How to help customers with the most common AirTies wifi problems as a support agent.
Customer Needs Help With a New Installation
Remember to emphasize the importance of optimal device placement. We have a separate guide for customers who want to use wired internet connections for more than one access point (also known as Ethernet mesh).
There is also a dedicated Guide to Airties wifi installation for professional installers
Customer Is Having Mesh Problems: Troubleshooting Guides
Customer Is Having Mesh Problems: Questions to Ask
- Is this a network that used to work and has recently started having problems, or a new network that has never worked as expected?
- If it worked before: Has anyone moved any of the devices recently? Are any of the devices placed behind the TV or other obstacles? See “Problematic placement” below.
- If it has never worked as expected, see “Cabling or setup errors” .
- Er lyssignalene foran på hver enhet grønne med et kort blink?
- If there is a red light, see “Problematic placement”
- If there are longer, green flashes, see “Access point no longer part of mesh”
- Do the problems apply to all clients, or just one or a select few?
- If the problem is limited, get as much information as possible from the customer about the client(s) and see “Client Issues” below
- Are the network name (SSID) and password the defaults, or have they been changed?
- If the customer has changed this, see “SSID is different for the frequency bands” below.
- Does the customer have more than one Wi-Fi network? See “Competing networks from router” below.
It may also be worth asking early on whether the customer has the AirTies WiFi app.
If you have EyeSaaS Carat and / or Pearl , you can of course directly retrieve information that will save you some of these questions. Tips on this provided below.
The Most Common Problems and What to Do About Them
Problematic Device Placement
If the devices are positioned so that they are not within good coverage range of each other, or one of them is placed behind, for example, a TV, this will negatively affect performance and reliability.
What you can do
Ask the customer to check using the Airties Wifi mobile app. The network topology in the end-user app is not very precise, but gives an indication of whether the devices are able to reach each other and how well the data traffic flows.
Advise the customer on the optimal placement of access points. Feel free to send them the placement guide.
More information here: Airties placement guide
If you have EyeSaaS: Check the signal strength in Pearl and / or Carat, and the Carat traffic light “Mesh Placement”.
Cabling or setup errors
This is typically a problem that will occur immediately after installation, but can also occur if the customer has added something to their setup after the original installation, such as a switch.
One Airties device should always be connected to the router (or other device acting in a routing capacity) by cable.
What you can do: Send the troubleshooting guide with illustrations of how cables should be connected to the customer
More information: Troubleshooting Airties mesh
If you have EyeSaaS: Check whether all the devices have a working connection to the internet. Can they be reached from the Customer Center? Do they appear in Carat?
Competing Networks From the Router
When you have Airties mesh wifi, the router’s own wifi networks should be turned off, both to avoid unnecessary interference/noise, and to avoid clients connecting to the “wrong” network. We get a lot of reports about customers who do not see any benefit from their mesh network at all because the clients continue to connect to the old router …
What you can do: Have the customer turn off wifi in the router, or do it for them with their permission if you have access via EyeSaaS or another administration system. Remember to make them aware that everything that is connected to the “old” network must sign on to wifi again.
If you have EyeSaaS: Check the “Gateway Setup” traffic light in Carat.
SSID is different for the frequency bands
This is not a very common problem, but it does occur from time to time: A customer has chosen to give the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks different network names and passwords. This breaks client steering in AirTies mesh, which ensures that all clients are connected at all times to the device and frequency band that provides the best user experience.
When using the Airties wifi app it is only possible to configure a single SSID and password, but in the web interfaces air4930.local and air4920.local it is technically possible to split into separate SSIDs for the two frequency bands.
What you can do: Ask the customer to make the setup identical for both frequency bands, or override their current setup using EyeSaaS or another management system with their permission.
Client issues
If there are one or a few clients that are having constant problems connecting or getting good performance from the network, the problem probably lies with the client. For example, an older model that does not support new standards, a product developed for countries that use other channels, or a product that does not handle mesh.
What you can do: It depends on the client. Some types of problems, such as smart TVs and panel heaters, are common and well-known enough that we have documented procedures you can share with the customer to make them work.
More information:
- Checklist When You Cannot Connect to Wi-Fi (or Get Thrown Out)
- Smart TV Not Connecting to Wifi
- How to connect Mill heaters to Mesh Wifi
If you have EyeSaaS: Look for problematic clients in the Carat network topology. Older clients will be reflected in the “Legacy Client” traffic light.
Device Has Dropped Out Of Airties Mesh
A device that flashes green is not part of the mesh network.
What you can do: This is a type of problem that will most often be resolved by restoring factory settings.
Remember:
- You must include all the devices when resetting, it is not enough to reset a single device in a mesh network.
- Additional devices that have been added to a mesh network will need to be added again after a reset. Only devices that came in the same home pack will recognize each other with factory settings.
More information: Reset Airties devices to factory settings
If you have EyeSaaS: Check the network topology and see how many devices are present.