How do you set a scheduled restart for a Xiaomi router? The switch hidden in 192.168.31.1 was set to 4 a.m. every Wednesday

my Redmi AX6S has been used for over a year and has never been restarted—not that I don't want to, but I just can't remember. Until a while, every night at eight or nine o'clock, the home camera started spinning, and the TV casting was lagging. I logged into the backend and saw it had run for 217 days . Restart once, and the world becomes peaceful. But the problem is, I can't keep thinking about this every month, so I looked into scheduled restarts and found that Xiaomi's entry point is quite hidden, and different firmware versions vary. This article records the entire process of my struggle.

clarify first: is it really necessary to restart at a scheduled time

some online say the router doesn't need to be restarted, and that's purely just a psychological feeling. From my actual tests, useful, but not to the level of supernatural .

router, like a phone, is a small computer running system processes and has limited memory. If you don't restart for a long time, several real problems arise: first, memory fragmentation and usage gradually increase. My AX6S used 78% memory before reboot, but dropped back to 41% after reboot; Second, accumulated old data like DHCP leases and NAT tables are unclear, making it easy to disconnect when the equipment is busy; Third, WiFi channel interference is dynamic. If you don't restart for a long time, the router's channel selection becomes increasingly 'stubborn,' causing you to miss out on better channels.

but to be honest: if your router has been running for less than a year, you have five or six devices at home, and your internet speed is fine, then there's no need to reboot regularly—just use it normally. scheduled restart mainly helps two types of people: those with many smart home devices at home (cameras, speakers, lights on the dozen or more units), and routers placed in weak current boxes where power cuts are inconvenient.

new firmware: set it in the Mi Home app, done in one minute

start with the simplest approach: Xiaomi or Redmi routers suitable for buying after 2023, such as AX3000T, Redmi AX5, and X300T, are basically all included.

install the "Mi Home" app on your phone, and the router is already bound to your account by default (it was bound during the first network setup). Go to Mijia, find your router device on the homepage and click in. Note, is not long-pressing on the homepage, but entering the device details page . Then find "More Settings" or the "..." icon in the top right corner, scroll down to find the "Device Operations" group, which is "Scheduled Restart."

entering, you can choose the restart cycle and specific timing. My setting is every Wednesday, at 4:00 AM, for a simple reason: Wednesday is the middle of the week, and at 4 AM, no one at home uses the internet (it's okay if the camera is off for two minutes, it will continue recording locally). Some character settings reboot every early morning, but I don't think it's necessary—restarting daily means the camera drops once every day, which actually increases abnormalities. once a week to once every two weeks is enough .

Mi can also see the "running time" at home. A quick glance shows that after 90 days, you should manually restart again.

old firmware: 192.168.31.1 webpage backend settings path

if your router's firmware is outdated and you can't find the scheduled restart in the Mijia app (I encountered this when I helped my mother-in-law set up her old AX6000, but Mijia simply doesn't have this option), then you have to go to the webpage backend.

your computer or phone to the Xiaomi router's WiFi, open your browser at 192.168.31.1, and enter the backend management password (not the WiFi password; if you forgot, check the sticker on the back of the router; the initial password is usually printed there; If you change it and then forget, then you have to reset it—more on that later). After logging in, you don't need to worry about the homepage status page. Click "Advanced Settings" at the top, then in the left menu look for "Devices" or "System" grouping—different versions have different names. Older versions with firmware around 200MB have another layer under "Advanced Settings →Wi-Fi Settings", which you need to tap next to "Wi-Fi Timing" under "More."

I later discovered a more reliable way: search within the browser page in Advanced Settings (Ctrl+F), directly search for the word "Restart," and it instantly locates any corner, much faster than flipping through menus layer by layer.

settings all look the same: toggle, repeat cycle (daily/custom day of the week), time point. Remember to click save after setting up. Some versions in Xiaomi's backend won't prompt you after saving. Refresh the page to see if the toggle status is still on. I thought it was set up the first time, but the next day I found it hadn't saved at all—waited a whole week.

handling of two types of special situations

Situation 1: There is no scheduled restart option in the firmware at all. some carrier-customized versions (such as the Xiaomi CR6606 and CR6608 given by China Mobile and Unicom) have removed this feature, so it's not available in the backend or in Mijia. There are two ways to do this: one is to become accustomed to manual restart—plug the router's power into a smart socket (about twenty yuan), cut off power when setting the socket in Mijia, cut off the power for 30 seconds at 4 a.m., then power it back on. The effect is the same, and you can also master the "scheduled power cut-off" feature; Second, flash the developer firmware to unlock full functionality, but flashing custom models carries the risk of bricking. If you haven't tried this first check out my OpenWrt flashing preparation and think carefully before taking action.

Scenario 2: The router is networked with Mesh parent-child systems. set the reboot schedule on the main unit, and the sub-machine will reconnect accordingly, so you don't have to set it to every one. Conversely, setting it only for sub-devices and not for the host doesn't make much sense—the majority of memory is occupied by the host responsible for dial-up and NAT. At home, I have an AX6S as the main driver and a Redmi AX3000 as the main driver. I only set the AX6S to Wednesdays, with the handset following along. It's been half a year without any issues.

time: 4 a.m. is not just a casual phrase

reboot takes about 40 seconds to 1 minute, during which the entire house loses the internet. There are several principles for choosing timing, which I only understood after stepping on them:

last point is my own speculation plus an actual mishap: I initially set it to 00:00 AM, but after one restart, the WAN dialing took over two minutes to get through (uncommon, but I've encountered it). Later, it was changed to 04:17, which is not exactly the hour, and it never appeared again. There's no solid evidence, but changing it won't hurt. If the router still can't dial the number after rebooting, that's a different issue. see my previous article about checking WAN port dialing troubleshooting.

Finishing checks after installation

reset the settings regularly, don't just give up—pay attention to two things in three days.

First, check if the runtime has been reset to zero. You can view it on the Mijia device page or the homepage of the webpage. If you set it to every Wednesday and go next Thursday, you should only have a little over one day left. If it still shows for over a hundred days, it means the settings haven't taken effect. Go back and recheck the path above—nine times out of ten, the save step didn't work.

Second, check if the smart home device automatically reconnects after disconnection. Most devices in the Xiaomi ecosystem can recover on their own, but some third-party devices (I have a generic WiFi socket) get stuck offline after restarting and require manual power cut-off. These devices either need to be replaced or moved to the dedicated 2.4G IoT band (if the router supports independent IoT channels), isolating them from the main network. Restarting the router actually makes reconnection easier.

is this: first find the entry point in the Mijia app, then if you can't find it, go to the 192.168.31.1 web backend. If the carrier's customized version doesn't have this feature, use the smart socket curve to save the situation. Set the time to midnight instead of the hour, and after a week of setup, go back to check the running time. The whole process takes ten minutes, so you don't have to worry about it for half a year—it's worth it.