That may be part of it, but it is definitely the case that the wifi implementation for the Stern games is pitiful, and is most commonly the main root of the problem.

When I updated my Rush to 0.98, I tried using wifi first. I have multiple access points in my house, good wifi coverage everywhere, and yet the machine downloading the update was going so slow it was probably going to be a full day before it got everything. I downloaded the files for a USB-drive update using my laptop, also over wifi, and got the whole update in 30 minutes.

Now, that download wasn't immediately after release, so I wasn't suffering from congestion at Stern's servers. I'm not saying that couldn't also sometimes be a problem. But the fact is, even when everything upstream of your wifi access point is behaving properly, downloads via the machine's wifi are often still going to be really slow.

I can see the appeal for that, though not something I'd be interested in.

What I would like to see added is a more robust way to review my play and score history. Ideally a "download CSV" or similar feature on the web site that dumps the entire database of my account to a file. As far as I can tell, the web site will only show my high score per day, and even that only goes back a few weeks. I'd like to get the full dataset.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-insider-connected/page/82#post-7171182

Different brands of wifi adapters use different drivers, depending on what underlying chipset they use. Stern pins only have a specific set of drivers installed. As I understand it, TP-Link makes a compatible wifi adapter. See e.g. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-insider-connected/page/44#post-6681716 . The Asus adapter probably needs drivers that aren't installed.

Note that no matter what adapter you use, it will have challenges getting good signal through the backbox. Switching to the TP-Link (or equivalent) might help, but you may still not get a good enough connection for it to be practical to update over IC. If you don't care about that, then worth a try I guess.

Something else you might do is pop out the plug on the top of the backbox (usually used for a topper) so you can remote (using a USB extension cable) the wifi adapter so it can get a better signal. Or if you have an Ethernet port on the wall nearby, just hardwire the whole thing (there's an Ethernet jack on the top of the motherboard).

I will also point out that even under the best of circumstances, the game is ready to play a short while earlier than it has connected to IC. On my Rush game, I find that I need to wait until the IC splash screen is displayed before I can log in (whether using Home Team or scanning a QR code).

I believe you're overlooking the whole point of their suggestion. You say "Just create their account for them", but that's exactly what they want to avoid. And IMHO for good reason.

Failure to connect is a symptom, not a problem diagnosis. There are lots of reasons it could happen: Stern's servers could be down, you might have a temporary Internet issue, your wifi might be misbehaving, the machine might not be able to get a good wifi connection, and of course last but not least your wifi dongle might have failed completely.

What steps have you taken so far to diagnose the problem?

wifi signal is a often-discussed problem with these systems. For people for whom it's a blocking issue, they generally upgrade the wifi dongle; there are recommendations for a particular TP-Link model that is compatible with the Stern software. Just do a search for it.

Other options include putting the stock wifi dongle outside the cabinet, by using a USB extension cable, or hard-wiring the network to the Ethernet jack on the motherboard.

Either way, cable passing through the cabinet is something you'd need to figure out. You can run the cable through the topper hole (pop the plug out, assuming no topper is already installed...I guess if one is, this might be a little more complicated depending on the topper), or make a new hole.

Sometimes just reorienting the machine will help, some some parts of the backbox are more opaque to radio signals than others. But if you've got a room full of pins and not many choices for where they all go, this may or may not be feasible.

If you have access to any kind of computer printer, just print the QR code on paper and scan that.

Also, for your own machine, you will probably find it convenient to use the "Home Team" feature, so you'll only have to scan the QR code once. After that, you just hold down the left flipper button, which will take you to an interface where you can select your account, along with other family or friends that you've added to the "Home Team" list, without having to use the QR scanner at all.

You are right that dealing with time zones in computer programming is madness, and a great challenge.

But Stern has (presumably) already done all that work. The machines already know how to convert from local to UTC and back, as do their servers. Assuming they did that work properly, coming up with a reasonable implementation to track streaks according to local time would in fact not be all that difficult.

I will admit, the prerequisite that they have done that work properly cannot be assumed. But if not, that's still on them, and not any kind of justification for the fix to the streak-tracking to be considered to be difficult.

