Controller offline

If the Portal shows the Controller as offline, walk through this list in order.

1. Power

The Controller runs on 110V. Confirm:

• The Controller’s power supply is plugged into the wall outlet and into the back of the Controller.
• The wall outlet has power. A recent storm, a tripped breaker, or an unplugged power strip are all common causes.
• The Controller’s status lights are on. If the lights are completely dark and the Controller feels cold, the unit has no power. Restore power.

If the outlet itself does not have power, the rest of this list is irrelevant — fix the outlet first.

2. Cellular signal

The Controller is cellular-only — it does not use your home WiFi. Look at the Controller’s status lights through the clear lid (see Reading Controller lights for what each color means):

• If the lights are stuck on cyan for more than a few minutes, the cellular modem is searching for a tower and not finding one.
• If the lights are stuck on blue for more than a few minutes, the modem found a tower but cannot register on the network.

In either case, the issue is signal at the coop. The most common cause is the Controller being inside a sheet-metal coop with the antenna routed inside the metal — see Installing the Controller for antenna routing.

3. External antenna option

For sites with marginal cellular signal even with the antenna routed outside, a higher-gain external antenna can help. We do not stock external antennas as a standard SKU, but we can recommend a specific antenna model for your situation. Email support with your location and your current signal observations.

4. Restart

If the lights have settled into a stuck state and you are confident the cellular signal is fine (other devices on the same carrier in the same coop work), unplug the Controller for 30 seconds, then plug it back in. The Controller will boot through its color sequence again. If it settles on solid green, you are back online.

5. Escalate to support

If the Controller has been offline for more than 5 minutes after a restart, and you have confirmed power and reasonable cellular signal, contact support with your customer number, the Controller short identifier, the time the Controller went offline, and what color the status lights are showing now.

Last updated: 2026-05-14.