If your DriveON tablet keeps losing its connection in the middle of an inspection, the tablet is rarely the problem. In almost every shop we've looked at, the Wi-Fi doesn't properly reach the place where the inspection is done.
This guide covers why that happens in a repair shop, what you can check yourself, and what a lasting fix looks like.
Why the DriveON tablet needs a good connection
DriveON is Ontario's digital vehicle inspection program. Inspections are done on a tablet supplied by the program, and the tablet talks to the ministry while the technician works. Measurements are entered and photos are taken as the inspection goes, and all of it is uploaded.
That means the tablet needs a strong, steady Wi-Fi signal in the bay, beside the vehicle. A signal that is fine in the front office and weak at the lift is not enough, and photos are exactly the kind of upload that a weak signal struggles with.
Why the Wi-Fi is weak in the bay
A repair shop is one of the harder places to cover with Wi-Fi. These are the causes we see most often.
- The router is at the front counter. The box from your internet provider usually sits wherever the line comes into the building, which is the office. The bays are at the other end, behind one or more walls.
- Metal everywhere. Lifts, tool chests, bay doors, racking and the vehicles themselves all block and reflect Wi-Fi. A signal that would cross an open office easily gets cut down quickly in a shop.
- Concrete block walls. The wall between the office and the shop floor is often block or has metal in it, and Wi-Fi passes through it poorly.
- A Wi-Fi extender doing the heavy lifting. An extender picks up a weak signal and repeats it. Everything connected to it is slower, and devices tend to hang on to the wrong one as you walk around.
- More than one building. If inspections happen in a separate building from the one the internet comes into, a single router was never going to reach.
- Everything shares one network. The tablet is competing with the office computers, the cameras, the card terminal and every customer on the waiting-room Wi-Fi.
What you can check yourself
You can narrow it down in about ten minutes with a phone.
- Test where the vehicle is, not where the router is. Connect your phone to the same Wi-Fi network the tablet uses, stand beside the lift, and run a speed test. Then do the same standing next to the router.
- Compare the two. If it's fast at the router and slow or dropping at the lift, the internet coming into the building is fine and the Wi-Fi isn't reaching the bay.
- Close the bay doors and park a vehicle in the bay, then test again. That's what the tablet deals with during a real inspection.
- Check which network the tablet is on. If you have an extender, there may be two network names. A tablet joined to the far one will hold on to a poor signal instead of switching.
- Notice when it happens. If it only drops when the shop is busy, or when the waiting room is full, too many devices are sharing one network.
If your phone works perfectly in the same spot on the same Wi-Fi and only the tablet has trouble, the problem may be the tablet or the app, and DriveON support is the right call.
Quick fixes that sometimes help
These cost little or nothing and are worth trying first.
- Move the router out from behind the counter, up high and into the open, as close to the shop floor as its cable allows.
- If you use an extender, move it to a spot roughly halfway between the router and the bay, where it still gets a strong signal itself.
- Keep customers off the network the shop runs on. Many provider routers can turn on a separate guest network.
- Restart the router and the extender. It won't fix weak coverage, but it clears a surprising number of one-off problems.
If the bay is still slow after that, the building needs more than one router can give it.
What a lasting fix looks like
The fix is to put the Wi-Fi where the work is.
- An access point in the bay, wired back to the network. A cable carries the full connection to the shop floor, and the access point gives the tablet a strong signal a few metres away.
- A proper link between buildings. Where the bays are in a separate building, we connect the buildings with a cable or a dedicated wireless link, so the second building has its own full-speed signal.
- One network name for the whole property. The tablet stays connected as it's carried from the lot to the bay to the office, with nothing to switch.
- Shop equipment kept apart from guests. The inspection tablet, diagnostic equipment and card terminal get priority, and customers in the waiting room use a separate network that can't slow them down.
- Someone watching it. We monitor the equipment, so we know when something drops and can start on it before it holds up an inspection.
We don't touch the DriveON tablet or its software. We fix the network it depends on.
What this looked like for one Ottawa shop
Hunt Club Auto Care and Sales works out of three buildings on one property. The whole site ran on the modem from the internet provider and a Wi-Fi extender, and on a good day devices saw between 2 and 20 Mbps. To keep working, staff were connecting the DriveON inspection tablet, the diagnostic equipment and the front office computer to the hotspot on their own phones.
We installed an access point in each building, joined the buildings with a dedicated wireless link, and put the whole property on one Wi-Fi network with a separate one for customers. Devices now connect at up to 400 Mbps anywhere on the property, and the DriveON tablet stays online without anyone's phone. You can read the full case study.