Farm 24XL Wifi not Working while Bounty Elite works fine

[dskyzedisme]

I have two AeroGardens.  One is a Bounty Elite, the other is a Farm 24XL.  The Farm 24XL is brand new and just assembled 

The Bounty elite is in my main floor of our house and my Farm 24XL is in my basement.

The wireless router that I am connecting t is a 2.4 Ghz network that is in the basement and is literally 10 feet away from my Farm 24XL.  There are no walls between the router and the Farm 24XL

The Bounty Elite connects to this same router on the same wireless network with no problem and I was able to add my Bounty Elite to my Mobile App. 

When I try to connect my Farm 24XL to this same router on the same wireless 2.4Ghz network that my Bounty is connected to and I go through the setup on the Farm 24XL, it says the connection to my WiFi was successful, when I click next I get the barcode, however on my app, when I scan the barcode, it says the Garden is offline.  Then when I go back to the main screen on the Garden it has a yellow wifi symbol with a "?".  I've tried this a dozen times with the same results.

I am connecting to the very same wifi for both gardens but only the Bounty stays connected while the Farm 24XL will never stay connected for any length of time. When I try to scan the code after "connecting" to the wifi is say Garden is offline, which is literally 30 Seconds after it says the connection to the wifi was successful.

[lynnee]

A similar problem has come up with some of my AGs. For a while a couple of older Bounties that had always connected went offline and simply wouldn't reconnect. I wrote to AG, can't remember what they said, but it didn't help.

Then one day I noticed that the two Bounties had connected again. I think it was after a system reboot or a power outage, but am not sure.

So my conclusion is that atmospheric pressure, locations of other gardens, router location, or other odd factors influenced the connectivity.

What I would suggest is rebooting your home network, to see if that works. The AGs do remember the last network connection, if you actually DID get connected to your network.

However, the problem may be at the bar code screen. Only once have I ever been able to connect an AG by scanning the bar code. What I do, after reaching the bar code screen, is say that the connection didn't work. I think you press a "next" button or something like it.

This takes you to a screen with a MAC number that you need to type in manually. (The MAC number may be on the bar code screen, in which case you must write it down to be able to enter it on the next screen.) Once you manually type in the number, you should get a connection that stays on (and a blue wireless icon instead of the yellow one).

Sorry to be so vague, but I stopped bothering with the network connections after the ability to set the AG clocks remotely disappeared from the app. I may take another crack at connections fairly soon, because some of my AGs are showing yellow icons, but I don't want to go down that rabbit hole today. I've been having to reset a lot of electronic connections, apps, etc. of late, and I'm sick of it!

[davem]

There is multiple lively discussions on reddit aerogarden about this. Aerogarden's server is down. 

[Shawn]

I heard from AG via email yesterday after complaining that my units show offline.

They are aware and are working on it however who know how long it will take.  I need it since I am still dealing with a broken ankle and can not get to the top stacked farm.

They wanted me to remove it from the app and put it back on but I am not doing that for a couple of reasons, one being I can not get on a stool to do it AND if I remove it I may have issues getting it back on like I did in the past.

Waiting to see what they say next.

I miss my contact there

[lynnee]

How odd, that the AG app network connections are affected by problems with the Aerogarden server. I thought that the app only used your home network router and Bluetooth, once an AG is registered. I guess that if a network connection is lost, you must go through the AG server for the Bluetooth pairing step.

Most of my AGs are still connected, and the app still works. It would be great if AG would update the app to restore the remote Clock setting feature while they're working on the server issue.

Shawn, I totally agree that it would be a bad idea to remove the AG from the app before the AG server is fixed. It's fiddly to get the network connection in the best of times, and the last time something like this happened my AGs came back online on their own.

davem, thanks for your post!

[lynnee]

Today I'm going to replant an AG that is offline, so I thought I'd try removing it from the app and seeing whether it would reconnect. But I can't find any way to delete a garden from the app! Does anyone know how to do this? It may be another feature that has disappeared from the app.

Customer Service seems to have really gone downhill since MiracleGro purchased Aerogarden.

[Shawn]

Jun 28, 2023 9:41:48 GMT -5 lynnee said:

Today I'm going to replant an AG that is offline, so I thought I'd try removing it from the app and seeing whether it would reconnect. But I can't find any way to delete a garden from the app! Does anyone know how to do this? It may be another feature that has disappeared from the app.

Customer Service seems to have really gone downhill since MiracleGro purchased Aerogarden.

Yes it has and I am so upset my contact retired.   My contact was one of the two gentlemen that created the AG.  He was wonderful and so helpful.  However since he retired he does not have the ability to help as the new owners or whoever have take hold.

[lynnee]

Shawn, it was inevitable that Aerogarden would be sold, I think. Private companies have a really hard time competing with all the cheaper knockoff products being sold on Amazon.

