First setup on your phone

Before you start

• The controller is wired up — see the wiring guide if you haven't done that yet.
• The 12 V adapter is plugged in. The little green LED on the controller body is lit.
• Your phone is fully charged — you'll be on the controller's WiFi for ~5 minutes and you don't want it dying mid-setup.
• You're standing within 5 metres of the controller (the AP-mode hotspot is 2.4 GHz, low-power — not for through-walls range).

The four screens — at a glance

Same flow on iPhone and Android. The dashboard is responsive — these screenshots are at iPhone 17 Pro size but render identically on every modern phone.

Step 01 Join the hotspot

Step 02 Choose your stage

Step 03 Set VPD target

Step 04 Test CH1

Step 1 · Join the hotspot

1. On your phone, open Settings → WiFi.
2. Look for a network named BudMaster-XXXX — the four-character suffix is unique to your controller (printed on the label on the underside).
3. Tap to join. No password for first-time setup.
4. Your phone may say "no internet" — that's correct. The controller's hotspot is for setup only; it doesn't bridge to the internet.

Step 2 · Choose your stage

The dashboard auto-loads when you join the hotspot. Four stage cards appear — pick the one you're growing in.

Tap your stage. The card highlights green with a check badge. Tap Continue.

You can change stage later in Settings → Stage. The firmware auto-tunes VPD, light schedule, and humidity targets to whatever stage you're in.

Step 3 · Set your VPD target

VPD (Vapour Pressure Deficit) is the "single dial" the controller balances temperature and humidity around. Higher VPD = drier air; lower VPD = more humid.

The slider is pre-set to your stage's recommended sweet spot (1.2 kPa for Flower in the example). The hint card below shows the safe range for the current stage — green zone is the sweet spot, amber/red zones are stress zones.

1. Drag the slider if you want to deviate from the default.
2. Tap Continue when done.

Step 4 · Test CH1

You're now on the dashboard. The CH1 card is highlighted with a slider showing 0%.

1. Drag the CH1 slider to 50%.
2. The extract fan should spin up within 1 second. The fan icon on the card animates to confirm.
3. The card status changes from 12V · IDLE to 12V · LIVE.
4. If everything works: drag CH1 back to 0%, test CH2, CH3, CH4 the same way, then turn on Auto Mode at the top of the dashboard.

Fan doesn't spin?

• Check polarity — swap red/black if you wired it backwards (see the wiring guide).
• Check the 12 V adapter is plugged into the wall and the controller's PWR terminal.
• Check the fan itself works — try plugging it into a known-good 12 V supply directly.

Dashboard online · No account · No cloud · LAN-only

That banner is the reminder that BudMaster doesn't phone home, doesn't need an account, doesn't need internet. Everything's running on the controller itself.

Switch from hotspot to your home WiFi (optional)

By default the controller stays in AP-mode hotspot. To control it from your phone while on your home WiFi instead:

1. Dashboard → Settings → Network → Join home WiFi.
2. Enter your home network's SSID and password.
3. Controller reboots, joins your home WiFi.
4. From now on, open budmaster.local from any device on your home network.

The hotspot stays available as a fallback — if you reset the WiFi credentials (hold the reset button for 5 sec), the hotspot comes back on.