Hi Luis,

if you want to use the device with Bluetooth and your MacBook, you have to pair the device first. This is done outside the Desktop App in your System Preferences.

1. Open your System Preferences and select Bluetooth.
2. Make sure Bluetooth is turned on.
3. When your MultispeQ shows up in the Device list, select pair.
4. It will fail, since you didn't have the Passkey entered.
5. Select the Options... button next to Pair and enter the Code 1234 in the dialog and select Pair.
6. Now you can go back to the Desktop app, refresh the ports and select the MultispeQ.

On how to connect an instrument, go here.

I hope this will help

~ Sebastian

My device does not show up on the SystemPreferences:Bluetooth screen. My laptop's Bluetooth is active and visible. My OSX is 10.11.6 El Capitan.

Neither does it appear through USB

Thanks for the quick response

Hm,

so in your Desktop App, the only port in the list is Bluetooth-Incoming-Port? When you use a USB connection, it will be listed as USB Serial (usbmodemXXXX).

Holding the button for at least 5 seconds will turn it on. You can also try to push it shortly for restarting it. Perhaps a restart might help?

~ Sebastian

If no USB cable is used, then the only port in the list is Bluetooth-Incoming-Port. When I use the USB cable then I have two options, BT and USB Serial (usbmodem1421).

News: I got now connection through USB, reported device battery is 96% (given that I read in other threads that there is an issue when fully charged). However, not present through BT.

Bad news: I briefly disconnected the cable. When reconnecting the USB Serial was not available any more. I changed to my other USB port in the laptop, and it only shows the big cross and "No Connection" message. No more luck switching to the first port again. Device is not visible anymore.

When I press "connect" there appears a "console" button. Is there any option to use it for diagnose?

I'm glad you finally got it connected through USB.

When you just unplug the instrument, and not properly disconnect it, it can happen that the port will not show up again. Just push the button in the back of the instrument shortly to restart it, then plug the USB cable back in. Open the settings dialog in the app and your instrument should show up again.

The console is only functional, if there is an instrument connected. You can use it to send protocols manually.

The issue, some people experience when the instrument is fully charged, has nothing to do with connecting or communicating with the instrument. It is related to taking measurements.

When you open your SystemPreferences:Bluetooth screen, do any new devices show up?

~ Sebastian

Unplugging and restarting the device did the trick. I got it connected again.

SystemPreferences:Bluetooth screen doesn't show any new device at all

I try to get a measurement but the app stays at "Measurement started" and doesn't finish (it's been some minutes since i pressed "take measurement").

Hi Luis,

did you manage to connect to the device via Bluetooth? Scanning might take a little while. First only the MAC address will be visible, and later it will display the device name.

Which protocol did you use for your measurement? Make sure that it is compatible with the new MultispeQ.

~ Sebastian

I am having the same problem. Yesterday, I was able to take 2 measurements using a USB connection. However, as other people have noted at 100% charged battery, the USB connection isn't reliable and those were the only 2 successful measurements out of several dozen attempts. So, after reading the forum entries, I switched to bluetooth. I was able to connect and pair my device, however I was not able to take a measurement before my computer no longer recognized the device. I was never able to reconnect to the device with either bluetooth or USB yesterday or today. I have tried all of the suggestions on the forums and am still no longer able to connect. (I am also using the Chrome App in my MacBook)

Hi Rebecca,

I'm sorry to hear that you have trouble connecting and before we dive deeper into tackling this issue, I want to clarify a few things:

You say you were able to connect and pair your instrument. Are you referring to the system preferences?

When you say your computer was no longer able to recognize the device, was the port no longer visible in the dropdown menu of the Desktop app or did it disappear in your system preferences?

When you tried it the next day,

• did you turn the device on by holding the button in the back for at least 5s?
• was the device shown as connected in your system preferences before you tried connect the device inside the app?
• have you tried to restart google chrome, not just the app?
• did you push the button shortly to restart the device and try to connect then?

Which protocol are you using?