Back when Amazon Vine offered U.S. name-brand products alongside the knockoffs, I got to test and compare things like robot vacuum cleaners. The U.S. products were almost always of better quality, and didn't fail after a few months. Alas, even iRobot (the maker of Roombas) has now been sold to a corporation.

Anyway, Scott/MiracleGro is a pretty good U.S. company, so we can hope that it will be interested in Aerogardens for themselves, and not just for increased sales. It's too early to tell what direction it will go with Aerogarden.

At least it was encouraging when AG sent out that email denying online rumors about the company's imminent demise (rumors sparked by the current inventory selloff). I guess we'll find out where AG is headed once they do get rid of the current Farms and Bounties.

[dskyzedisme]

UPDATE: Low and behold I woke up one morning and saw that my garden was connected to my WiFi.  I was able to add the garden to the app.  HOWEVER, even though I added the Garden exactly like the instructions said, the settings for my garden on the app were not in sync with what was on the garden.  It said the water level was low even though both side of the Farm 24XL were full all the way to the max fill line.

NEXT Day:  Low and behold, next day the app showed the water level as full and the settings appeared to be in sync

NEXT DAY:  Low and behold, the garden was disconnected from my WiFi and I couldn't get it to connect again

Next DAY:  Low and behold the garden once again was connected to the app

So now I am in the cycle where one day it is connected and another day it is not without any action on my part.   

Aerogarden or Scotts needs to seriously look at what is going on as it relates to WiFi and the really need to rethink the entire app, it really seems to be unstable and lacking in functionality

[lynnee]

dskyzedisme, I totally agree! My gardens that have been connected are doing the on/off thing, too. It's best to leave the connections alone for now, if your gardens have been connected, in hopes that they'll reconnect automatically. It's a whole other thing, trying to get a new garden connected.

AG charges a lot more for the wireless-enabled AGs, so it shouldn't ignore the problems with the app.

[Shawn]

  So I unpaired a unit as they had asked me to do to try.  I get connected to wifi and thought, this is going to work.  Ummm Nope, I can not even get it back on the app

[scarfguy]

I never use the app but I did set it up some time ago.

FYI, I just took a look and none of my AGs are connected anymore either.

There is definitely something goofy.

[patlab]

It’s hard to believe that they have not even acknowledged there is a major problem! That is customer service? I gave up on the app for my farms.

[lynnee]

I saw on Reddit that your router may actually connect to the AG, even though the AG says it couldn't connect. This suggests that the connection problem is with the AG itself, not the Internet, the AG website, a server, or your router.

This sounds right, because xfinity gave me a couple of messages about a new device joining the network, when the only thing I was connecting (trying to connect) was an AG.

[Shawn]

Here is an email I received

Thank you for contacting us. We want to ensure that everyone has positive results with their AeroGarden and enjoys many beautiful and delicious rewards.

We apologize again for the issues you have been experiencing with your garden. We did recently have some updates on the backend that should correct the connectivity issue. If your garden did not reconnect automatically we would recommend you manually try to reconnect and pair.

If you are still experiencing issues, please reply to this email and let us know. If you can send screenshots/pictures of the screen where you are getting stuck, that will help our team continue to troubleshoot.

Thank you for your continued patience and please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

did NOT WORK

[lynnee]

Shawn , This is the reply that I received on Monday (7/10/23):

Thank you for contacting us. We want to ensure that everyone has positive results with their AeroGarden and enjoys many beautiful and delicious rewards.

We are sorry for the wifi connectivity issues you are having. We are currently working on an issue with our servers that connect the gardens to wifi and the App. We are working diligently to get this resolved for you but in the meantime connectivity will be impossible or spoty causing the the garden to continuously lose connectivity. Although we do not have an ETA we are working hard to get this resolved for you as soon as possible. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

Please let us know if there is anything further that we can do to help.

Who knew that you still needed an AG server after downloading and installing the app?

[lynnee]

Yay! All of my AGs are re-connected to wireless this morning! All but one did it by themselves.


One Farm had been unable to connect, and was showing a page of empty boxes after searching for networks. Unplugging the garden did NOT fix the issue.

What DID work was to unplug the garden and then select "start a new garden" (after noting the days planted and days till adding plant food). After going through the steps, I used "connect to wireless", and got a page with available networks.

Then I was able to choose a network and type in a password. When the "scan barcode" page appeared, I hit "OK" and Voila! My network recognized the AG, because it had been connected, and I didn't have to pair again.

Then I just reset the Days Planted and Days to Add Plant Food.

The app sees all of the gardens as before. The clock icon is still missing from the iOS app, but it is present and functioning in the Android app.

[Shawn]

Lucky you.  Mine will not connect.

[lynnee]

Jul 18, 2023 3:58:32 GMT -5 Shawn said:

Lucky you.  Mine will not connect.

Ugh.

[lynnee]

My gardens are all connected again this morning. I did nothing, so the gardens all used the existing wifi settings. So I guess that if you have ever connected a garden to wifi, and the garden loses its connection, you should just wait until the AG site is working again.