Why is constant Bluetooth check needed?

starnet59

I understand that Bluetooth is required when turning on the S50 and connecting over WiFi. But why check Bluetooth continuously all the time? I connect my S50 to my LAN over WiFi and I have good reception both outside at the S50 location and all over my house. But as soon as I go out of Bluetooth range, about 10 meters, the WiFi connection to the S50 drops, within seconds. The only way to reconnect is to get back into the 10-meter Bluetooth range.
It is so bad that my Android phone is complaining that the Seestar app Bluetooth is draining my phone battery:

I do have other apps running in the background but the Seestar is the only one that gets flagged.
Why is this required and what does it achieve, other than annoying users? Do I have to leave my phone outside near the S50 and try to connect with a second phone over WiFi? It sounds silly but would that work?

Support@Seestar

Bluetooth is only used as an auxiliary verification. You can turn off Bluetooth after connecting to Seestar WiFi. You can also choose not to turn on Bluetooth and directly connect to Seestar WiFi through your mobile phone WiFi.

starnet59

Turning off Bluetooth on my phone after I connect to the S50 makes no difference. As soon as I go in a different room the S50 disconnects and without Bluetooth it cannot reconnect. I have very good WiFi coverage everywhere but as soon as I am more than 10 meters away from the S50 the link drops and without Bluetooth it will not reconnect.

Is this normal? I have had my S50 for 20 months now and it has always behaved like that, I thought that's the best it can do. Why does the WiFi connection drop if I am more than 10 meters away from the S50?

Daemon42

starnet59 It is normal. The actual wifi power of the SeeStar unit is incredibly weak. FWIW, this seems to be the norm for any type of camera I own that has Wifi (Canon EOS 6D, Nikon Coolpix P1000, etc).
They have Wifi for remote control and transferring photos, but the usable range is like 15-20ft.

At home, I use station mode, and Seestar can talk to my home wifi router from 40+ ft away outside, and my phone much further than that. Out in the field I use a small USB powered wifi router and also use station mode (connecting both S50 and my phone or tablet to the router). If I position it right, it can give me about 100ft usable range.
Also, I think some people have managed to get the Seestar unit to talk to their mobile device's Hotspot wifi network in station mode. I think I got it to do that, but then couldn't get the phone to talk to the Seestar unit. Maybe S50 + tablet could both connect to the same hotspot wifi and talk to each other while the phone just hosts them.

starnet59

Daemon42 But I am not moving the S50 relative to the WiFi router, I am only moving the phone. In station mode the S50 talks to the router, not the phone directly, so why does the position of the phone relative to the S50 matter?