Smart life offers a centralized way to connect and control your smart home devices. However, encountering the Smart life device offline problem is common for most smart life users. So, is your smart life device offline? Worry no more, as I will walk you through the troubleshooting tips to get it back online in no time.
The offline problem can be tackled from the same angle, irrespective of the device. The troubleshooting steps are similar whether you are dealing with a plug, camera, or lighting device. Let’s get into it.
Why Is My Smart Life Device Offline?
The Smart life app displays a device as offline when it can’t successfully connect to it. This usually happens due to a poor or drop in the network connection. Again, power disruption due to a prolonged outage also causes the offline problem. To fix it, reboot your devices and the network router.
Smart Life allows you to integrate different brands and devices into your smart home. Several factors could cause the offline issue; these include;
- Loss of power connection (power outage)
- Poor Wi-Fi network signal or network disconnection
- Changes in your Wi-Fi network settings – you should update the same on your device
- An overcrowded network, thus, lowering your router bandwidth
- Outdated app or device firmware
- If the Smart Life servers are down
Now that we have identified the potential cause of the offline problem. Here is how to troubleshoot your network and the device to restore it.
How Do I Get a Smart Life Device Back Online?
To get your Smart Life device back online, restart it and ensure it is connected to a working power outlet. Once the device reboots, give it a moment to initialize and connect to your home network. Refresh the Smart life app and check whether the device is back online.
Follow these troubleshooting solutions to fix the smart life device offline problem.
Check If the Devices Is Powered
Accidentally turning off the main power switch to smart devices can eat up your time fixing a non-existing issue. Most devices require an “ALWAYS ON” switch position. This allows you to turn the device on or off from the smart app or through voice commands.
Ensure the device is connected to a working outlet and the LED indicator light shows it’s connected. Most devices use a flashing or solid color to indicate a power connection.
In case of a power outage, some or all of your smart life devices can run offline. A quick reboot should get your device back online.
However, to avoid bombarding your router with IP address requests (if you have many devices on your setup), restart the router first, followed by a device or a couple at a time.
To reboot, unplug the device from the outlet, wait a minute for it to discharge, and reconnect it to a working outlet.
This is pretty handy when dealing with the “Smart life device offline after a power outage” problem.
Check Your Wi-Fi Network
A drop or lost network connection is another prevalent cause of the device offline problem. Once the connection is lost, some devices cannot come back online alone and need little assistance.
So, does your router broadcast an active Wi-Fi network, or are you disconnected?
Test your network by connecting a phone or tablet and trying to surf the internet. If you are disconnected or the network signal is poor, contact your ISP to fix it first.
Smart devices require a strong and stable internet connection to sync to the servers effectively. A robust home internet is the first requirement for running a successful smart home.
Also, you can perform a speed test to check your network speed and quality. If the network is working correctly, but the device is offline, it could be a case of an overcrowded network –reduce the number of connected devices.
Again, if you make changes to your network settings, such as Wi-Fi password, security type, etc., you must update the same on your connected devices.
Once you have applied the changes on your router admin, remove the device from the Smart life app, reset it if necessary, and reconnect to the updated network.
Importantly, remember that Smart life devices are only compatible with a 2.4 GHz network.
If your router broadcasts 2.4 and 5 GHz bands on a single SSID, you need to separate them into two different networks. This helps you avoid conflicts and only connect the devices to the compatible frequency.
Generally, power cycling the router and the device works magic when dealing with drop-in network offline issues.
To power cycle, unplug the router from the outlets, give it 20 – 30 seconds, and reconnect it. Once it’s up and running, apply the same procedure to restart the smart device.
Move The Device Closer to the Router
The 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi signal weakens the further you move from the router and as the number of obstacles increases. With that in mind, the chances of a poor signal are high if the device is located at the furthest end.
Ensure that the device location receives a stable and robust internet signal from your router. Moving the device closer is one way to deal with the issue.
Alternatively, upgrade your network to a mesh network topology setup or replace your old router with a newer model.
Update the Smart Life App and Device Firmware
Your device could run offline because you are using an outdated Smart life app, missing out on some newly released features. Like most smart device apps, smart life releases timely updates to improve performance and fix bugs.
Check your respective app store for a pending Smart Life update; if one is available, download and install it.
Again, check whether there is an available firmware update for the device and upgrade it. Running on old deprecated firmware versions could be the source of your problems.
Moreover, you could be missing new features. The time to upgrade that device is now.
Reset The Device and Reconnect
Resetting restores the device’s factory settings and wipes the device clean. It helps clear out bugs or conflicting config files affecting its connectivity. You start the connection on a clean slate.
The reset process is device-specific; check your user manual for resetting the device. Here is a guide on how to reset Smart life bulbs.
For smart plugs, press and hold the sync button for 5 – 10 seconds or until you get a voice prompt.
After resetting the device, please remove it from the Smart life app and reconnect.
To reconnect, open the smart life app > tap the “+” icon > Add Device > Choose the device category on the left > select the device type > confirm the indicator is blinking > Enter your network credentials > Finalize by following the app prompts.
After connecting, here is how to link the device to your virtual assistant (Alexa or Google)
The Servers Are Down or a Faulty device.
Albeit rarely, sometimes the China-based Smart life server experience a downtime. Once the devices can sync to the servers, you get the “device offline” error.
Here check out the downtime remote on popular channels or tweeter. If you have a friend running on Smart life, you could also ask them whether there are experiencing the issue.
Give it some time, and once the servers are up, the device picks up the communication and is back online in no time.
On the other hand, when a device is faulty, all you can do is get a replacement. This is after trying every trick on your box.
Final Thoughts
The smart life device offline problem can be an easy or tricky customer, depending on the cause. The quicker you identify the root cause, the quicker you solve the problem.
When it’s caused by a power outage or drop in network connection (two of the most typical causes), rebooting the network and device gets them. In any case, this should be your first shot at fixing it.
Sometimes, a device is offline when renewing its IP address with the router; give the device a minute to reconnect.
