Access away from home and other issues

[Joe Widmayer]

I have a couple of questions and have been researching alot and have been getting confused. A definitive answer would help alot.

I have three 4.2 heatermeters. Mine, my son's, and one I bought from Auber. I have a Raspberry Pi model b. I just uploaded the latest firmware.. I have 2 SD cards set up. one for my home network (client), and one for Access Point (ap). It connects well to my home network, or I can use the access point and connect directly to the HM.

Now, I have a Linksys Velop Mesh home network. Before, (? 5 years), I had a normal router that I used DDNS to access it from home.

1. To access away from home is it still prefered to use a DDNS? I had a free one but now it is not free.

2. New software on SD card. On power up, does it automaticaly upload it? Do I need to select, reset Config on the HM menu?

3. I change the default password(PW) on Linkmeter. Does it save it to the SD Card? The software in the HM for the next power up?

4. I make changes to the openwrit software. Is it saved to the SD card for the next reset config? Or is it just to the HM firmware which is good for the next power up but not on SD card for a reset config?

5. Is there a thread that describes the latest and best way to access away from home? I have a Linksys Velop Mesh. Best DNS service?

Thanks! Alot of questions, any hint would be great.

The new version of the firmware is great with the drop down menus is great and prevents a lot of problems and show the correct wat.

Thanks,
Joe

 

[Joe Widmayer]

I could not get the yahoo mail to work but I got the gmail to work. email and a Tmobile text message. Effective 30May22 you may need to generate a special 16 character password to use since 2 step verification is not possible.

I found the SMTP info on the Alarm Scripts Recipes Wiki, I had not looked down far enough on the page.

Now to try port forwarding and dns to see it remotely.

To get Yahoo mail to work I think I needed to get that special app password. I will try later.

I found where to save the configuration under System/backup

 

[Max Garin]

I could not get the yahoo mail to work but I got the gmail to work. email and a Tmobile text message. Effective 30May22 you may need to generate a special 16 character password to use since 2 step verification is not possible.

I found the SMTP info on the Alarm Scripts Recipes Wiki, I had not looked down far enough on the page.

Now to try port forwarding and dns to see it remotely.

To get Yahoo mail to work I think I needed to get that special app password. I will try later.

I found where to save the configuration under System/backup

DDNS is a requirement unless you have a static IP unless you pay for business service you probably don't.

I will just assume you don't know how DNS Static/Dynamic IP address service works. If you do ignore below.
All devices connected to the internet will need an IP Address. Generally speaking homes/small businesses etc get 1 ip address and through some NAT magic we can speak to all the devices inside our home.

Anyway imagine your home is given the address 123.98.11.201 you could in theory set a port forward rule in your homes router.
You could set it to listen on port 80 and forward to port 80 and heatermeter ip address something like 192.168.1.20 (I don't recommend this). When you type the number 123.98.11.201 in your web browser phone etc. So you could do http://123.98.11.201 in chrome, firefox, safari. It will automatically ask for port 80 because you have http://

So then your router will say o look a request for port 80 let me send this to 192.168.1.20:80. Perfect this works the problem is since you're a residential customer your ISP will change your ip address. Imagine having a phone service that changes your phone number....yup.
The other issues is most people don't remember those numbers well hell who remembers phone numbers now? We just look them up in the address book. This is what DNS does the sub part of DDNS. Specifically it takes a name like google.com and translates it to the number 172.217.3.78.

So we don't want to remember numbers and we have a changing number. The solution is DDNS or Dynamic DNS. There are plenty of free DDNS if you purchase a domain name. Like jwidmayer.com you can even use that specifically. They work by installing a program on a computer inside your home or on the heatermeter. This program will then call out and say HEY my number is 123.231.111.123 point jwidmayer.com at this. If your number changes the software will update it.

