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Instructor notes

PhotoRobot Locator App & FRFind

30 min·BASIC·Operator|Network Specialist

Instructor-only material. Not published to academy.photorobot.io public site.

Delivery context

Locator is a small module — content is mostly tool-walkthrough, not theoretical. Goal is practical fluency, not deep knowledge.

This module is fundamentally a demo session. Talk + slides won’t beat 5 minutes of live Locator + Identify + LED-blink demonstration.

Time allocation (45-min standard)

Min Topic Format
0-3 Why Locator exists — IP-to-physical-machine problem Talk + show physical Control Unit
3-10 Three surfaces overview + when to use which Talk + screenshots / live demo of each
10-22 Live demo: CAPP integrated locator workflow Live demo (15 min)
22-27 Locator output columns (Name, Network, Unit, Version, Discovered, Identify) Walk through actual list
27-32 When Locator doesn’t find a unit (5 typical symptoms) Talk + scenario discussion
32-37 iOS app + FRFind CLI quick tour Show screenshots / brief demo
37-45 Q&A + workbook hand-off Discussion

Workbook discussion = separate 15-20 min block. Exercises 1, 2, 3 are quick group activities; Exercise 4 (mobile vs desktop decision) is deeper team conversation.

Live demo points

This module lives or dies on the live demo. Prepare beforehand:

  1. (at minute 10-22) Full CAPP integrated workflow — open Settings, navigate to Robots / Control units, walk through each column:

    • Point to a unit’s Name and IP
    • Click Identify → walk through the studio, point at the physical unit whose LED is blinking
    • Click the unit’s name → open its web interface in browser
    • Note the firmware version
    • Then: deliberately power off one Control Unit, walk students through what happens in Locator (green → gray, “Discovered” timestamp freezes)
    • Power it back on, refresh Locator, show recovery

  2. (at minute 32-37) iOS app demo — open the iOS app on a phone or tablet, scan the same network, show the parallel result. Identify same unit from phone — LED blinks again.

  3. (at minute 32-37) FRFind quick demo — open Terminal, run frfind, show raw text output. Pipe through grep to extract IPs: frfind | grep '10\.1'. Students get the “ah, it’s just CLI” moment.

If delivering online without lab access: use prerecorded screencasts of all three demos. Locator’s value is visual — text descriptions don’t substitute.

Common mistakes / misunderstandings to anticipate

“Why is Android discontinued? My customer uses Android phones.”

Be direct: PhotoRobot’s mobile strategy is iOS-only (consistent across Locator and Touch apps). The decision reflects engineering bandwidth, not market preference. Customer with Android-only mobile fleet has options:

Do NOT promise Android version is coming — it isn’t.

“Identify doesn’t work — I clicked it but no LED blinks”

Common causes:

  1. LED is broken or burned out — visible inspection of the unit confirms
  2. LED is obscured (cabinet, dust cover, wrong angle of view)
  3. Unit is powered but Control Unit board has an issue → reboot the unit
  4. CAPP version is too old to send the identify command → upgrade CAPP

Walk students through this troubleshooting flow in workbook Exercise 3.

“Two units with the same IP — what’s going on?”

This is workbook Exercise 2 question 2. Common student confusion: “but the network can’t have two units with same IP!” — actually it CAN have two entries in Locator with same IP, briefly, during DHCP reassignment. The network protocol handles the collision (one wins), but Locator shows both until cache refreshes. Reality check: power-cycle one, problem resolves.

“Browser direct access — should I always use that instead of CAPP?”

No. Browser direct access is for diagnostic / service purposes. Daily operation goes through CAPP (which uses the same IPs but with proper workflow context). Don’t reboot units via browser mid-sequence — break the active capture.

“I have to install Locator app on every phone?”

For paid PhotoRobot Accounts, Locator is downloadable from Account Downloads. Reframe: it’s a small download (mobile app size). Install once per device, don’t bother uninstalling. The app is free with the account.

Q&A anticipation

  1. “Can FRFind do continuous monitoring?” Answer: FRFind itself is a one-shot scan. Continuous monitoring requires wrapper scripting (cron + parse + alert). PhotoRobot Support may have a reference script — ask them rather than building from scratch.

  2. “What’s the latest CAPP version that has integrated Locator?” Answer: This is a moving target — check CAPP release notes. The integrated Locator has been available since CAPP introduced unit-search integration (recent versions). Always upgrade to latest Stable.

  3. “Can iOS Locator do everything CAPP integrated can?” Answer: iOS app does discovery + identify. It doesn’t have CAPP’s full unit info table (Name, Network, Version, Discovered are all there, but browser access to unit’s web interface is awkward on mobile). Use iOS app for “is unit X online?” and “which unit is X?” — use CAPP for richer info.

  4. “What if I lost my account access — can I still download Locator?” Answer: iOS App Store has the public download (less reliable for paid customer use because subscription unlinking, etc. is unclear). Always prefer Account Downloads — it links to your install + license context.

  5. “Why doesn’t Locator show units on different subnets?” Answer: Section 2 of B03 textbook explains: UDP broadcast doesn’t cross subnets. Locator (any surface) relies on UDP broadcast. If units are on different subnets from the device running Locator, they won’t appear. Solution: same-subnet design (per B03 networking principles).

Workbook discussion plan

Min Exercise Format
0-3 Exercise 1 (choose right surface) Quick round-robin
3-10 Exercise 2 (interpret Locator output) Walk through together, draw on whiteboard
10-15 Exercise 3 (triage with Locator) Group discussion
15-20 Exercise 4 (mobile vs desktop) — best for studios where students will actually deploy this Team conversation

Exercise 5 (pre-flight checklist) — quick verbal verification at end.

Diagnostic — is the student ready for B05?

Before student moves on to B05 Workspace configuration:

Materials needed

Notes for refresh delivery

Locator is the kind of tool whose use cases don’t change much. Refresh is short:

Refresh delivery: 15-20 min total.