iPhone 16 Pro… connection issues 🙄

JacupV

Seriously… I’ve tried it all… 1) this device will not show up on my iPhone Bluetooth list at all… Never has apparently never will… 2) it says it’s connects to Bluetooth on the app… it never shows up on my actual phone settings Bluetooth list… 3) THIS THING WILL NOT STAY CONNECTED TO WIFI‼️ I’ve had it connected multiple times… gives me about 30 seconds and disconnects itself… One and done. Can’t get it to connect again for hours… When I say I’ve tried it all… I’ve tried it all… the few times/minutes I have been able to connect. I tried setting up station mode… My home Wi-Fi will not show up on the list, no matter what‼️ I’ve used google I’ve looked at all the troubleshooting steps. Restarting the network, isolating just Wi-Fi signal, reset both devices… I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled the app multiple times…. I’ve had this S 50 for about three days now and I think in total I’ve had maybe 15 minutes of actual connection time…. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON⁉️ HELP PLEASE

marvindj

Have you switched wifi frequencies on the Seestar? Either from 2.4->5 or vice versa....

JacupV

marvindj yes. Made zero difference… the biggest problem is not staying connected.. when it does disconnect itself.. it will not reconnect until I “forget” the WiFi and even still trying to make it connect again take many many attempts… when I first got it, it wouldn’t connect. Got it connected and it lasted maybe 10min… it’s been 3 days with the unit and each day the WiFi and Bluetooth module seems to last less and less… last night it wouldn’t connect connect for a max of 15 seconds.. Disconnect itself and the hour(s) long process to get it back would repeat… For a scope I’ve worked for and wanted for over a year and finally got… I’m extremely upset and at this point just want my money back… if I don’t get a response from support by Monday I’ll go through amazon and refund/return it and will never buy a ZWO product again.

KatNRick

Have you enabled Station mode & set it up using the in-app tutorial?

JacupV

KatNRick CANT! It will not see my home network. The Bluetooth connection won’t even show up on my phone. WiFi will only sometimes show up in my list on my phone…..

KatNRick

My experience is that station mode can be finicky. For me, several times repeating the identical process shown in the tutorials & as if by magic..... it worked after half dozen attempts.

JacupV

KatNRick as much as I would absolutely love to try that…. It seriously won’t even stay connected long enough to make it to the station mode screen…. Not joking… last night it would connect for 15 seconds MAX. And that’s also within 10ft of my router, phone, and Seestar unit. Apparently there’s issues if your to far away also…. When I say I’ve tried everything…. I feel like I’m not lying lol I know a lot of people are still not ok with “AI” but X’s Grok helped A LOT and even though that… it said… “at this point… either the WiFi/Bluetooth unit is faulty or ZWO did something very wrong on their last update” and proceeded to say… that ZWO has a long history of hiding how many problems their units have and grok is not surprised to here yet another problem… 🤷‍♂️

I digress; I still have very high hopes for the unit, and I still very much love the concept. So I am not bashing ZWO…. At least not YET but that was very interesting to read from Grok AI… just saying

KatNRick

JacupV

Are you trying/expecting to use the phone Bluetooth setup to connect? You need to perform bt setup within the seestar app. The app should see the seestar & allow you to connect. No using phone app or bt screen. Then you should be able to see the seestar wifi SSID in the phone network settings and connect the app through direct wifi using default credentials but have no internet. That's my recollection of the printed instructions but can't tell from your words if that is the process you used.

JacupV

KatNRick no, I see your confusion. What I mean by that is I check what my phone is seeing on its Bluetooth network… the s50 never show up.. according to the seestar app it connects to Bluetooth but I cannot confirm that with what my actual phone sees… I would figure that if it was actually connected it would show up… Every single device on earth does whenever I connect to it with Bluetooth.. idk why the Seestar app would hide it if that’s what it’s doing. Hope that helps clear that up.

And speaking of that situation… I see lots of people say you have the choice of using Bluetooth OR WiFi… I’d like to know how that’s possible because that definitely doesn’t sound like a option I’ve seen.. I would think if it’s actually successfully connected through Bluetooth it would prompt me to just use Bluetooth if WiFi isn’t connected or is unsuccessful… I’ve tried looking through settings both connected and unconnected for such a option… maybe I missed something?

KatNRick

JacupV

I think the bt is only used to trigger the initial seestar wifi direct ssid connection. Bt shares the 2.4ghz wifi band. Once that is established, bt goes away which might be why you never see it. I've never looked for it since the printed steps worked. Until you get seestar wifi direct functional, station mode will be an exercise in futility.

It will only ask for a bt connection attempt in future terms if the wifi gets lost. It's not a choice AFAIK.

I would start from scratch & reset the comms... long, 10 sec press of the reset button.

JacupV

KatNRick

Knock's on wood

I think I might have randomly gotten it! At least on station mod finally! I’ve actually been using it outside for about 10 min on “ scenery” mode and so far staying connected 🥳🤞of course it’s cloudy and will be for the weekend as 3in of more snow are expected… have to see how the next few days go. But I’m still concerned… I take trips up to the Wisconsin/UP state line with brotle 0 skys… Great that station mode works… at home… what about the times I want to take it somewhere…

JacupV

[unknown]

Knock's on wood