Start-up and commissioning

Default state

When you remove the battery tag, the battery is connected and the monitoring station starts broadcasting the Wi-Fi network CC_MS_1. The station's clock won't be set yet. In this state it ignores any wake periods and stays on for as long as it has charge. If a station gets no solar charge for 8–10 days, it may revert to this state; it will turn back on once it has had a chance to recharge.

Commissioning

1. Attach the antenna, remove the battery tag and connect the solar panels.
2. Put your phone in flight mode, open your Wi-Fi settings and connect to the CC_MS_1 network. If your phone offers options such as Always connect or Only this time, choose Only this time. Otherwise your phone may reconnect to the nest box automatically, and the station won't sleep while a phone is connected, which can flatten its battery.
3. Open the Comfy Creatures Monitor app. If the network connection help page appears, tap Retry connection.
4. Before installing the nest box in a tree, test the station by streaming video and trying its other features.
5. Give the station a unique Wi-Fi name. This matters because there may be more than one station within range. The prefix (CC in the default name) also sets the image watermark, controls the PIN for features such as the natural light, pest alarm and settings menu, and helps with identifying and filtering stations on the Wildlife Dashboard. The default CC prefix has no PIN, so contact Comfy Creatures to choose a project prefix and have a PIN set. The suffix (1 in the default name) is the nest box number on projects with more than one station.
   1. Open the Settings menu and select Set SSID.
   2. Enter your project prefix and the nest box number.
   3. Tap Save. The station reboots with the new Wi-Fi name, and your phone and the app disconnect from it.
   4. Open your phone's Wi-Fi settings and connect to the station's new network.
   5. Return to the Comfy Creatures Monitor app.
6. Set the station's clock.
   1. Open the Settings menu.
   2. Tap Set time.
   3. Tap Now.
   4. Tap Save.
7. Commission your nest box. The commissioning wizard records details of the nest box and its installation. These are paired with the photos and environmental data captured as observations, and together they make up the public database at api.comfycreatures.com.au.
   1. Open the Settings menu.
   2. Tap Commission.
   3. Work through the wizard. You don't have to complete every field, and you can update any field later. Previously entered data will autofill, except for the commissioning photo.
8. You can now take observations. We recommend taking a quick observation to create a baseline for the nest box. From the main screen of the app:
   1. Start the stream.
   2. Turn on your preferred lighting.
   3. Take a quick observation.
9. Set the station's wake times. On a full charge, the station can broadcast its Wi-Fi network and stay available for six to eight hours. If one of its solar panels is in full sun, it will fully charge in about four hours. To make sure the station is available when you visit, keep wake periods short. For private installations we suggest a single one-hour wake period each day. For public installations where one panel gets full sun for several hours a day, two two-hour wake periods are usually comfortable, for example to suit morning and afternoon walkers. Outside its wake periods the station is in deep sleep: it won't broadcast its Wi-Fi network and can't be monitored. For ease of use, we suggest setting all stations on a site to the same wake periods. Every station also wakes at 12 pm for a fixed 15-minute maintenance session, which can't be changed.
   1. Open the Settings menu.
   2. Tap Wake schedule.
   3. Set the start and end times for the wake period.
   4. For a second wake period, turn on the toggle and set its start and end times.
   5. Check the wake times carefully before saving.

Once you disconnect from the station's Wi-Fi, it will go to sleep if it's outside its wake periods.

Congratulations, commissioning is complete!