Wi-Fi Exercise

Objective: The goal of this exercise is to understand the Wi-Fi settings and advantages.
Requirements: This exercise requires a FLIR camera with Wi-Fi antenna supporting Wi-Fi and a computer with administrator rights.

Introduction

Wi-Fi network makes use of radio waves to transmit information across a network. Wi-Fi is covered by IEEE 802.11 so often a technical language will refer to different IEEE 802.11 standards while more commercial language will talk about Wi-Fi. You can think of Wi-Fi as replacing the normal Ethernet cable. This means that everything related to IP addresses, need for a router and so on is the same the only differences is that you will need Wi-Fi antennas instead of Ethernet cables.

Client mode

1. Connect to the camera using Ethernet cable and access the web interface of the camera. 

2. Click the Settings tab and click on Network settings in the left menu.

3. To the right, you have the setting for Wi-Fi called Wireless which should be set to Off as default. There are two other modes Server mode and Client mode. The server mode is like a personal hotspot in your phone. The camera will now generate a network that another device can connect to, like your computer. The client mode will require an existing network that the camera connects to. We will start with client mode, so check that option.

4. A button to scan for networks will appear. Click the SCAN NETWORKS button if you don’t see your network.

5. Hover over the network you like to connect to and a button to CONNECT will appear, click it! You will now be presented with an option to enter a password and connect. This is the password for your Wi-Fi network.

6. Unplug your network cable, if you are connected via PoE make sure you don’t power off the camera, pick the cable to the computer.

7. Refresh IPConfig and identify the Wi-Fi IP address for your camera, use the serial number to identify your camera.

8. Double click your camera to open the web interface. You are now connected via Wi-Fi and can work with the camera as usual. You can of course also enter the IP manually into a browser.