How to avoid the 15 minute auto-reboot without side effects?

ESPHome
1

Short version:
I’m having my ESPHome systems rebooting when I don’t want them too - it’s the 15 minute reboot timeout. I’ve read that the reboot timeout can be changed and I saw one reference to turning it off. I’ve also found references to the reasons for a reboot time out. My first thought was to just set the timeout to 0 to disable the rebooting. My concern is that I’m not clear what could go wrong for an ESPHome system with the timeout disabled. What are the issues with disabling the timeout?

Also, if I have a browser tab active and open to the webserver for an ESPHome system, does that count as an API connection and is there enough communication between the ESP system and the browser that it’ll keep the ESP from rebooting? That would explain some behavior I’m seeing. It helps with my testing, but I’d rather not have to leave a browser tab open or add more on my Home Assistant system to make it connect to the ESPs I’m testing until I’ve got things farther along.

2

It may never reconnect to the api / wifi network if it drops off for some reason.

Note there are two reboot_timeouts. One for the wifi component and one for the native api component.

I don’t think the web server counts as an api connection.

More here: Frequently Asked Questions — ESPHome

3

Okay, I see a small bit about using the timeout and that I can change it to 0 to disable it (which I already mentioned considering).

But just rebooting will reconnect to wifi and API, right?

4

Yes.

1 Like
5

Bit off topic but there’s also the EN pin which you can hook up to a button for a convenient manual power cycle if you want.

Enable (EN)

Enable (EN) is the 3.3V regulator’s enable pin. It’s pulled up, so connect to ground to disable the 3.3V regulator. This means that you can use this pin connected to a pushbutton to restart your ESP32, for example.