IRIS WebRadio WiFi Setup
On the WiFi setup of the IRIS Internet WebRadio: The instructions I received this morning said to do the following in order to configure WiFi. Please note that the radio does not speak the menus described below. So you’ll likely need sighted assistance during initial radio setup.
These instructions pertain to Firmware version SOLRAD V2.1.464, that shipped with my WebRadio.
WiFi Setup Instructions
- Disconnect the Ethernet cable and power down.
- After several seconds, press and hold down the OK button, and while doing that, press the power button to turn the unit on. The unit emits three short beeps in ascending pitch. Then, the LCD screen displays the Audio menu item.
- Press the UP arrow key once. This takes you to the Network menu item.
- Press the OK button to enter the Network menu. The Ethernet menu item appears.
- Use the UP and DOWN arrow keys or the volume knob to move around in the current menu until you see the Wireless menu item.
- Press the OK button to select the Wireless item.
- A message appears that the radio is scanning for networks. This scanning for WiFi networks that are within range of the radio can take between 30 and 60 seconds. When it finishes, a list of the networks that it found appears on the LCD screen.
- Use the UP and DOWN arrow keys or the volume knob to scroll through this list, to find the network to which you wish to connect.
- Once that network’s name (SID) appears, press the OK button to confirm.
- For secured WiFi networks, the radio will ask for the security key.
- By turning the volume knob, you can pick different characters to enter for each character of the key. When the character you want appears, press the OK button to add it.
- After you’ve entered the last character of the key as described, you then have to enter the RETURN symbol. This is located at the end of the list of characters and numbers. To get to the end of the symbol list, rotate the volume knob to the right, until different symbols stop appearing in the LCD display.
- Find this, then press OK to confirm. A Saving message appears, then is quickly replaced by an Activating message. This message displays for a couple seconds, and then the radio turns itself off, and
- Within a second or so, the WebRadio comes back on again, and then attempts to connect to the network you configured.
- You’ll hear a series of beeps as it moves through the various stages of connection and authentication on the network.
- When the WebRadio begins speaking the Station List, then you’ve successfully configured your WebRadio for WiFi access.
Problems Encountered
DHCP Issue
I could not get the WebRadio to connect to my network via WiFi, with DHCP set to active. My network indeed supports DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol), and it does work because I have several other network devices that get their IP addresses from my NetGear router. Indeed, the WebRadio correctly connects with DHCP as long as I’m using Ethernet. But when I try with WiFi, the WebRadio never gets past the Connecting… screen.
To get around this, I disabled DHCP on the WebRadio, and then configured my router to reserve an IP address for my WebRadio. Then, I programmed that address (192.168.0.5 in my case) into the radio.
WPA Authentication Protocol Did Not Work
Originally, my Bountiful WiFi access point was set for WPA PSK Personal. To get the radio to connect, I changed this to WPA / WPA2 PSK Personal.
Sporadic Connecting
Now that I’ve got the WebRadio working through WiFi, I noticed that it does not reliably connect to the network upon power up. More often than not, when you power it up, it fails to connect, and the error light blinks. However, if I power it off and back on one to three more times, it does connect eventually.