Connecting the controller to the WiFi network

Each controller needs to be connected to your smart home's WiFi network.


Step 1 - Prepare your router

Prepare information about your router. You will need to know the name of your home WiFi network as well as its password.


Step 2 - Connect to the controller

Connect the controller to power or reboot the controller by reconnecting it. The controller's blue LED will start flashing. If the controller has previously connected to any WiFi network, it will attempt to reconnect to it. It will try to do this for three minutes. After that, if it fails to connect, it will go into emergency access point mode. It will now create its WiFi network and wait for a connection. In this mode, the LED will blink less frequently and less.

Also, you have the opportunity not to wait for three minutes for the controller to search for an unknown (or erroneous) WiFi network, but to immediately put it into the installation mode. To do this, you need to turn off the controller and then press the RST (Reset) button and turn it on. Wait a few seconds and release the RST button. The controller will create its WiFi network.

After that, use your laptop or smartphone to search for new WiFi networks. The controller will work in emergency or setup mode creating its own access point, i.e. its own WiFi network with a name in the following style

SmartESP-ХХХХXXX


Make a connection to this network using the default password :

smartkey 


Once the controller has successfully connected to the WiFi network, its LED will flash twice as often.


Step 3 - Set Basic Settings

After connecting to the controller via its WiFi network, open a browser on your laptop (or smartphone) and specify a special address:

http://192.168.51.1.


Opening the page will require authorization, use the word as a username:

smart

Leave the password field blank!


After successful authorization, the page of Setup, section will open, where you will need to specify the following settings:

  • Wi-Fi access - parameters (name and password) of the controller connection to your WiFi network.
  • Host Name - controller name in the network (Latin characters).
  • Auth Password - access password to the controller.
  • Board Hotspot - parameters of emergency connection to the controller if it cannot find a WiFi network. By default, the current settings with which you connected to the controller will be displayed there. We strongly recommend changing them for security reasons!

Press the Save button and the controller will reboot, after which it will connect to the WiFi network. If it fails to do so, after a few minutes it will go back to the emergency access point mode with the parameters you specified earlier in section Board Hotspot. Подробнее ниже.

Board Hotspot (access point emergency mode)
Please note that in this access point mode the controller works only if it fails to connect to your WiFi network after being turned on. After one hour in this mode, the controller automatically reboots and tries to connect to your WiFi network again. Also, please note that in case the controller was connected to your WiFi network, but later the connection was lost, the controller will try to reconnect all the time without going to the emergency mode of the access point and without rebooting.
Important! If you have lost all the passwords and cannot connect to the controller (it has no RST button) in any mode, in this case you should use SmartESP controller programmer.


Step 4 - Connect the controller to the smart home server

Reboot the controller. The LED will blink slowly and then turn off. This will mean that a WiFi network has been found and the controller has successfully connected to it!

The controller is ready to work and the next step is to connect it to the smart home server, which can be local or cloud-based. Usually, this is done by going to the Routing section of the smart home and adding and searching for a new controller. We recommend reading the step-by-step guide as well as the video overview: connecting a controller to a server.

In addition, if you are an experienced specialist, there is an opportunity to manage the controller settings through its web interface. To do this, you will need to go to the web control panel of your home router and find its IP address there. For example, it can be an address like 192.168.88.37. Then you can control the controller through your browser by opening this address as a website : http://192.168.88.37.