The other day, I bought a couple of TP Link security cameras – Tapo C500 and C310 – because I had recently fitted and configured a couple of excellent ones for a client. Naturally, this brought on Shiny Thing Syndrome (STS) again.
Both are Wi-Fi cameras and are controlled through an app on my phone in exactly the same way as the two cameras I set up for my client, so I thought my setup would be a breeze. The physical fitting was easy, following which I installed the Tapo app, which found the cameras but would not connect to our Wi-Fi access point. The error message suggested I check the password, to ensure that WPA-3 wasn’t activated, and to place the camera closer to the router. Well, I knew the signal was fine, so was the password, but I wasn’t sure about WPA3 because the ISP customer portal is so useless that it limits customers to only changing the name of the access point and password, and that’s it. In other words, you don’t need to know anything else because you’re an idiot.
Check Windows Settings For Wi-Fi Properties
Since the crappy customer portal didn’t tell me anything useful, I right-clicked on the Wi-Fi icon in the taskbar, hit properties, and found what I needed to know.
So, I could discount distance because the signal was 100%, the password also, and the cameras are compatible with WPA2, so that only left the network band, which is mentioned nowhere in TP Link’s leaflets. Last year we changed ISPs, and casting my memory back, I remembered that our previous ISP had set up the router to broadcast both 2.4 and 5GHz channels, allowing us to choose. This had to be the issue, and further digging told me that smart devices can only connect to the 2.4GHz channel. My problem was that the router had been set up to ONLY broadcast on 5GHz and the crappy customer portal is far too basic for that kind of information.
That’s it, that’s all you get, and knowing how nauseating it is to phone a helpline nowadays, I did at least try, spoke to a robot, which then restarted the router, and that was that. I then made an attempt to get help on the ISP’s WhatsApp service, which was even worse and left my problem open for them if they felt like replying. I then knew that the only way to get both channels broadcasting was to get into the router, a Sagemcom cable modem, which has a handy sticker on the side with a username (admin) and alphanumeric password printed, which was very kind of the ISP, even though the last thing ISPs want you to do is to mess with their kit.
Once into the router software, I went to Wi-Fi mesh and disabled band steering, which separated the two channels and renamed the 2.4GHz channel so it’s easy to recognise. The cameras then connected straight away, and I was up and running.
Five hours later, I received a WhatsApp message from the ISP telling me that the 2.4GHz channel was in fact available, but I didn’t have the heart to reply and tell them that it was I who made it so!
—
