Your van's network
The Network tab on the Habitation dashboard answers the questions you actually ask about your van's internet: are we online, over what, how good is it, and what is connected. It needs a router Sensa can read, such as a Teltonika.
The Network card
Day to day the tab shows one card.
- At the top: Online or Offline, which connection you are on, how good it is (Good, Fair or Poor), and how many devices are connected, wired and wireless.
- Beneath it: your router and your Starlink dish, each as a small box with its picture, its status, Restart and a round power button.
- Beside them: Order of use, the list of your internet connections in the order the router tries them.
Tap a connection in the list to open its readings. For the dish, the same popup carries its sleep window, Restart and power.
Restart asks twice: the first press changes it to Restart now?, with Cancel beside it, so a stray tap does nothing. A router or dish is back in a couple of minutes.
Choosing which connection comes first
Your router can have more than one way onto the internet, for example Starlink, a mobile SIM and a campsite's Wi-Fi. It uses the first one in Order of use that is working, and moves down the list when one drops.
To change the order, drag a connection up or down the list and let go. With a finger, press and hold until it lifts; with a mouse, press and move. The router takes the new order straight away.
The list keeps itself up to date while it is on screen, so if you change the order in the router's own web page, Sensa shows it within a few seconds.
The list shows the connections your router has enabled. One that is switched off in the router does not appear, so there is nothing to drag that would never be used.
With Nerd Mode on
Turn on Nerd Mode and, on a tablet or larger screen, the tab becomes a diagram of the whole network:
- On the left, your internet connections in order of use. Each one says whether it is In use, on Standby, Asleep or Down, with a bar for each reading behind its grade, and the dish shows how much power it is drawing. Drag a connection to reorder it here too.
- In the middle, your router, with Restart beneath it.
- On the right, your van's separate networks (for example Secure, IoT, CCTV and Guest), each with how many devices are on it, wired and wireless, and whether it can reach the internet. Devices lists them by name. A network your router does not have reads Not set up.
The router and dish show their firmware version in the bottom left corner.
A phone is too narrow for the diagram, so with Nerd Mode on a phone shows the individual cards instead: the connection order, the router, the dish and any network switch.
Is your router ready for Sensa Nomad?
Open Settings, choose the Devices tab and tap the cog on your Teltonika router's row. The router's settings ask only for its admin password; the username is always admin.
Beneath them, Configure Router for Sensa Nomad reads your router and shows how ready it is for the way Sensa Nomad sets up a van's network, as a percentage. Below that is a card for each part of the van, such as your own devices, smart devices, cameras and guest Wi-Fi, each marked Ready, Changes, New or Check by hand, with a plain sentence for each thing that would change.
It only looks. Nothing on your router is changed. With Nerd Mode on, each card has Details, a table of every setting as it is now and as it would be.
The router's GPS
A Teltonika router with GPS can be the van's GPS source, and it drives the Cab speedometer. GPS Refresh on the router's settings is how often Sensa reads it, from 1 second (the default, so the speedometer keeps up) to 300 seconds. The router's GPS must be switched on in the router itself; the Configure Router screen shows whether it is.
Admin Lock
If you have switched on Admin Lock, the router and dish Power, Restart and Sleep controls ask for the Settings PIN first, wherever they appear. Type it once and the next control does not ask again until the unlock ends.