While getting your grill connected with your home WiFi should be easy and seamless, occasionally that's not the case. It's important to make sure that your home WiFi is set up properly when trying to connect any smart device, whether that be a TV, any home automation system or, in this case, your Traeger.
For your grill to utilize your grill's WiFIRE capabilities successfully, you will need to make sure the grill's location receives a signal strength between -30 and -70dbm. This strength allows it to connect and operate, as well as receive and download updates.
To test the signal strength where you want to place your grill, you can install a WiFi signal strength app to your phone (there are many highly-rated, free apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play). If the signal strength is low where you wish to place your grill, consider investing in an inexpensive additional router to boost your signal.
Like most smart home connected devices, Traeger WiFIRE grills require a 2.4GHz band. Many internet providers have combined their 2.4 and 5GHz bands, meaning you may not see both options in your available networks list. In this case, your home WiFi will automatically select the band most appropriate for the connecting device.
Is your WiFi Network name long, include spaces or have special characters? Traeger grill controllers only recognize network names with 32 or fewer characters. Note that spaces and special characters take up 3 of the 32-character limit.
Example: If your WiFi network is called "This is my long network name" the controller recognizes that as 38 characters instead of the 23 letters, and it will not connect.
Have you set up any enhanced or additional security measures on your home network? Any additional network security measures will prevent the grill-to-phone pairing process from completing. Make sure the grill is whitelisted or consider investing in a dedicated inexpensive router for the grill.