Screen messages during setup

A ticker that has no network to join runs a short show on its own screen until it has one. Every card below is the real thing, painted by the ticker. If you are looking at a screen right now and want to know what it means, find it here.

Which cards play, and for how long, is covered in The setup cards on the glass.

The first screen

The logo, the firmware version, and what is about to happen. Instructions follow. and They will repeat. say the rest: nothing here needs to be caught the first time. It holds for nine seconds, then the cards begin.

The cards

They rotate, in this order, until a phone joins the ticker’s setup network.

But first... asks for one minute. Public Wi-Fi rules out hotel, cafe and airport networks: those show a terms page in a browser, and the ticker has no browser to agree with.

Guest Wi-Fi is the one worth reading twice. A ticker on a guest network usually works, and yet your phone can never reach its settings page, because a guest network keeps its devices apart. For help... gives the number and address of the person who wrote the firmware.

The steps: is the whole job in three lines. Join my Wi-Fi names the setup network, always CT and three digits, and Scan to join Wi-Fi is the same network as a QR code your camera can take. If the code cannot be built, that card shows Join this Wi-Fi: and the name instead.

Power appears only while the supply is actually in the danger band, low or high, and it names the cable as well as the adapter, because a thin or long cable drops voltage under load exactly as a tired adapter does.

On a ticker that already had a network

Heads up leads the rotation when the setup network opened because a network the ticker knew went missing or turned it away. It names the network, says what happened on the last try, and when the network vanished rather than refused it, it promises to keep watching for it.

Once your phone is on the setup network

The moment a device joins, the screen changes. The first face expects the sign-in page to pop up by itself, which is what most phones do. The second face is for the phones that do not, and it gives the address to type. Both insist on http:// rather than https://, which matters: a typed address that starts with https will not reach the ticker.

After ninety seconds with a phone joined and no page opened, the ticker offers the address as a QR code. Once the page is open, Doing great! stays up until you submit a network, with a last word about public and guest networks.

While it joins

Got it - thanks! repeats the network and the password back, as dots unless you left the eye open on the page. No luck yet. narrates the retries and names the reason the previous try gave, so a wrong password is visible before the last attempt runs out.

The Status report: is the diagnosis: the network’s name, the signal, the address the router gave, and how long DHCP, DNS and each of three servers took to answer. A row can read refused, silent or not tried instead of a time. When the ticker’s own server did not answer, a line underneath names which part is at fault, one of A sign-in page blocks me., No internet here., My name fails here., 443 fails here, 80 works. or My end, not yours.

You're all set! gives the address the settings page will live at from now on, then the ticker restarts into normal running.

When a join fails

One line says what happened, on the glass and at the top of the page’s panel. Each links to what to do about it.

After repeated refusals the wording hardens to Password refused 2x - Wrong password?

The first failure paints nothing more than that line. From the second, a second rotation replaces the teaching cards, because someone whose router has already turned them away is past being told how to open the page.

What happened carries the router’s own words in gray, and it changes with the verdict: a network that was never found reads I can't see that network. instead. Let's try again. is there to say the ticker is not broken, which is the first thing an owner assumes.

Tech tip appears after a refusal, and its second line is the trick that solves most of them: forget the network on your own phone and rejoin it, which proves the password before the ticker tries it. Also worth trying appears only when the signal was actually measured poor, and it prints the reading. Don't give up! closes every lap with the setup address, so a closed browser tab is never a dead end.

If setup is left alone

Fifteen minutes with nobody on the setup network and the ticker restarts itself for a clean start. On a ticker that has a saved network, it restarts to try that network again instead. And if the missing network reappears in a scan while the ticker is waiting, it says so and restarts to rejoin it, with nothing for you to do.