Now, all that said: every engineering team, even those writing software for pinball machines, has a long list of tasks, and they prioritize those tasks and do them according to that priority and the available staff time to apply to the tasks. I can well imagine that in Stern's view, the daily streak feature has a lower priority to fix than other things they are working on (many of which you and I won't see, because they involve the underlying infrastructure and not end-user visible features). And there's only so much an engineering team can do to speed up that process, a la "The Mythical Man Month". Even if they were hiring additional programmers -- and as far as I know they're not -- there's going to be a limit to just how fast everything can get done.

Fussing about whether the feature got fixed today or six months ago seems pointless to me. It's just a game, and you can keep track of your daily streaks almost as easily as letting the pin and Stern's computer servers do it for you, if it's really that important to you. At least they did eventually fix it.

Then you're also aware that keeping the schedule in UTC works only if the system actually is only tied to UTC, i.e. the local time is strictly for display purposes only.

When the scheduling is in fact tied to the local time zone, it does get a little more complicated, DST being the prime offender. Because there will be a "day" in your schedule that's only 23 hours long. And then roughly six months from then, another "day" that's 25 hours long. And your locally-based tracking system has to respect that.

See e.g. https://codeblog.jonskeet.uk/2022/10/30/handling-times-for-an-ev-charger/

I'm not saying this is an insurmountable challenge, or even one that takes literally ten months to figure out. Obviously, it's not. But it's not as trivial as "just keep everything in UTC", and of course that task might not even have been the one considered the most important to work on, so lots of time might have gone by before anyone at Stern bothered to look at it.

No, not really. You just have to use a different absolute reference than UTC. I.e. the time zone the machine's in.

Which of course means that Stern's database has to store the machine's timezone, in addition to the other data. And of course, if the player plays the machine in one timezone, and then travels to another timezone and plays the same machine, that complicates things.

In other words, you're right that it's not quite as simple as just storing everything as UTC, and the adjusting according to whoever is viewing the stats. But I don't agree that there's no viable solution, and while it does require some fiddly detail work, it's not rocket science. You just need to think through the various scenarios, something that any decent computer programmer should be in the habit of anyway.

I believe it uses the time zone from the location the machine is registered for. The clock and timezone in the machine is set by IC, not the other way around.

As far as I know, the only way to add a player to your home team is to use the QR code scanner. So, I don't think it would be useful to add a game to home team if you don't have the scanner.

You can't buy just any wifi dongle. It has to use the same chipset as the one Stern already provides, so that the software on the motherboard has the right driver.

You can search this thread for recommendations. I believe TP-Link makes one that's compatible with Stern machines and which works much better than what Stern gives you.

Check this post: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-insider-connected/page/44#post-6681716

The AC600 is one of the models that other people have specifically said does not work with Stern machines. So not very surprising it also doesn't work for you.

It sounds like you have access to a Stern-provided dongle, so if you want to be more analytical about it, plug that dongle into a PC, check the hardware info to find out what chipset it uses, and then look for a different brand that uses the same chipset.

Also, while it hasn't been my experience, some have said that the wifi dongle will work only in one of the two USB ports. So if you think you have a model that should work and it still doesn't, try the other port (IIRC, on my Rush machine, the wifi dongle is in the left hand port).

Yup. Just like was already mentioned a year ago, and several times since: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-insider-connected/page/44#post-6681716

Well, there's AriZona's 99 cent can of tea, and Costco's $1.50 hot dog.

Things that had huge markups to start with, or which are loss leaders, they can hold the line on price for a long time. I doubt there's anywhere close to $10 worth of parts in that TP-Link wifi dongle, but even if there was, maybe TP-Link views it as a way to boost sales of their other networking products.

No doubt that it actually does, and operators understand this. But it's part of a bigger challenge, and surely home pins are the least of their concerns.

Arcades as a big business went away for a lot of reasons, but especially because the home video game console and PC game market pulled a huge number of customers away. Now the entire Internet is designed to keep people tapping their phones instead of doing anything else, whether remotely productive or otherwise.

Regardless, I doubt pin manufacturers are going to sweat too much about the operator market. For example, Stern sells plenty of Premium and LE models, with much larger markups than they get on the Pros. I'm pretty sure the former are going mainly to the home market, with the operator market (along with some more of the home market) focusing mainly on the Pro models.

So, yeah...the whole "we need to hold this feature back to make the operator market happy" thing, just seems foolish.