How to remotely manage your parents' home router? Helped my mom repair the network remotely for a year; out of five types, three had to be delivered to her door

Last October, my mom called me via video, the camera staring at the ceiling for a long time: "The internet is gone again, and the TV can't be played either." It rained that day. I drove back for forty minutes, unplugged the router power upon entering, waited half a minute before plugging it back in, and the whole house was restored. It took thirty seconds before and after, and a round trip took an hour and a half. In March this year, she said the internet was broken again. I lay on my sofa and tapped my phone three times, and four minutes later, her TV resumed. The only difference is this: when I went home for Spring Festival last year, I spent an extra twenty minutes and handled the 'remote network management at her home' all at once. This article goes through the strategies of the year from start to finish—if you have elderly family members, just copy them directly.

Step one: Equip your parents' home with a machine you are familiar with

remote management is probably decided when you buy the machine. Don't buy your parents a brand you've never touched, and don't believe the so-called 'elderly router' claim—the elderly never touch the backend; this device is essentially for you to control remotely. My principle is simple: whatever you use at home, give your parents the . My main product is AX3000T, and I bought the same style for my mom, 129 yuan. The biggest advantage of the same model is that I can click the backend path with my eyes closed, and if something goes wrong, I don't even need to take screenshots.

the remote entry points from various brands, I've reviewed them: Xiaomi Redmi uses the Mi Home app, and after binding, most settings can be remotely moved. I've written a detailed list of features in one articleXiaomi Remote Management ; Mercury's cloud router uses the "Mercury WiFi" app plus MERCURY ID, binding the number of channels this article; Tenda uses the Tenda WiFi App, and I've tried several bind dead methods and recorded them in the Tenda binding troubleshooting . There's another easily overlooked point: if your parents' family has a machine that's five or six years old, take this opportunity to replace it directly. Many old firmware systems don't have cloud access at all. The app keeps prompting 'Please upgrade firmware first,' which I simply can't fix when I'm out of town.

binding must be done in front of the router in person, so you can complete it once you get home

I have made mistakes with the pacing of this before. The first year, wanting to be easy, I remotely instructed my mom to install the app herself, scan the code, and bind herself. It took forty minutes of effort without success. There's a fixed rule for binding: phone must be connected to the router's own WiFi to recognize . My mom's phone is connected to the neighbor's home network (she herself doesn't even know she's connected to it), and no matter how I scan, it always says 'No device found.' Later, when I went home for Spring Festival, I did it myself and finished in ten minutes:

connected router to my Mi Home account, not my mom's. The account is in my hands; she can't touch the settings page, nor does she need to. My mom's phone doesn't need to be installed at all; what she wants isn't a management router, it's internet access. She did three more things along the way: renaming WiFi to the familiar 'Home WiFi'; Manage passwords and store them in my own password book; Firmware updated to the latest version. Later, Mijia supported sharing devices with family accounts, so I shared the router with my mom. She could click and see how many devices in the house were online, but she didn't touch other buttons. This step is just icing on the cake; not doing it doesn't affect anything.

five types of remote work I can handle, I've done them all this year

counted and found that this past year, my mom's family had seven internet incidents, five of which I resolved at home.

First, crashes and restarts , most common, occurring three times in half a year. The symptom is that she can send messages on WeChat but the TV spins in circles. In the app, tap "Restart Router" to restore in one minute. Later, I set it to restart every Wednesday at 4 a.m., and the settings for each brand were in the about scheduled restarts. After setting it up, the number of crashes visibly decreased.

second, change the WiFi password . The downstairs neighbor asked my mom for the password once, and after that, that kid came in every day to play games, and my mom's video got stuck like slideshows. I changed my password directly in the app, then reconnected my mom's phone, and didn't trouble her the whole time. The complete anti-anti-theft-on method is this , with the core saying: If you don't give the password, you can't control who joins.

third, see who is online . My mom's family only has four channels online all year round: her phone, TV, camera, and Xiaoai speaker. All the devices were pre-changed to names she could understand—"mom's phone" and "TV"—and now there's an unfamiliar one that she can recognize at a glance. This year, I caught someone freeloading online twice.

fourth, DNS. For a while, she complained, "WeChat works well, nothing else can be opened." I remotely changed the DNS to 223.5.5.5 and 119.29.29.29, and it was resolved in ten minutes. The exact location of Xiaomi DNS changes is this article.

Fifth, remote on-site viewing . When she couldn't explain clearly, I asked her to point her phone camera at the router and the optical modem to take pictures of each time. I judged by the color of the lights: the router's blue light stayed on normally, while the orange light stayed on was a matter of the upper-level network; If the optical modem (LOS) flashes red light, the optical path is broken—just report it for repair. I memorized the Xiaomi Lantern Communication and Light Modem LOS two times. I've memorized these two charts, and I can easily grasp them from the videos.

three types that remote work can't handle, explain them clearly first so you don't rush

also had to have someone come to me; I made two trips this year. First, physical layer fault: The optical modem (ONT) LOS flashed red in the hallway. The fiber optic was crushed by the renovation team, so I had to call number 10,000. The technician brought a fusion fiber machine, and no matter how many times I tried it out of the way, it didn't work. Second, need to change cables: Her TV box once had a loose HDMI cable, and with a screen separate, there was really no other way. In the end, they asked a young man from the property management to help plug it in. Third, equipment replacement : the optical modem aged and was replaced with a new one, the LOID was re-registered, and the bridge was restored. I spent two hours working on site. Before arriving, make sure to check your broadband account password and bring it with you to avoid getting caught on the spot. The method is this article.