...I fixed an Issue Where IFTTT Couldn't See the Name of The WiFI Network My Phone was Connecting to

I've entered the IoT world and bought my first smart bulb. Nothing fancy, just cheap. Something to play with. I'd the bright idea (pun absolutely intended) of turning on a light to the rear of the house as soon as my wife's (android) phone connected to our home's WiFi network.

IFTTT is usually a good option for this and I'd tested its "Android Device" services trigger - "Connects to a specific WiFi network" with good results. An integration with the "Smart Life" service allowed me to turn the light on once the trigger had been activated.

This was all well and good on my own phone, but when it came to my wife's, the simple applet refused to do what it said on the tin.

I debugged by creating a simple Applet which used the same trigger, but instead of turning the light on it sent a system notification from the IFTTT with a simple message "Connected to $SSID_NAME". In the case of my own phone, $SSID_NAME resolved to the name of our network, however on my wife's it displayed "unknown ssid". Because of this, the "specific WiFi network" name was never matched.

Strange.

The applets were identical. I'd not done anything differently when installing IFTTT and the Smart Life apps on our phones. No extra permissions, nothing.

A spate of googling later, brought me to the realisation that my wife's IFTTT app needed the "Location" permission in order to see the WiFi network's name. I'd been messing around with random IFTTT services on my own phone. These included location service, which had of course prompted me to grant the Location permission.

Once I'd manually granted IFTTT the location permission through the system app settings, my wife's phone was able to turn on the light as soon as she'd arrived home.

I fixed the Netflix 15001 Error on Android 4.3 JSS15R

Myself and my girlfriend bought Nexus 7 (2013) devices.

Last week, I bought a chromecast from the US so we were all excited to get Netflix up and running.

Both devices displayed the following error when we launched Netflix:

Sorry, we could not reach the Netflix service. Please check Network Settings to connect to an available network and use Netflix (15001)

We could get no further than the above. Not even as far as the login screen.

I tried the following to resolve the issue - all without success:

• Uninstalled/Re-Installed the Netflix Application
• Ensured I was on the latest version of Android 4.3 (JSS15R)
• Cleared Google Service Framework cache and data.
• Did a full factory reset.

I basically did everything short of flashing the device.

I'd pretty much given up on Netflix completely until a trip to France this week.

For the craic, I tried Netflix from my Hotel. I was VERY surprised to find that I could get to the login screen! Of course, since Netflix isn't available in France, I couldn't get beyond that point.

I was delighted to get back to Ireland last night to find that my Netflix app now worked :)

Anyway, my girlfriend's Nexus was still showing the error above.
Here's what I did to resolve the issue for her.

1. Set a French DNS IP in Android's network settings
1. I found the French DNS IP here (80.67.169.12 worked for me)
2. To set a DNS IP manually, you must go to your network's advanced settings and choose "Static" for IP Settings.
2. Once I'd done this, I launched the Netflix app, which got as far as the login screen.
3. I then went back and set the Network option to DHCP again.
4. Launching the Netflix app again, I was brought to the login screen without issue and could finally log in to use Netflix with the chromecast.

It's an absolute farce that I had to trick a service that I've paid money for into thinking I was in a different country just to use it!

Netflix really need to sort their android development out!