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pc_repair1's profile

Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 1:53 AM

Almost returned after only 2 hours out of the box

Got my new system today. Most of the setup went without a hitch. When it came to getting the base station connected to the WiFi that's when I ran into trouble. After trying to connect to the WiFi several times, I called tech support. This was my second mistake. (I'll explain the first mistake a little further down) Before I called tech support, my suspicion was that the base station was having trouble navigating the security of my WiFi and the issue was beyond a simple password issue. I spent over an hour on the phone with tech support, jumping through all the hoops like a hungry seal. In the end the consensus was that this new Simplisafe system could not connect to my WiFi because Simplisafe needs a 2.4Ghz connection available. I have a 4th generation WiFi router, (newest generation) so it connects at both 5 and 2.4Ghz. I know for a fact that my WiFi will accept connections on both bands because I have devices of both bands already connected. But this was SimpliSafe's consensus. So I set in motion the procedure to return the system. There was no difficulty in this. Here's where I made my first mistake. I did research into Simplisafe and it's installation before I even bought it. I knew what needed to be done ahead of time. My WiFi uses an additional layer of security which I knew ahead of time needed to be disabled temporarily until I got the base station connected.  I thought I had disabled it, but the change didn't take effect. I did not double check this until after getting off the phone with tech support saying to myself that their explanation for why the base station would not connect did not make any sense. So I double checked the extra security setting to discover it was still active. After disabling it, the base station connected right away. There was a failure in my opinion in the troubleshooting steps tech support was led through to assist me with this issue and that is why they were not able to solve it and why the system was almost returned. Tech support failed to question possible security settings other than a password issue. This is not necessarily the fault of the technician themselves, but the flow chart they use to do that troubleshooting. In any event, the technical explanation to my specific issue and perhaps a fix for someone else....I use MAC address filtering on my WiFi in addition to they typical password protection.  I don't know about other brands of WiFi routers, but I use a Linksys router and I can see details of the devices connected, including the MAC address. After connecting the Simplisafe base station with MAC filtering off, the MAC address can be obtained through the device details on the routers control panel, added to the MAC address list and then MAC address filtering can be re-enabled. 

Accepted Solution

Community Admin

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3.4K Messages

2 years ago

Hi @pc_repair1, 

I'm happy to hear that your Base Station is now successfully connected to your Wi-Fi, but I'm sorry that our Support team wasn't able to provide you with the answers you needed. I'll send your post over to the team.

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