Surface Unit Settings (Wi-Fi)

Through the Blueye App, it is now possible to change the Wi-Fi settings on the Surface Unit. If you can't remember the password for the Surface Unit, simply press the reset button under the blue rubber lid once to reset the password. Press and hold the reset button for 15 seconds to reset all settings including the SSID (Wi-Fi name) on the Surface Unit.

The available settings are:

Operating country
Wi-Fi SSID
WPA key
Wi-Fi frequency
Bandwidth
Wi-Fi Channel
Configure for Mobile data

For a more detailed explanation of each of the settings see the bottom section of this article.

Where to find these settings:

Navigate to the Surface Unit settings by tapping the Settings icon on the bottom bar and tap "Surface Unit Settings" when your device is connected to the Blueye Surface Unit Wi-Fi network.

You can change one or more settings at once by entering the new settings and tapping the "Save and Apply" button. The interface is shown in the figure below.

After "Save and apply" is tapped, your Surface Unit will apply the settings and restart the Wi-fi network. Now your device might automatically connect to your home network since the Blueye network disappears for a short while. If you change password or SSID, you must enter Settings, and then Wi-Fi on your device and wait for the new network to appear. This can take up to 1 min. The Apply screen is shown below.

Once connected to the new network, jump back to the Blueye App and wait for the complete screen to appear. You have now successfully updated the settings on the Blueye Surface Unit. The complete screen is shown below.

Resetting the Surface Unit to factory settings

To reset the Surface Unit Wi-Fi password to 1234567890, simply push the reset button under the blue rubber lid, between the two antennas, for 1 second. To make a full factory reset push and hold the reset button for 15 secs while the device is powered on. Once the button is released the LEDs will now blink back and forth while the unit is resetting. The Surface Unit will then reboot automatically with the SSID and password as marked on the back of the Surface Unit.

Explanation of the Surface Unit settings

Network access:

Wi-Fi SSID is the name of the Wi-Fi network and WPA key is the password for the Wi-Fi network. It is recommended to set a new password since all drones have the same password initially (1234567890). This is the simplest way to protect the video files that are stored on the drone, and limit access to who can control the drone since the Blueye app is publicly available. However, you can always click the reset button on the Surface Unit, and it will reset both SSID and WPA key.

Selecting Country:

By setting the correct country you are in, you let the Surface Unit automatically find the allowed and most available channel. The Surface Unit will search for available channels during boot.

Selecting Wi-Fi Frequency and Bandwidth

Wi-Fi frequency has two options: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. We recommend always using 5 GHz and the 2.4 GHz is only kept as an option for downloading files to older devices. If your phone cannot find the Blueye Wi-Fi signal it`s most likely to only support 2.4 GHz. In this case, we recommend upgrading to a newer device from our list of recommended devices.

Bandwidth is the width of the frequency band that the Wi-fi signals are using. Under normal circumstances, we recommend leaving this at default 20MHz.

Select Wi-Fi Channel

If more Blueye Surface Units are used in the same area, it can be beneficial to change the Wi-Fi channel for some of the units to avoid conjunction. But for Apple devices, the most stable setting is to always use channel 44 in the surface unit settings. (This is to avoid channel switching then the phone's network chip).

Configure for mobile data:

If you have a sim card installed in your device, it is possible to configure the Surface Unit to say, "I have no internet, please use your 4G/5G connection". With this setting, you can use screen sharing over MS Teams, etc. Read how to stream drone video live in meetings here.