Wifi Requirements

Why we need the venue’s Wi-Fi (and what to do if it won’t connect)

Short answer: our karaoke system needs a working internet connection at the venue to stream songs, check licenses, and keep the song list up to date. If the venue’s Wi-Fi requires you to visit a special login page first (a “captive portal”), the system won’t be able to access the Internet — which means it won’t work properly. If you’re just having a party at home using your regular home Wi-Fi, then odds are 99.99% you don’t have a captive-portal Wi-Fi, so you can stop reading here (as long as you have your wifi name and password ready for us when we arrive). 🎉

What is a “captive portal” and why it breaks things

A captive portal is the pop-up web page you sometimes get at airports, hotels, cafés or event venues that asks you to accept terms, enter a code, log in, or pay before you can use the network. Until a human opens a browser and completes that page, most devices are blocked from normal internet access — and our karaoke box can’t open that page for you. That’s why a captive-portal Wi-Fi will stop the system from streaming or updating.

How to Tell if Your Wi-Fi Has One

Try connecting a phone or laptop to the venue Wi-Fi. If you see a pop-up page asking you to log in or accept terms before getting internet access, that’s a captive portal.

What to do (quick options)

  1. Use the venue’s regular (non-captive) Wi-Fi — best option. Have the Wi-Fi name (SSID) and password ready before the event so we can connect during setup.
  2. If the venue uses a captive portal: ask the venue to either
    • add our device’s MAC address to a whitelist (so it bypasses the portal), or
    • provide a separate guest network that does not require a browser login.
  3. Use a phone hotspot (your phone becomes the Wi-Fi router) — this works well for small/private events. If you use a phone hotspot, remember it uses mobile data — a four hour party will use at most about 300MB, however because most of our systems have the songs pre-downloaded that number may in fact be much smaller. Monitor your data plan to avoid overage charges.