cant connect robot app to python controller

[afsara-ben]

I followed all the steps to connect the python controller - same hotspot network, RTSP setting, toggling between gamepad and phone mode, but the script still waits for the connection to be established.

Device: Macbook M1 pro
robot app: pixel 4A
Hotspot established over data connection from an iphone

video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SwfD1kWngTDJJRv19

[isha382]

Hi @afsara-ben , the issue is as you are using hotspot as data connection it is required that both the mobile and the python controller to be on the same wifi. So if you will connect both mobile and laptop through a wifi or using third phone taking hotspot to the laptop and the robot app mobile device then it will surely work.
Thanks

[thias15]

Hi @afsara-ben, sorry for the very long delay. @isha382's intuition is right: discovery is the most common failure mode here. The Python controller advertises itself via mDNS/Bonjour and the robot phone uses Network Service Discovery (NSD) to find it. A couple of things that commonly break this on a personal hotspot:

1. AP isolation. Many phone hotspots (iPhone in particular) isolate clients from each other so they can't see each other directly. That blocks the multicast traffic NSD relies on.
2. Different subnets between the laptop and the robot phone. From the Mac, run ifconfig and look at the IP on en0 (or whichever interface is on the hotspot). Open the WiFi settings on the Pixel 4A and check its IP. They should be on the same /24. If they aren't, NSD won't find the laptop.
3. macOS firewall blocking the Python script's incoming connections. Check System Settings → Network → Firewall. Either turn it off temporarily, or allow the Python interpreter.

Quick experiments that narrow it down:

• Try the same setup on a regular home WiFi router (not iPhone hotspot). If it works, the iPhone hotspot is the culprit.
• Try connecting another OpenBot Android phone as the controller instead of the Mac. If that also fails on the same hotspot, it's purely a network issue, not the Python script.

Is this still happening for you on the latest master? If yes, please share which of the above you've tried and we can dig deeper.