderfull device backup solution!
(believe a device backup/restore option would be enough to begin with)
Or would they need to install like 10 versions of the app? Which could happen, device inclusions on many different app updates
And don't forget, there is a reason why we can't go from beta to stable homey firmware, even if the version is the same..
Hopefully people will understand, even though it is mandatory in your mind... Athom is already busy trying to add backups since beta 0.8, but it's just REALLY DIFFICULT to keep the backup fully working with the amount of different chips and data types and devices and settings in homey
And then there even being a very small team of sub 10 people currently...
But we can discuss all we want it's not yet on the roadmap as we all can read in the software update. Something not written can be argued how it was said / in wich context about backup implementation. Because maybe it's confused with flow backup / flow sharing where they are talking about for a long time now (also as shown on the website as coming soon) I didn't read or heard Athom saying backup was a high priority, also not at the event in Enschede where they showed us the roadmap just like in the updates for this year.
Just like i said earlier, forum is not for bugs/feature requests but for community discussion, Athom said that tracking these things they use Github but there is already an issue / request as you can see here -> https://github.com/athombv/homey/issues/451
Just like @caseda said they are with a small team and all of us want other priorities like media was high priority for a lot of us where i say can we disable it? Just give a + to the request at github so Athom can see more people want it and they decide the priority in all the requests we all make. Rome is not build in a day, just like Homey
So it's on our list, but hasn't got the highest priority due to the difficulty involved.
Next thing what we need is...backup and restore option... (just kidding)
Jokes aside, we do really need this option. My Homey is at your office at the moment (I guess) and when I get it back, I have to redo everything. Adding z-wave devices, flows etc. It will be a tedious process as you can imagine.
I understand that you take the amount of effort in consideration when it comes to deciding the priority. But this issue of backup/restore has been mentioned a lot here on the forum. Users of Homey long for this feature and maybe more than music or other stuff. Yes, maybe it is not really a sexy feature that sells good. Supports Sonos looks much better in a commercial than 'backup/restore is possible'. But you also want good reviews of user experiences, right?
I honestly don't know what I will do if my homey needs a complete reset and I have to redo everything again for the third time. What I do know is that I would be frustrated and a frustrated user is not a user who recommends the product.
I know I brought this hastle on myself, because I did something stupid which caused the homey to be bricked. I did sent it on a Saterday to Athom and I received it back on the next Friday. The handling of this service request, besides the late response to the initial email, was excelent.
OK, so yesterday I unboxed the Homey for a second time.
This time it contained a letter with the 'repair' status. They did a 'factory reset' and an update (1.3.2)
I bought it a while back and I have to say that the initial setup is improved a lot. Very smooth setup at this time.
Right after the setup I went to the settings (disabled microphone and set some other stuff).
After that I went to the devices/zones. Got a javascript error message. I setup the zones, went to another page, back to the zones...got the javascript error message. Again setup the zones...you can guess it..
After three times setting up the zones and losing it, I did reboot the homey and that solved that issue.
Adding apps went smooth. Great!
Adding devices:
Philips Hue went without any problems. Great!
But then Fibaro Z-wave stuff. Man, that was big trouble. You have to know that I am not farmiliar with Z-wave, Sigbee or whatever low level communication and corresponsing chips you have. So, for me it is just a device and you need an app for that.
I had the Fibaro app, so I tried to add a switch. No luck. Whatever I did, it wouldn't add the switch. OK, then reset the Z-wave on Homey, maybe there was something left behind. No luck. After half an hour of trying, I got a brain fart and tried to remove a device from the Z-wave. Wow, it was successful. Hm, so this means that a factory reset does not really mean a factory reset. I didn't know that.
So, in short: First I had to remove all Z-wave devices one by one. And then I had to add them again, one by one.
After that I had to create all the flows and test them.
I still have a limited number of Z-wave devices and flows. But even with that, you still need a lot of time to set it up again.
Once you have been though this, you want Athom to create a backup/restore option for the complete settings as soon as possible and that the priority should be very high.
I know it is not a unique selling point, but it is just a basic feature it needs due to the nature of setting up Homey. It just takes a huge amount of time.
