Build Log · App
The first minute
Setup is supposed to be the boring part. Plug the panel in, tell it your Wi-Fi, type a short code from its screen into the app, done. This week I had to re-onboard my own panel for some unrelated key work, and the boring part ambushed me three times in one minute. If it annoyed me, the person who built every screen in that flow, it would lose a real buyer entirely.
Where it lied to me
First, the app declared Connection failed at the precise moment everything was going right. The panel has one radio. While you set it up, your phone talks to the panel directly over the panel's own temporary network; the instant the panel joins your home Wi-Fi instead, that direct link has to drop. That drop is what success looks like. The app read it as death and said so.
Second, the panel asks you to confirm the join by pressing a recessed button, the kind you need a SIM tool for. The press had a silent timeout: wait too long reading the false error, and pressing the button quietly did nothing at all, with no hint on the screen either way.
Third, after the panel accepts your Wi-Fi it reboots, rejoins the network, reaches the cloud, and asks for its pairing code. That chain takes about a minute, and the app used to spend that minute showing you an empty code box, which reads as "it didn't work" to anyone who doesn't know what's happening behind the ink.
What changed
The app now knows the drop is coming and treats it as the handoff it is. The button step says so on the panel itself, and the window for pressing it is long enough to fumble for a SIM tool without being punished (ninety seconds, not a silent handful). And while the phone and panel are still talking directly, the panel now hands the app a short-lived setup token, so after the reboot the app can watch through the cloud and know the exact moment the panel is online and showing its code. The empty code box is gone; the app waits with you until there is actually something to type.
Today I ran the whole first minute end to end on the real panel, factory-fresh, phone in hand, firmware 1.0.15. Plug in, join, press, wait, type, front page. Boring, finally.