~ Sebastian

I was able to connect and pair my instrument in the system preferences via bluetooth. A short time later, the device no longer was listed as "connected" in the system preferences list of bluetooth connected devices.

I have tried holding the on button for at least 5 seconds.

I have not been able to connect the device in my system preferences today, so I have not made any progress troubleshooting within the app.

I have tried to push the button shortly to restart the device and then tried to connect. This has also not worked.

I have not worried about protocols yet today, given that the device isn't even showing up in my system preferences.

Hi, it took a while to get it connected via bluetooth, since some of the older phones did not allow installing the app ("device is not compatible" at Play Store). But now we got it working with a newer phone. We also tried connecting via cable with a Windows laptop, and we had the same trouble than before: it started measuring but although the lights were off after the 15s protocol, the app kept waiting it for it to stop. Then after canceling the measurement, clicking new measurement in the app would not start the protocol in the device.

Do you know when will be the firmware update available to fix the cable communication?

Thank you Luis

We are currently testing the firmware to ensure that there are not other bugs that could cause problems for users. We hope to be releasing it soon. What is the battery level of your MultispeQ? Usually, once the battery level drops below 90% the MultispeQ will communicate with the desktop app via cable without a problem.

Hi Dan

We've been having trouble connecting our device to the app on the phone with bluetooth. We were able to pair the device, connect, and make one measurement. But now the phone can no longer connect to the device with bluetooth. Any suggestions?

Thanks Rebecca

Rebecca, can you provide a few more details. Did you try to take the measurements immediately after one another, or was there a time gap between the two measurements? If there was a long measurement gap, it is possible that the MultispeQ went to sleep (it automatically shuts down after 3 hours of inactivity). If this happened, you can reawaken the instrument by pressing and holding the MultispeQ for 5 seconds.

Yes, we figured that the machine had turned off and so we pressed and held the on button for 5 seconds. However, we were still not able to connect to the phone via bluetooth.

Interesting. There are a couple of things you can try to troubleshoot the connection: 1) restart the app, 2) select Choose different device and try to repair the device or 3) go to the bluetooth settings on your android phone and forget the MultispeQ. Once you have forgotten the MultispeQ, go back to the app and try to pair again with the MultispeQ and see if you are able to take measurements.

Also, sometimes it takes a few tries to get the device to connect properly. But once you are connected and start taking measurements it generally works really well.

Hi Dan, we've tried all three of your suggestions and still cannot connect to the MultispeQ. Any other ideas?

Rebecca, two more things to look into:

1) what is the battery level of the MultispeQ. You can check this by connecting to the desktop app via usb cable. If the battery level is too low, it would fail to connect over bluetooth.

2) can you connect to the desktop app over bluetooth? I am not sure whether the issue is with the phone you are using or with the MultispeQ. Instructions for how to connect to the desktop app over bluetooth can be found here

We are unable to connect to the desktop app either via bluetooth or USB. I was concerned that low battery could be an issue, so I charged it via USB for a couple of hours, however that did not help with the bluetooth connection issue.

Hi Rebecca,

please send an email with a link to this thread to support@photosynq.org. We will try to help you to help you further and troubleshoot your instrument.

Hi everyone, I have the same problem. I have the device recognized by my bluetooth and I can select it in the drop down menu to the app on my desktop (MacBookAir). When I hit Connect I can see my computer connecting to it via bluetooth but it still says in the window "no connection". No ID etc is shown and says it isn't connected when trying to measure something. I cannot connect via cable at all. Tried all options in the drop down.
How did you solve it, Luis? Or anyone else?

Thanks! Hanna

You can see the connection to bluetooth in the top right corner.

Hey Hanna, Looks like you were able to eventually connect and take a couple of measurements which is good! What did you do to get it to work, any special tips or tricks? -Sean @ PhotosynQ

Hi Sean,

I have been able to connect twice. Had the IT guy here and of course it suddenly worked. Did nothing differently and it was working once more yesterday. Today I can't connect it (same problem as above) and I've also tried a Samsung tablet with the app. It also recognizes the device but will ask me over and over again to select my device. It will then load but never connect.

