Smart Life - changing wifi AP fun

[Harry Bloomfield]

I/we started this job changing 10 smart plugs, from connecting to one AP, to another. The AP of my main router, in the loft, wasn't able to reliable maintain a connection, to all 10 SP's, so a second router/AP was added on the ground floor, to improve things. All worked reasonably well, until I moved to fibre, and the new fibre router access point gave a much better wifi coverage, so I decided I could change the downstairs router/AP, for an unmanaged switch, and do away with the router/AP - Just move the 10 SP's, to connecting to the loft fibre Router/AP.

I tried numerous ways, using the Smart Life software, 'just' to make that small change - couldn't find anyway. Then attempted the reset and re-pair, using my Iphone, I just could get that to work either - it got to the final stage, and it seemed failed to find the designated AP. All very frustrating and I ended up, giving up yesterday evening. Avril had a go, this morning and managed the first one somehow, then quickly did the rest.

Then I spent the rest of the day, struggling to reconnect them all to Alexa, and fathom out how to set up the routines again.

 

[omega015]

One thing that people often overlook with smart devices is the wifi connection. Most regular households just use the default wifi name given to them by their ISP e.g. VIRGIN13342342 SKY243423 etc.. then when they change providers everything stops working so they frantically have to go round resetting everything.

Might not be relevant to you but one thing to do is to either change the new AP's wifi to the previous SSID (name) and password or start using your own custom one. Also having a mesh system with all AP's using the same details helps to get whole home coverage then the devices (should) connect to the AP with the best signal.

 

[Rodders53]

Often need to turn off the 5GHz band while connecting 2.4GHz band only smart devices.
Many state that in the instructions.

Some devices need 'simple' SSIDs and ones with certain characters won't be seen / connected to.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Might not be relevant to you but one thing to do is to either change the new AP's wifi to the previous SSID (name) and password or start using your own custom one. Also having a mesh system with all AP's using the same details helps to get whole home coverage then the devices (should) connect to the AP with the best signal.

I've used my own custom SSID's, and passwords, since the days when ISP routers arrived without these preconfigured.

Often need to turn off the 5GHz band while connecting 2.4GHz band only smart devices.
Many state that in the instructions.

Yes, I did forget that step.