Just wondering why the concern about doing firmware updates on Hubitat remotely. I see the warning message has been modified to set a sterner warning than before?
I have had an update fail once but that is with two hubs and probably over hundred updates. So it isn't common at least in my case.
I also found if you launch the update from the remote access web page prior to bringing up the gui the update has a better chance of success.
Any given update is unlikely to fail in some way, but if it does, not being on site could limit your recovery options, depending on what’s required to get the hub going again.
No, the only preference is 1. All the others are basically the same, the main factor being that if something goes wrong and you aren't on-site to fix something that needs an on-site presence to fix, then you're stuck. Nothing to do with how you're doing it remotely, just that you are. This is generally rare, as @marktheknife notes and your experience supports, and naturally whether you want to obey the warning or not may depend on how important that particular "remote" hub is to you.
I think the big question is what would you need access to the hub for if the update goes bad.
Power cycle the hub if it locks up or doesn't come back up.
Press the hidden reset button on the bottom to reset network configuration.
Look up MAC if you need to perform an action in the Diagnostics Menu.
I would suggest taking these precautions to minimize the chance of you neeeding to physically do something to the hub.
Always do it over a VPN.
Document your MAC incase you need to use the diagnositic menu to recover for some reason.
Have someting inline with the power to power cycle the hub that doesn't depend on the hub itself to control. Think POE Switch with a good POE splitter, or a USB relay like the one from Tuya Smartlife.
Aside from needing to press the network reset button on the bottom of the device, those will likely provide you recovery for anything hub related. Ofcourse you could still mess up a managed network switch remotely and have connectivity issues. That isn't a Hubitat issue though and a local network issue.
Ok. So then let's add a small camera to the list to view the hub led remotely.
Is there anything else for troubleshooting that you can think of?
Out of curiosity what does the LED tell us. i know we have seen blue, green and red. What are the different states it will tell us. I think green is fully up while one of the others means the main os has loaded or something like that. Obviously red solid red is bad. I have also seen if flash between red and green when a network issue was happening.
A blue LED indicates an update issue. Of every 10,000 users who contact support believing a “bad update” took their system down, perhaps one actually has a blue LED. The other 9,999 are experiencing a network issue—often because the hub received a new IP address after rebooting.
Until they get home and assess the situation, however, none of those 10,000 users can know which issue they have—and understandably, all 10,000 initially blame the update.
Thanks for the responses. I generally try to avoid updates if I am remote but sometimes I can be away for months at a time, so after that long the firmware can drift well out of current.
I do have a WiFi smart plug on the power cord to Hubitat so I can remotely power cycle the unit. I doubt I'll add an IP camera to view the LED though
