Hi cbus nerds. Thought I'd post a bridge mode setup for dummies... Having just had to reset all this myself because of a lost password, I thought I'd add a few "Dummie lightbulb" notes into the Wiser manual. Enjoy. Q/ What is a WISER? A/ It's basically a ROUTER (made by someone else)..running some CIS tweeked firmware with a small plastic box connected (the CNI) ..which connects it to cbus via that pink cable..and an even smaller box joining the two (which has the power socket) Q/ Why would you want bridge mode anyway? A/ Well most places that would have the need for a WISER would already have a pretty decent wireless network set-up all ready. I mean who doesn't right? And that goes for pretty much every premisses now..let alone tech nerdy type houses with cbus! SO now you have your wifi and IP addresses all setup, why would you want WISER to come along and have to remove your perfectly good existing wifi router and change all those other network settings that have taken so long to set up? Get the picture! That's why you need bridge mode. Q/ What does bridge mode do? A/ It turns the WISER into a dumb networked box like every other piece of networked/interfaced gear you now have eg think smartTV, bluray player, networked music, whatever.. In other words, bridge mode switches off the WISERS router function. Q/ But hey. This is all preconfigured right? And the settings are in the manual. A/ Wrong. Well there is talk of setting up a mode "B" in the manual, but I found this confusing and lacking on detail, so here it is for dummies: The WISER does not come preconfigured in bridge mode. Even though this is by far the most likely mode you'll want to use (see why above). It comes configured out of the box as a Router. With the wifi turned on. What you have to do is take the WISER and connect it to a computer via ethernet cable. (Disconnect the computer from your main network first..including all it's wifi..) The ethernet cable plugs into the WISER via one of the LAN ports. *NOT* the port labelled "Internet" on the little box at the back that connects the CNI unit (the one next to the power socket) ..but one of the 3 ports on the actual main plastic box of the wiser ...Anyway, browse onto the WISER GUI by typing 192.168.2.1 (the settings that come out of the box) via your browser and admin admin (the default user name and password). Once you are in the GUI....it can take a while, you need to find the WISER config page and the first thing you need to do is turn off the wifi. So do that first.. (otherwise that little critter will start a new wifi network with settings 192.168.2.1.. which can get a bit confusing to say the least..) Anyway turn off the wifi and save this configuration first. It takes a while to re-boot. The next thing to do is go to the setup tab and enter all the bridge mode settings: And follow carefully (because it's not intuitive) Internet Connection type : Automatic Configuration - DHCP Option settings leave blank Network Setup: Local IP address 192.xxx.0.xx (whatever the static IP address you want the WISER interface to be) Subset mask: 255.255.255.0.. (or whatever you use) DHCP Server Settings: Disabled Now change your password (more of that later) Then reboot again. Of course this will swap the IP address to 192.xxx.0.xx (that you chose before) so you will need to wait a while to log back in on that address.. If it doesn't work the first time have a cup of tea, reboot the wiser (by pulling the power plug) and/or reboot your existing router. Now the next thing to do is log back into the new Ip address and back up the configuration (It's a button under the Administration tab). This will produce a little file called config.bin which saves all these settings. That way if months/years down the track you forget all this along with your password.. (or can't find this post)... you can restore everything by doing a cold boot to original firmware ( what came out of the box).. and reload these new bridge mode settings (along with the password you just forgot). You'd then set a different new password (that you can now remember) and you are all sweet.. Q/ Why would you need to do that? A/ Well remember the original firmware sets up everything as a router.. So without this, you'd be back at the beginning! Q/ Isn't there a simpler way to reset your password? A/ Well short answer ... NO. Remember the WISER was all originally set up and designed as a router.. Password reset like this is common for a lot of these types of network gear.. I'd forgotten that.., ;) If you stuff up at any stage along the way, remember you can reset back to factory by powering the Wiser on whilst holding in the reset button (via a paper clip) Any mistakes in this blog please contribute. But this worked for me :) Cheers And enjoy! :) Footnote: The all important Wiser bridge mode settings should look something like this: (with your different local static IP address of course)
