square handheld wifi issues

[MapleCoffee]

I'm on my second square handheld. They both worked for about two weeks just fine and then started having issues connecting to our WiFi. It's not the WiFi becuase my phone and my computer are both connected and it works fine. I'm getting very frustrated. I have to connect it to my phone hotspot but that isn't sustainable. Has anyone had this issue with the Square Handheld?

[_Violet]

Hello @MapleCoffee 👋 My name is Violet and I'm one of the Square Community Moderators. I'm happy to assist you today 🙂

Since you mentioned you've experienced this issue on more than one Square Handheld and you're able to successfully connect the Handhelds to your hotspot, this definitely suggests the issue lies somewhere with the Wi-Fi network. Even though your phone and computer can connect to the network just fine, your Square Handhelds essentially take up more space on the Wi-Fi, which may cause the connection to drop.

Have you gone through any troubleshooting steps yet? I suggest starting out with the ones listed here first, specifically, making sure the software is up-to-date. Then, you can also refer to the network requirements for your Square Handheld here. 

Give that a try, and let me know how it goes for you. If there's any additional troubleshooting you've already tried, please let me know. I'll keep an eye out for your reply!

[MapleCoffee]

This morning I came in, turned the machine on and tried connecting to the Internet. It would not connect. No one else was connected to our internet.  Not my phone. Not my computer. So why wouldn’t it connect? You said that maybe it’s the bandwidth but absolutely nothing else was connected at that time. I’m super frustrated with this issue. It worked for two weeks without issue. The first one we had was the same. Works for two weeks then stops connecting. I’m considering changing companies if we can’t figure this out. Any thoughts on this?? I’ve done all the troubleshooting that’s been offered and nothing works. 

[StevenCheech]

Sometimes wifi hotspots can have limited connectivity when alot of devices are connected to them. Are you using a hotspot? 

If not, what wifi band are you using to connect? If you're using 5g try the opposite and vice versa. 

[rtfulk]

This is just a thought, every night between 2-3am the handheld will reboot itself. The reasoning behind this is, if you have an older router and the handheld reboots everynight the router might be holding on to an IP address assigned to your handheld MAC address. This would block your handheld from reconnecting, because the router sees it as already connected. I’ve seen it in the setting, but I don’t think you can turn off the auto reboot.

One thing you could try, go into your router settings and if your router has this ability assign a permanent IP address to the handheld, so that way during the reboot it will reconnect with the same IP address.

Hopefully this will work for you.