Any guesses? Thanks!

What is the phone/tablet interface that the developers are using with success (the model). Since our in-house phones/tablets are working, I'll purchase the one that works with least effort.

Hi Jason,

we are using a range of different devices to test the app. If you have a working device, I would recommend to stick with it. Please find a list of devices that users have used successfully in the Help Center.

Hi Sebastian and Everyone

My collaborator has got two MultispeQ 2.0 and one of which had connection trouble. The trouble was similar as reported here, but it was not attributable to bad-coupling with particular android tablet. It had succeeded several measurements (via android app) for operation checking right after the unpacking. The problem had encountered when it was used in the field. I have checked the unit and find out that connection error could be caused by over charging:

1)I have got the unit from my collaborator and testing desktop app connection via USB: The battery level was 0%, USB connection was OK, measuring was OK. 2)After charging ~20%, android app connection via bluetooth was OK, and a measurement was successful. 3)After charging ~40%, I did about 20 measurements (Leaf Photosynthesis MultispeQ V1.0) without any errors. 4) The unit was charged overnight, then, it could not connect either with bluetooth or USB. 5) I did charge the unit using different USB cable/AC adapter for a few hours and tested connection again. Both USB/desktop app and Bluetooth/android app connections were failed.
6) I left the unit as it is (without USB connection) for several hours and tried to connecting and failed again. I tried everything suggested by Sebastian and Dan, but the unit was never responding. 7) I left the unit for two days, then, connection with desktop app with USB was recovered, and battery level shows 0%. 8) After charging ~30%, android app connection via bluetooth was OK, and a measurement was succeeded. 9) I did keep charging the unit while USB and Bluetooth connection was tested periodically: The connections were OK up to 100% charging. 10)I did about 50 field measurements using android app without error.

I wonder if overcharging can trigger the safety system and it can be reset when the battery is completely discharged. I am not willing to reproduce the connection error for find out the cause of the connection trouble. I will recommend my colleges to avoid overnight charging as a temporal solution. Please tell me if you have true solutions for the connection trouble.

Thank you, Kenji

Hi Kenji!

Thanks for your trouble shooting! I think we have a solution.

First, we think we tracked the issues down to certain USB controllers that sense voltage or current levels and shut off (for safety). The battery charger on the MultispeQ can draw up at least 900 mA when the battery is sully discharged. Some computers (especially Macs for some reason) shut down their USB ports under these conditions, causing the low battery issue you see. We thought about slowing the charger down, but this would mean that the device would take a long time to recharge.

Some other USB ports are very sensitive to even small increases in V above 5.00, so overcharging the battery might trigger another safety feature.

Fortunately, there is a solution that has been working well for me: hook up an EXTERNALLY POWERED usb hub between the computer and the device. I have been using this one

https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Hi-Speed-Ultra-Mini-U222-004/dp/B00E9ZJE8Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537455948&sr=8-1&keywords=tripp-lite+hub-4

WITH an external micro-USB power supply connected to the auxiliary power input.

This seems to allow all devices to work on my MacBook and iMac. I am sure there are other hubs that will also work.

Please let me know if this works.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your answer. I understood that the current and voltage from power supply has to be stable during charging the instrument (some units may more sensitive than others). I will find the ideal charging device with my collaborators. Low battery issue was not caused by the charging trouble, but by the lack of auto-shout down function. I did set the shutdown time via console command.

Kenji

Hi Kenji!

Yes, use the set_shutdown_time command in console. In general, we set these at 3600s (30 min).

Also, the new Apps (both Desktop and Android) allow you to make the device shut down with a button.

Dave

Hi Dave, Yes, I like the new new feature in updated android app. Kenji

Hey Kenji, Glad to hear. Are your running 2.0037 or 2.0038?

Hi Dave, I was using firmware v2.0036. Now I know that the 2.0038 is ready. I will install the new firmware and calibrate the compass.

That'd be a good idea. I keep making improvements and will have 2.004 soon ;-) Dave