That was a long post but anyway. You do need DDNS most of the freeones will just have some limits on how often you can update and what domain names you can use like "myname.ddnsservice.com" or you can purchase a domain name from namecheap for like 8-9$ a year then use free software to automatically update your number and point at your domain. That's what I do at which point you need to assign an IP address to your heatermeter. IE 192.168.1.20 and go into your router set a port forward rule listening on TCP 80 forward to 192.168.1.20 TCP 80. This is all bad practice I would use a non standard port for listening like 8080 and forward to 192.168.1.20.

This is better practice the trade is you will have to type http://mydomain.com:8080 since you're not using the default port 80.

 

[MartinB]

DDNS is a requirement unless you have a static IP unless you pay for business service you probably don't.

Nope .

Some providers do not actually change your address.....ever . That's not to say they couldn't, but in practice they just do not . This is how my ATT uverse service is. No need to use DDNS. Not at all.
I have the same IP address for many years.

Now, I basically gave up on remote accessing my heater meter. Because every time there's a internet problem of some sort, maybe once every 6 months or so, The fricking router gets reset, and must be reprogrammed again to port the heatermeter. Or it fails and get replaced, etc That's the help lines second instruction..... The first one is to turn the power off ( unplug) for 10 seconds and then plug it back in. The second one is push the little red button on the back. The third one will be remove the internal battery Wait x amount of time and then insert the battery again.

It's just not important enough to keep having to deal with that. Yeah it doesn't sound like that much trouble, until you want to go cook something and you realize..... Well I've got to setup the damn router first ......PITA . Same for any home networks or guest networks or such. I just connect directly 99% of time using an old phone that I can leave connected to it for the whole cook.

 

[Steve_M]

For the more tech savvy crowd, check out Cloudflare Tunnel which is easy to try and test and continues to be free.

The advantage of Cloudflare tunnel is that you don't need to setup any port forwarding. The tunnel software connects to the Cloudflare network and then allows external requests to "tunnel" their way back in via that connection.

I've been exclusively using Cloudflare tunnel for all my inbound access at home for a while now and it's been flawless. I use it to expose things like Home Assistant, HeaterMeter and other things that I always want remote access to. I also like not having any ports on my router open to the internet or even exposing my public IP via DNS.

 

[Max Garin]

Nope .

Some providers do not actually change your address.....ever . That's not to say they couldn't, but in practice they just do not . This is how my ATT uverse service is. No need to use DDNS. Not at all.
I have the same IP address for many years.

Now, I basically gave up on remote accessing my heater meter. Because every time there's a internet problem of some sort, maybe once every 6 months or so, The fricking router gets reset, and must be reprogrammed again to port the heatermeter. Or it fails and get replaced, etc That's the help lines second instruction..... The first one is to turn the power off ( unplug) for 10 seconds and then plug it back in. The second one is push the little red button on the back. The third one will be remove the internal battery Wait x amount of time and then insert the battery again.

It's just not important enough to keep having to deal with that. Yeah it doesn't sound like that much trouble, until you want to go cook something and you realize..... Well I've got to setup the damn router first ......PITA . Same for any home networks or guest networks or such. I just connect directly 99% of time using an old phone that I can leave connected to it for the whole cook.

Guess I stated it poorly yes some residential ISPs do not change your IP even though you don't have a static IP, but that kind of leads into your second point. I mean sure it could last 6 months then if it changes 1 day you get the headache of having to update your IP address which could be a pain if you want to monitor.

For the more tech savvy crowd, check out Cloudflare Tunnel which is easy to try and test and continues to be free.

The advantage of Cloudflare tunnel is that you don't need to setup any port forwarding. The tunnel software connects to the Cloudflare network and then allows external requests to "tunnel" their way back in via that connection.

I've been exclusively using Cloudflare tunnel for all my inbound access at home for a while now and it's been flawless. I use it to expose things like Home Assistant, HeaterMeter and other things that I always want remote access to. I also like not having any ports on my router open to the internet or even exposing my public IP via DNS.

Cloudflare tunnel is amazing we use it at work since it lets you have a completely dark IP address. Much safer than port forwarding on your router especially common ports like 80,443 etc you don't want to be getting attacked by the script kiddies.