Network presence detector not detecting smart phone

WebThings
1

Finally figured out why my phone was not being sensed with theNetwork presence detector add-on…

Background:

First started up WebThings Gateway early February 2020 and added several add-ons including Counter, DateTime Adapter, Scheduler, Weather and Wemo.

I bought two wemo smart plugs and got them running with minor difficulties (learning curve).

I then added a TP-Link smart plug, installed the adapter and got it running without incident.

I then decided to add the Network presence detector and tried to get it to recognize my LG phone – problem!

TheNetwork presence detector saw lots of things, but no phone.

After many attempts, including uninstalling and reinstalling the Network presence detector, manually adding by URL (unsuccessfully), and after reading everything I could on Mozill-IoT Discourse, I came across several hints… and was successful….

  1.  The TP and the LG phone shared the same IP (x.x.x.104) How?

  2.  The instructions to manually add via URL are slim to non-existent (I found an answer in comments from [mrstegeman](https://discourse.mozilla.org/u/mrstegeman) - Re: [Mozilla IoT] Device Disconnects)

  3.  I uninstalled the TP-Link adapter and then scanned for devices, found the LG phone (it also helps to turn on wifi on the phone… answer to How?)

Oh – the fun of learning

Xnavyguy

Don’t take Life too seriously, you aren’t about to get out of it alive…

2

Update: I added the TP-Link adapter back and plugging in the TP smart plug after sending the above and lost the Phone. I removed the plug and removed the TP-Link adapter and was able to reconnect/see the phone again.
It appears the TP-Link is overriding the phone info…
Suggestions?

3

Your devices should not be receiving the same IP address. It seems like there may be something messed up with your network…

4

I concur, and am invesigating that. It appears that I need to reset the plug as everything else is working fine, has been working since 2012. The TP-Link is the fly in the ointment. Looking how to perform factory reset for the plug…

5

Check your router’s DHCP settings. You may have one of the MAC addresses hard coded for a specific IP.

6

Thanks for the suggestion, I did check that item.

I ended up doing a hard rest of the TP-Link plug and deleting the plug and adapter from the gateway and then rebooting the gateway (giving it a therapeutic kick in the pants, so to speak).

I then re-added the adapter and discovered the plug. It appears to have done the job…

Thanks to all for your assist and help.

xnavyguy

Life is Good; Death, not so much…

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