Starlink on the panel

What this gets you

Starlink’s own app tells you all this, but it is on a phone, and the phone is usually somewhere else. This puts it on the wall of the van, next to everything else you check.

Two boxes on one page.

Status, on the left:

• State - CONNECTED when all is well. Otherwise the dish’s own reason it is not, such as BOOTING or OBSTRUCTED.
• Uptime - how long the dish has been up, in days, hours and minutes. A number that keeps resetting is a power or a mounting problem rather than a signal one.
• Software and Hardware - the dish’s own versions, and the first two things anybody asks when you report a fault.
• Region - the country the dish thinks it is in, which is worth a look if you have crossed a border.
• Obstructions - how much of the dish’s view of the sky is blocked, as a percentage. The closer to 0.00 % the better.
• Alerts - None, or whatever the dish is complaining about.

Live Metrics, on the right:

• Download - the dial, in megabits a second: how fast data is coming in right now. It measures what is being used, not what is possible, so a quiet van reads low.
• Upload - the same, going out.
• Latency - how long a message takes to reach Starlink’s network and come back, in milliseconds. Lower is better; it is what makes a video call feel sluggish.
• Drop rate - the share of those messages that never come back. It should sit at or near 0%.
• Data (session) - a running total of what has gone through the dish in both directions. It starts again when the dish restarts, and it is not your monthly allowance - that is only in the Starlink app.

Along the bottom, green text says the panel is connected to the dish. Red text reading Starlink router not reachable means it cannot find it, and every value above shows -- - see If nothing shows up.

Getting the panel on the network

The panel talks to the dish over your own network, so it needs to be on it. Ordinary WiFi setup - tap the menu top-left, choose WiFi, Scan, and join the Starlink router like any other network. Full steps are in the SavvyVan3 user guide.

This also gives the panel its clock, its weather and its updates, so on the road a Starlink connection tends to solve several things at once.

Turning the page on

Starlink is switched off until you ask for it, so a van without a dish is not carrying a menu entry that leads nowhere.

1. Tap the menu top-left, then Installer Settings, and enter the passcode.
2. Open Additional Settings.
3. Enable Starlink Menu.

A Starlink entry now appears in the side menu, top left, under Notifications and WiFi.

Reading it

Nothing to configure and nothing to calibrate - it reads and displays.

A few things that catch people out:

• Booting takes a couple of minutes after power-up, and the state will say so. It is not stuck.
• A brief obstruction is normal while you are parked under anything at all. It is a repeated one that costs you a connection.
• Uptime resetting on its own points at the dish losing power rather than losing signal - worth checking the supply before blaming the sky.

What it does not do

The panel never changes anything. It reads the dish’s status and shows it. Your plan, your settings, stowing and unstowing, and everything else stays in the Starlink app where it belongs.

That is deliberate. A panel that could quietly change your internet setup would be a support problem, and a screen that tells you the truth is more useful anyway.

If nothing shows up

• Check the panel is on the Starlink network, not on a phone hotspot or a campsite WiFi it remembered from last week. The foot of the WiFi page says which.
• Check the dish is powered and booted.
• Give it a minute after enabling the page.

Still nothing? Tell us what you are seeing, and send the log files from the passcode screen at the same time.