Connecting through OSU network

Getting Started
1

Hi all

I am a student at Ohio State - my capstone group is trying to control the opening of a window with the sparkcore by receiving data from a humidity/temperature sensor and then outputting commands to a motor.

I am currently running into a couple of issues getting the sparkcore set up:

  1. The campus wireless (SSID: ‘osuwireless’) does not have a password - instead, it asks for student/faculty ID/password after connecting. Is there a way to input this into the iphone app?
  2. Not sure if I bypassed #1 via USB connection, but my sparkcore, when connected to my laptop, is currently flashing cyan and flashes red three times every minute or so (so not connecting to the cloud). What can I do to fix this?*

*Sidenote: I can’t open a serial port to my SparkCore on my laptop via USB connection. I’m running Windows 8.

Any help/advice? We’re moving on a tight timeline (presentation is in 2 weeks).

Thanks!!

2

As far as I’m aware, the Core is unable to navigate those login pages, and can therefor not be used with such networks. If you’re keen on using the Core, your best bet would be to set up a temporary hotspot for now, until a more efficient solution is found. Maybe plug in an old router into a LAN connection for the time being.

3

Thanks so much for the input - I’ll get my hands on a router and try to use that route.

I’m a little confused though - if the Core is unable to navigate the login pages, then why did the core move past the blinking green LED to the blinking Cyan? Doesn’t that indicate that the Core successfully connected to the wifi?

4

@bgemler13, I earlier asked a similar question about connecting Captive Portal and the answer was: “It does not work direkt”.

My best bet would be to have a router with client mode support. This way you could plug in the router into your network, also plug in or WiFi connect a computer to enter your credentials for the Captive Portal.
Since the router passes the credentials you entered on the computer back to the CP using its own (router) MAC address, all devices connected to that router should be able to share this one connection.

About the blinking cyan: If it is blinking quickly, it just tells you that it is connected to the WiFi (picking up the signal), which it can, since you have entered the SSID and the (empty) passphrase.
But since the Core is unable to call home to :spark: Cloud, it never starts breathing cyan.

5

Yes, it’s connected to the WiFi, but there is an extra layer of security of the type which the Spark Core does not know how to negotiate.

6

Using Windows 8 does not stop you from connecting the Core via USB and have it talk to you via serial - I'm doing that right now.
Since you obviously were able to provide the SSID to the Core via USB you should already be able to listen/talk to it using the same driver.
You only have to make sure that you are running a Core firmware that does do a Serial.begin(115200); somewhere along the line (best in setup()) to appear as a COM device on the USB port.

7

Thanks all - I actually worked it out by creating a hotspot with my laptop. The core works beautifully now.

@ScruffR - my firmware was missing the Serial.begin bit, once I added it the laptop was able to connect with the core.

Thanks!!

1 Like