Priority is not only determined by the effort as @Emile described, but also by: risk * effect
The risk of losing the settings might not be high, but it is certainly not very low. And the effect is huge!
@Emile, question for you: Do you backup your servers? Do you backup the source code of Homey (the stuff that is not on GitHub)? What would you think if you were not able to backup your propriaty code and knew that if the system has a failure, you need to rewrite it by hand? Because you know it is not anly the apps, apps settings and devices, but also the flows. And the flows you need to debug too.
Deep down you know that the backup/restore of all devices/settings etc. should be available.
Backup to PC/USB whatever you need to restore from a factory reset.
And of course backup would be nice but as stated it's really difficult for a device like Homey and everything always has to do with priorities
If a device is excluded from within Homey, the device is reset as well.
If you power down Homey and do a full reset the device exclusion does not take place; so the devices are still linked to the "old" Homey with it's unique security keys...
A Z-wave reset executed in the "new" Homey will reset the known devices, since they were not added yet, the "old" devices are not affected.
With removing a Z-wave device you actively wake up the device and basically actively reset it from Homey side.
I expect the same result would be achieved by resetting the device manually on the device (see manual)...
so after a full reset of Homey, without excluding the devices or resetting the Z-wave network, I would always reset the Z-wave devices manually before (trying to) adding them to Homey...
However, the different protocols can not be the problem as also Zipato has an backup and it uses also a lot of protocols (confessedly only recently) and so do Fibaro and homee (I owned all of them).
I hope the future will bring this feature as building everything from scratch again is the most annoying thing with Smart Home Systems.
But I understand your pain as I have just fully migrated all my 59 Z-Wave devices from HC2 to Homey and one by one I had to first exclude then pair them back with Homey. Especially some devices can be a beach, like those dam Fibaro door/window sensors where you can exclude them by just opening the hatch and press 3x the little button inside, but to include them you must press the bottom button 3x and for this took me ages to unstuck them from the doors and windows then clean up the mess done by the sticky tape before I applied new one.
God help me if I need to go through the above exercise again.
So I fully support a backup option for Homey.
I understand that it is very difficult due to so many protocols Homey can talk, but at least maybe start with a small step and have a backup for the most lengthly process for a user to setup, like the z-wave devices as @underground learned. Then later the rest one by one. (Yes, I am a bit subjective here since all my z-wave devices
You must be kidding? Is this a toy?
Okay, my HomeCenter 2 is bricked, and I wanted to give Homey a try, but it seems I came to the wrong product. If something happens, do you seriously think I will add and rebuild my entire system? 50+ z-wave devices + all others.
This must be a joke....
However, if you think a bit further you will soon realise that it is anything but easy.
When you have a Homey with, for example, 3 Fibaro motion sensors, each of them have the same flow. You back it up, and restore it. You will have to repair with the motion sensors.
You might be able to recognize which one of the Fibaro motion sensors is which because of the ID that they send out on z-wave. However, what if there is no unique ID that you can recognize them with?
For a lot of devices, this is true. The ID that you recognize them with in Homey, is made up by the author of the app upon adding the device. That can be either a randomly generated code, or a part of the network address. Upon adding the unique ID will not be the same as before.
So to be honest, I'd rather have a good way of exporting my flows to a webpage or PDF than to have a backup/restore method that is not fully working. However, I think that Athom will come up with a clever way of doing this. A lot of devices could be imported again without repairing them, I think. That will help!
Make a full system image/snapshot and save this (externally), on restore you placeback a fully working copy of the whole system, this includes then all device id's, flows, settings etc, they will be identical as on creation of the backup.
Only disadvantage of this system is that all newly added devices, flows settings etc would be lost on restore....
It would be nice to have a restore option of all devices etc, better something then nothing at all..
I mentioned this earlier, the purpose of just flow and settings backup is rather useless if you cannot restore the devices aswell if you do a factory reset or you have to replace or send back your Homey for repair.
I do hope athom delivers a nice backup option in the new version as they announced.
and the rf micro controller will most likely act a bit strangely.
Homey consists of multiple chips that have their own rom with data. Each uses its own image / backup way.