For most people, an Internet router is a little strange looking box that sits in a corner, with green lights flashing on and off. If you have a Netgear router And have wondered what the WPS button is for you have come to the right place.
Where Is It?
DigitalCitizen has a great visual guide of where to find it:
Setting Up The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 Dual Band Wireless Router – R7000
It is true that many Internet users (perhaps even most of them) do not feel the need to know how the routers work, but the different buttons or lights mean.
More often than not, most people only care when a problem happens.
Very often, they end up calling the helpline for their Internet providers and are faced with questions that can be quite meaningless. At least in many cases, users themselves could have solved the problem they had just a little bit more knowledge about the routers.
On this site, we do believe in empowering people by giving them some basic knowledge of technology. Certainly, anybody using any of the technology we discuss should be able to follow our tutorials without encountering any major problems. This should certainly be the case with the WPS button on Netgear router.
The first thing you will need to understand before you can go any further is what WPS actually means. It’s really a general thing that not only affects Netgear router but all routers. All of them have a WPS button.
WPS is, you have probably surmised, an acronym and, as such, it must stand for something meaningful. It stands for Wi-Fi Protected Setup. This is my not say much to you. Explaining what it is, however, does not take long and most people understand what it is after a short explanation.
Basically, as you know, Wi-Fi is always password-protected. Whether publicly or privately Wi-Fi networks have a password attached by default. This password is often found at the back of the router and this is no different when we are talking about a Netgear router. Advanced users convert to change the password for their Wi-Fi network. More often than not this is done for security purposes it is a lot harder for a hacker to break into The password that has been created by a user, of course, the password is strong) then it is a default password.
What is the WPS button effectively does is to make the Wi-Fi network temporarily available without a password? This is never a default option because otherwise, anyone within range could have access to your Wi-Fi network but it does come in handy in certain circumstances.
How to Use the WPS Button On A Netgear Router
Using the WPS button is exactly the same as any other router, so this part of the tutorial will be helpful even for those of you who do not have a Netgear router but a different one. Although we refer to a Netgear router, our instructions will apply to any other model.
Not that we have said all of that, let’s look at how you can use your WPS button. The first thing that you will need to make sure of is that your router is turned on (i.e., that he has the power on). You can check this easily by making sure that the power light is on.
This light should not be flashing, it should be permanently on. If it is not, then check that the router is actually plugged in and if it is not, then plug it in. The next thing you will need to do is to locate the WPS button at the back of your neck your router and press it. Then grab the computer or mobile device that you would like to connect through a WPS and activate this following the proper instruction on your device.
How you would connect a computer or mobile device to the WPS network with different greatly so we cannot go to that in this article but you should find out easily elsewhere.
Why Do You Use WPS?
So, now that you know what that WPS is and how to turn it on, you may be wondering why on earth would you want to use it anymore circumstances. In the section of the article, this is what we will talk about it.
The first thing that you need to know is that it is not possible to use the WPS wireless connection under all conditions. There are certain conditions that need to be met beforehand. As we saw earlier The purpose of WPS is to allow wireless devices (for example, a computer but also smart phone or any other Wi-Fi abled mobile device) to connect to your Wi-Fi network in a faster and easier manner.
Not all wireless networks will allow WPS, however, it is important that you check first if yours does. Your wireless network will need a WPA or a WPA 2 in order to allow WPS connectivity.
If you turn the WPS button on then any wireless device within reach should be able to connect to your Wi-Fi network. So you have to be very careful when and how to use this. It is definitely not recommended that you keep it on for a long period time are you my users in your vicinity using your Wi-Fi for free.
The first thing that you need to do is to go into the network settings of whichever device you are intending to connect using WPS. You should do this even before you turn the WPS button. So, just in case you are this article instructions without having read it through first, if you have already turned the WPS button on you should turn it back off before you proceed.
Get a hold of the device (desktop computer, laptop computer, tomorrow mobile phone, tablet, etc.) and go into the network settings. How do you do this would vary a lot from device to device died for our purposes we are going to assume that you already know how to do this. Do not do anything else with your settings just need them there so that you are ready for the next step. Now go back to unity and router and turn the WPS button on.
“The best thing to do is always keep randomly generated passwords everywhere and use a password tool to manage it, and then you don’t have to remember those passwords at all, just the master password that unlocks the database.” – Kevin Mitnick
Once you have turned the WPS button on you should be able to see different network options under your network settings on your device. You should now see that the Wi-Fi network has become available so you can select it and your device will be automatically connected to it without any need for introducing long, convoluted passwords. Of course, and we insist because some people may not realize this, anybody else within range would be able to do the same thing.
Another important thing to know is that he might take a few moments for the WPS to come actually on so you want to be a little bit patient. Another important thing is that for some reason on the net gear router and almost routers in the market the WPS button and the power button are located in extremely close to each other.
So you do need to be very careful when trying to turn WPS on because you might accidentally turn the router off and if your internet router is off you will not be able to use WPS obviously. Do not worry if this happens and you accidentally turn the router on. If that happened simply turn it back on but to wait until it is fully on and you are connected to the Internet and to the Wi-Fi network before present the WPS button.
That is really important as, again, WPS will not work unless you obviously have an Internet connection. Remember that it can take a while for the router to connect to the Internet and to generate a Wi-Fi signal when you restart it. So wait until all the lights are on (the power light, the Wi-Fi light, and the Internet light) before pressing the WPS button on your router.
It’s also important to notice that the power light, as we already said, should be permanently on and not flashing but, we should also add, that the Internet light and the Wi-Fi light should be flashing. So I wait until all three lights are like that before you press the WPS button router.
There are many reasons why you would use the WPS. Need to connect your Wi-Fi network quickly and without having to worry about passwords and such like. Using wireless printers are other wireless devices that you only use sporadically it made it a lot easier and more convenient when you press the WPS button and connect your device that way.
If you can see you send a WPS button on a Netgear router is extremely easy and can be very convenient when we just need to connect your Wi-Fi quickly for a brief period of time. If you have any feedback on this article or would like to share your experience using the WPS button or a Netgear router, please consider leaving us a message in the comment section below!
