Wi-Fi

The panel needs Wi-Fi to read scores from ESPN. Once it’s on your network, it needs nothing else running.

Use 2.4 GHz

The panel only joins 2.4 GHz networks. If your router has separate names for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, pick the 2.4 GHz one.

Use your main network, not a guest network. A guest network can let the panel join but keep your phone from reaching it afterwards, so the app and the device page can’t find it.

Saved networks

The panel remembers up to five Wi-Fi networks, like your home, a phone hotspot and a friend’s house. At start-up it joins whichever saved network it can see, trying the last one that worked first. Set it up on a phone hotspot for a tailgate and it still knows your home network when you get back.

The Device card on the device page lists the saved networks under Wi-Fi networks, in the order the panel tries them, with Connected beside the one it’s on, or Tried first beside the top one. Forget takes a network off the list. If the panel is on that network now, it stays connected until it next restarts.

When the list is full, adding a sixth network drops the one at the bottom. The panel always keeps one network to join, so forgetting the last one doesn’t take it off Wi-Fi. Reset Wi-Fi and Factory reset clear them all.

Coming in the next release

Reset Wi-Fi keeps the saved networks. Only Factory reset clears them.

Adding a network

Every network you set the panel up on is added to the top of the list. There are two ways:

• The Game Day app finds the panel over Bluetooth and hands it the network and password. While the panel joins, it shows JOINING and the network’s name. See The Game Day app.
• The panel’s hotspot. While it shows SETUP, the panel starts its own Wi-Fi network named Game Day and six letters and numbers, like Game Day 2f6a70. The screen shows the name. Join it from any phone or laptop and a setup page opens. Pick your Wi-Fi network, enter the password and save.

The six characters are the same as in the panel’s address, so two panels in one house are easy to tell apart. See Set up your panel.

Taking the panel somewhere new? When it can’t find any saved network, it says Wi-Fi lost and the app can reach it over Bluetooth, as below, so you can give it the new network there. To put it into setup straight away, use Reset Wi-Fi.

When Wi-Fi drops

A short drop, like a mesh system moving the panel to another access point, doesn’t show. After 10 seconds without Wi-Fi the panel covers the board with Wi-Fi lost and the QR code for the Game Day app, so a stale score isn’t left up.

• After 30 seconds, the panel turns Bluetooth back on so the Game Day app can reach it. A changed router password is the common case: open the app and give the panel the new password.
• After a minute without its network, a panel that was on it earlier restarts itself once, to recover. It never restarts while the app is connected to it.
• Without the app, join the panel’s Game Day hotspot as above. It comes up within a few minutes of the panel losing Wi-Fi.

When the network comes back, the panel rejoins and the board comes back by itself.

Coming in the next release

On a bar, hotel or dorm Wi-Fi that lets the panel join but then wants you to sign in on a web page, the panel says Wi-Fi needs sign-in, use home or a hotspot, with the QR code for the app. The panel can’t sign in to those pages, so set it up on a home network or a phone hotspot. The message goes away by itself once scores come through.

The device page’s Diagnostics count every Wi-Fi drop and its cause, and draw the last day of signal. See The device page.

The panel’s address

Every panel has a name on your network, gameday- and six characters, like gameday-2f6a70. Its device page is at that name plus .local, like gameday-2f6a70.local. The panel shows the address when it joins Wi-Fi, and again when you hold the boot button for about 1.5 seconds. The device page shows it in the Device card under Address and Name.

Some phones can’t open .local addresses. Use the panel’s IP address instead, a number like 192.168.1.50. The panel shows it with the address on a boot button hold, and the ticker gives it until you pick a team.

The panel treats your home network as trusted. Anyone on your Wi-Fi can open its device page and change its settings, and it isn’t designed to be reached from the internet, so don’t forward a port to it.