Connecting to utexas-iot Wi-Fi

Current UT Austin students, faculty, staff, and official visitors have access to the utexas-iot (Internet of things) wireless network on campus. 

To connect to utexas-iot, your device must support WPA2-PSK (aka. "WPA2 Personal" or "WPA2 Home"), and you must register your device with your UT EID. You will need some other device that is already online (eg. your laptop connected to utexas Wi-Fi, or smartphone on cellular provider's network) to complete this process.

Compatibility / Requirements

• Must have current/active UT Austin EID credentials (to register your device)
• Device must support one of 802.11a (Wi-Fi 2), 802.11g (Wi-Fi 3), 802,11n (Wi-Fi 4), 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5), 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6)
  • Operates at 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrums
• Device must support WPA2-PSK with AES encryption

Registration Procedure

1. Make sure MAC address randomization is turned off on your device (see KB0019068)
2. Identify the MAC address of your device
   • Brown University has written a handy guide on how to look up the MAC address of several different devices
3. Go to the Network Portal at https://network.utexas.edu
4. Log in with your UT EID
5. Click the "Register Wi-Fi  Device" button
6. Enter your MAC address, device description, and select an appropriate network profile
7. Click the "Register" button
8. You will see a confirmation pop-up stating registration is complete and providing you with your Wi-Fi key
   1. You can look up the key at any time by clicking on the eye icon next to the entry on the Network Portal

Logging in from your IoT device

1. Select utexas-iot from the available wireless networks
2. Enter the key provided to you in step 8 above

Configuring Your IoT Device via Mobile App

Some IoT devices may require that you use a mobile app to configure the IoT device to connect to Wi-Fi. In some such cases, that mobile app may try to do this by copying its own Wi-Fi settings to the IoT device (the assumption being that both devices are on a typical home network). This may still be possible using the utexas-iot network, but will require some extra steps.

1. Register and connect your mobile device (phone, tablet, etc.) to utexas-iot following the instructions above
2. Register your IoT device (speaker, lamp, lightbulb, etc.) for utexas-iot following the instructions above
3. While your mobile device is connected to utexas-iot, launch the appropriate mobile app for your IoT device, and follow the onboarding procedure per the IoT device manufacturer's documentation

Note: If your mobile device was registered for utexas-iot prior to December 20, 2021, you may need to delete that registration and re-register.

Troubleshooting

• Devices registered before December 20, 2021 were issued unique keys for each device. Devices registered on or after that date will have the same key for all devices for that EID
• The keys are 16 or 20 digit numbers. There are no spaces in between the digits. They are displayed on the Network Portal with spaces to aid readbility.
• To look up the key for a given device, you can go to https://network.utexas.edu, select "Wi-Fi Devices", and click the eye icon to unmask the password
• To unregister a device, go to https://network.utexas.edu, select "Wi-Fi Devices", and click the "X" on the row for the device you wish to unregister

Security

utexas-iot is encrypted over the air using WPA2-AES and a pre-shared key that is unique to each user. If you believe your individual pre-shared key has been compromised, please contact networking@its.utexas.edu to have your key reset. Note that resetting your key will require re-registering and re-configuring all your devices on utexas-iot.

Applications that require publicly accessible IP addresses

Due to the large number of devices on the wireless network, connected devices are not assigned publicly accessible IP addresses.