Device troubleshooting
Diagnose missing readings, weak cellular signal, offline devices, low battery, and firmware update failures using staff portal indicators and device error codes.
Most device problems fall into one of five buckets: readings stop arriving, the cellular signal is weak, the device looks offline in the portal, the battery is low, or a firmware push has failed. Work through the relevant section below before calling support. Most issues clear in under five minutes once you know what to check.
No readings coming through
If the patient says they took a reading but the portal shows nothing:
Open Devices and find the row by Serial Number. Look at the Last Active column. This is when the device gateway last heard from the device. Anything older than 24 hours means the device hasn't transmitted recently, regardless of what the patient pressed.
Click the row to open Device Details. On the Status tab, check Connection Status. CONNECTED with a green dot means the device has a live MQTT session; anything else means the radio is asleep or out of coverage.
Open the Telemetry tab. If the patient's most recent reading is listed here but missing from Patients -> Observations, the background auto-sync may have failed. Refresh the page and wait 30 seconds, or have a manager run a manual sync.
If telemetry is genuinely empty, ask the patient to take one more reading while you watch the page. Cellular cellular devices push within 30 seconds of a successful measurement; if nothing appears, the issue is on the device side, not the portal side.
Patients sometimes take a reading right after waking up or in a basement. Both situations can delay the cellular handshake. Ask them to retry near a window or in a different room and see if the reading arrives within a minute.
Weak cellular signal
The device tries to attach to the carrier closest to the patient's home, but reception varies. Symptoms include slow reading uploads, intermittent CONNECTED state, or device error codes printed on the device screen.
The two error codes you'll see most often here are:
- Error 12. Signal Tower Connection Failed. The device cannot reach the cellular tower. Tell the patient: "Move closer to a window, ideally to the same spot you get a strong cell signal on your phone, then take the reading again."
- Error 16. Server Communication Failed. The device reached the tower but couldn't complete the round trip to the device gateway. Same patient guidance: move, retry, then escalate if it persists.
If the patient's home is in a known dead zone, document it in Patients -> Notes and consider whether a different carrier-region SKU is needed. Your administrator can swap the device through Devices -> Return and ship a replacement.
Device shows offline
A device is treated as offline when Last Active is older than 24 hours and Status is something other than active. Common causes, in rough order of likelihood:
- Patient unplugged it for travel and left it in a suitcase.
- Battery is fully drained (see below).
- Device received error 11 (SIM card error) or error 14 (abnormal certification) and is in a hard-fail state.
- Carrier maintenance in the patient's region.
Filter the Devices table by Inactive preset (top of the page) to see all offline devices at once.
Call the patient. If they confirm the device is plugged in and the battery icon on the device shows charge, ask them to take one reading. That often nudges it back online.
If a reading still doesn't transmit and the device shows a numeric error code on its screen, look up the code below.
Battery issues
Most cellular blood pressure monitors run on four AA batteries; scales and oximeters use built-in lithium cells. The Battery column in Devices is the truth of record:
- Battery > 50%: fine, no action.
- Battery 20–50%: schedule a battery swap on the patient's next contact. Filter the Devices table to Battery: Medium (20–50%) for a worklist.
- Battery < 20%: call the patient today. Use Battery: Low (<20%) as the filter.
When the device reports zero battery for three consecutive readings or goes silent for more than 48 hours after a low-battery alert, treat it as a replacement candidate.
If the patient is on a high-acuity care plan (CHF, post-discharge hypertension), a low-battery condition counts as an interrupted monitoring day. Flag the patient in Monitoring -> Workflows and prioritize a same-day battery swap.
device error codes you should know
The device's screen will display a two-digit code when it can't complete a reading. These are the codes the portal currently surfaces:
| Code | What it means | What to tell the patient | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | SIM card error | "Open the battery compartment, gently reseat the SIM card, and try again." | High, escalate to admin if persistent |
| 12 | Signal tower connection failed | "Move closer to a window or to where your phone gets strong signal, then retry." | High |
| 13 | MQTT server connection failed | "Take the reading again. If it fails twice in a row, call us." | Medium |
| 14 | Abnormal certification | "Don't keep retrying. We need to swap the device." | Critical, replace device |
| 16 | Server communication failed | "Move closer to a window and retry. If it keeps failing, call us." | High |
| 17 | Data delivery failed | "The reading didn't reach us. Take it one more time." | Medium |
Error 14 is the only one that requires a hardware swap on first occurrence. The others are worth one or two retries before escalating.
Firmware update failures
Firmware updates push silently from the device gateway when the device is idle and plugged in. You'll occasionally see a device stuck on an old firmware version (visible at Devices -> Details -> General -> Firmware Version).
Confirm the device has been online for at least one full 24-hour cycle since the firmware was released. Updates are bundled with the daily heartbeat.
Check Battery. Firmware will not flash below 30%. The device refuses to start a write it can't finish.
Ask the patient to take one fresh reading. Successful telemetry triggers the device gateway to push any pending update on the device's next idle window.
If the version still hasn't moved after 72 hours, treat it as stuck. Open a ticket with the platform admin so they can force a re-provision through the device gateway console.
A device that fails three consecutive firmware pushes should be returned through Devices -> Return -> Condition: Needs Repair. See Replacements & returns for the swap-out workflow.