DSC-BRAIN USER GUIDE · SETTINGS REFERENCE
Settings › Network and System
Network: SoftAP, names and addresses, hub radio lock, LAN uplink, apply. System: site profile, backup, logs and power, journals and storage, time, failover, setup profile, tuning, about, developer, reset.
The Site profile card comes first. It holds the time zone, where the kit is, units, seasons, outdoor conditions, the electricity tariff, clock changes and the lamp window against the dearest price band. Nothing is assumed from a region, and each write is read back. The Tuning card links to Kit, Learning and Calibrate, which are no longer a desk.
● verified for 9.0.0 · corrected for 9.8.9 on 2026-10-01
● first mirrored 2026-09-15
Network
SoftAP and the LAN uplink. Apply network restarts the kit's own Wi-Fi network briefly; devices on it drop and rejoin on their own.
In the Settings rail these are two entries, Network and System. Elsewhere in this guide they are written Settings › Network and Settings › System.
| Card | Rows |
|---|---|
| SoftAP | AP SSID, AP passphrase, Channel. This is the Pi's own Wi-Fi network: how you reach the dashboard with no Ethernet, and the network the Sonoff plugs join. The shipped values are on the kit card. |
| Names & addresses | mDNS name, SoftAP dashboard URL, Wi-Fi channel split (an alert raised when the hub's AP and the house Wi-Fi sit on different channels, tuned on Settings › Alerts). The shipped names are on the kit card. |
| Hub radio | Lock Wi-Fi AP: pin the hub to one BSSID on roaming mesh networks. |
| Connectivity | Internet reachability (a TCP reach plus DNS check; gates update checks) and Ethernet auto / static. Applying Ethernet writes the config and saves; it does not restart networking — do that on the Pi and confirm you can still reach it before unplugging. |
| Apply network settings | The Apply network button opens a prompt titled Apply network settings whose confirm button reads Save and restart hotspot. It saves the AP SSID, passphrase and channel, then asks a helper that runs on the Pi to install them and restart the kit's own Wi-Fi network (the hotspot). Every device on it drops off for a moment and reconnects within about a minute. It does not restart the hub's Wi-Fi or the Pi's Ethernet. Without that helper nothing is applied: the settings are saved and the running hotspot stays as it is. The result under the button says which happened. |
System
Backup, logs, storage and power. The widest blast radius lives here.
| Card | What it does |
|---|---|
| Updates | Not on this page: the Updates card is on Settings › Devices › Firmware. Check for updates compares the running brain and each device's firmware with the latest release published on plausible-deniability.net (Ethernet only). Update DSC-Brain runs the configured self-update command; without one it shows the manual deploy instruction. Reflash fleet (n) queues OTAs for behind devices, hub last. See Updating the brain, the toolchain and the fleet firmware. |
| Backup | Download backup (a zip of the ops database, settings, inventory, the env file and the Zigbee data) and Import backup zip. |
| Journals & storage | Per-journal retention days (0 = keep), sizes, export JSON / CSV / ZIP, preview-then-confirm prune, media totals, grow-record archive, custom journal actions, reminders. |
| Logs, verbosity & power | Tail brain / OS / Docker logs; set the brain log level (persists; use DEBUG to troubleshoot, then drop back); restart, reboot or shut down the Pi. The hub keeps running its wired fans and dimmed lamps from its own sensors while the brain is down. |
| Failover | Hold timeout after reconnect (default 15 min), Hold now with its chips (HOLD ACTIVE or BRAIN DRIVING, PENDING RE-ASSERT, MANUAL TAKEOVER, HUB OFFLINE) and Re-assert after a hub reconnect (ON or OFF). |
| Time | Brain clock, NTP state, hub clock and drift. CLOCK INVALID on the hub means its SNTP has not synced; the photoperiod runs on the hub's clock, so fix this first. While it is invalid the hub leaves the lamp as it is, including across lights-off. |
| About | Surface version, expected firmware, SPA bundle hash, settings manifest, Brain routes (which optional features this brain serves; a missing route means the SPA is newer than the brain or the feature is not enabled), Kit setup state with re-run. |
| Developer | Show entity ids, Provenance mode, Show INVENTED rows, Force the 3D twin, raw /fleet snapshot with a line filter, the hub tunables sync table, the settings change log. |
| Setup profile | Export the kit's configuration as JSON (what it carries is listed on the card; no secrets), Import shows a diff first and applies on confirm. A profile that shortens journal retention lists the journal entries it would delete before you confirm. For a second kit or a community preset. |
| Reset | Reset this browser's preferences; Factory-reset brain data (type the AP SSID to confirm) writes a backup zip first, wipes every table, deletes camera frames, timelapses and journal photos (they are not in the backup) and restarts the brain with defaults. It does not touch device firmware or the hub's own settings. |
Related: Site profile.
Guide contents · Settings reference · Troubleshooting · Digital Stealth Care
DSC-Brain user guide · Settings › Network and System · this page is edited on the site; the Notion original was retired after the mirror