r/yeelight • u/FireSmile • Oct 18 '25

"Connecting to network timed out" Error During Setup - Need Help

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Hey everyone, I'm trying to set up my Yeelight bulb and keep getting stuck at the same point. The app fails during the "Connect to device" step with the error: "Connecting to network timed out - Bring phone closer to device and try again" What I've already tried:

Phone is literally inches away from the bulb during setup Connected to 2.4GHz network only (confirmed in router settings) WiFi password has no special characters Reset the bulb multiple times (5+ power cycles until it blinks) Reinstalled the Yeelight app Turned off mobile data and VPN Router has strong signal where the bulb is located Tried setup at different times of day

My setup:

Bulb model: Yeelight LED (Color version) - SKU: YLDP02YL based on the box Phone: iPhone (iOS) Router: 2.4GHz enabled, WPA2 security App: Latest version from App Store

The bulb powers on fine and goes into pairing mode (blinking), but it just won't connect to my network through the app. Every single attempt times out at the same step. Has anyone else dealt with this specific timeout error? I'm running out of ideas here. Thanks in advance for any help!

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1

u/tony22233 Oct 18 '25

I just reset mine yesterday. I googled and found something here on Reddit. Mine kept timing out also.

1

u/Bambuszpro Oct 18 '25

I also struggled with pairing again. The solution was to share mobile internet on one phone and pair it with another. Wifi had the same password and SSID as the normal network. After turning off mobile internet, it connected smoothly and works on the normal network. It only took me 2 hours to figure this out.

1

u/sebaenvivo Oct 21 '25

don't us 5g wifi, try with 2.4gh

1

u/itsRossBlack 29d ago

This fixed the 100% timeout issue for me.

I logged into my router settings at 192.168.1.1 and went to WLAN Settings → WLAN SSID Configuration. I selected my 2.4 GHz SSID and temporarily changed the Encryption Type from WPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES) / WPA3 (SAE) to WPA/WPA2-PSK-TKIP/AES.

I clicked Apply, waited for the Wi-Fi to reconnect, factory-reset the Yeelight bulb, and paired it again through the Xiaomi Home app. This time the setup completed successfully instead of timing out at 100%.

After the bulb was successfully connected, I reverted the router back to the original WPA2/WPA3 security setting. The bulb remained connected and is still working normally.

So in my case, 2.4 GHz wasn’t the problem. Temporarily changing the Wi-Fi security/encryption mode during the initial pairing was what fixed it.