IRIS WebRadio WiFi Problems
Please note that the following comments about the IRIS WiFi WebRadio pertain to the radio’s firmware version: SOLRAD V2.1.464, and NutOS version: V3.9.7.1
I sent the followup letter to representatives of Solutions Radio; the vendor from whom I purchased the IRIS WiFi WebRadio. I never did get a response to my letter on Friday, January 22nd, 2010. So I sent that to them again today. Hopefully, they’ll answer this time around.
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Do you have any suggestions for resolving the issues I’ve raised below? The WiFi connection on this radio appears to be highly erratic and unreliable. Often, it does not connect when turned on and to get it to work, I must power down the radio, wait a few seconds, then turn it back on. Even then, it sometimes fails. Sometimes, I must power-cycle it several times before it connects, and that’s when I’m in the same room as my access point.
—–Original Message—–
From:Thomas J. Hesley
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 10:47 PM
To:W Haan Solutions Radio BV
Subject:RE: iris webradio
Yes, your colleagues were most helpful, and with their assistance, I was able to get the WebRadio to connect to my WiFi network. However, I’m still experiencing a few issues:
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 with other network devices that get their IP addresses from my NetGear router. Indeed, the WebRadio correctly connects with DHCP through the Ethernet port. But when I try with WiFi, the WebRadio never gets past the Connecting… screen unless I disable DHCP.
So, 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. But the WebRadio refused to connect with this configuration. I found however, that I could get the radio to connect if 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, it fails and the error light blinks. But, if I power it off and back on one to three more times, it does connect eventually.
So at least I can get it to work, but not as easily as I’d hoped.
Thoughts?
February 10th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
I received the bill yesterday for the call I made to this company about these problems. For an 11 minute call to the Netherlands, the cost was over $37. I’m going to call my telephone provider tomorrow and see if they will waive some of this fee.
February 11th, 2010 at 9:15 am
I called Verizon. They refused to give me any refund. So now, in addition to the money I’m out for the WiFi portion of this radio, I’m also down an additional $37 dollars plus.
Further, this company has been sluggish about communicating with me lately.
I think I’ll probably keep the radio, rather than incurring the additional cost of arranging to send it back, then actually sending it back. However, I would warn anyone who is considering purchasing the WiFi version of this unit that it’s not quite ready for production; it has several difficult-to-accommodate bugs in it that they really should work out before selling this to the public for $349.
April 11th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Took the radio to [Emmy's]. The WiFi showed the same intermittent behavior as it did here. So we connected it to her network with an Ethernet cable.
Recently, Solutions Radio said that they published a new version of the radio’s firmware that, as they put it, will likely address most if not all of our connectivity issues. Indeed, [Emmy] reports that even with the Ethernet connection, the radio’s stability has improved somewhat. However, we can’t test the WiFi until I next visit her; probably sometime in the next month or two.
Since we can’t do anymore with this problem until visit [Emmy], this project is now deferred until I can verify the firmware upgrade and that this fixed the WiFi reliability issues.