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Choose how a tablet connects

Automatic, Main terminal or Cloud: the connection choice on each Android phone and tablet, what each does when the Wi‑Fi or the internet drops, and which to pick.

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Each Android phone and tablet decides where its changes go: to the main terminal over your Wi‑Fi, to the cloud, or the main terminal first and the cloud when it can’t reach it. The choice is per device, in This tablet (This phone on a phone).

The scenario

Five tablets inside on the restaurant’s Wi‑Fi, and Karim’s phone for the terrace and the car park, where the Wi‑Fi doesn’t reach and he works on mobile data.

The three choices

  • Automatic (the default) — the main terminal when the device is on its Wi‑Fi, the cloud everywhere else. With neither, it keeps working on its own copy and sends when one answers. Right for almost every device.
  • Main terminal — only the main terminal, at an address you can pin. It never uses the cloud: when the main terminal doesn’t answer, the device keeps working on its own copy and its changes wait for it — even past the cloud’s 10-minute takeover.
  • Cloud — always the cloud, even on the main terminal’s Wi‑Fi. The cloud applies its changes straight away and the main terminal picks them up; in a branch with a main terminal, its new checks get numbers that start with C. With no internet it keeps working on its own copy until the internet is back.

Set it

  1. 1On the device, open the ≡ menu › This tablet (This phone) and tap Main terminal.
  2. 2Pick Automatic, Main terminal or Cloud. For Main terminal, type the main terminal’s address and press Use — the Mac or Windows POS shows it under the Server menu › This computer (something like 192.168.1.20).
  3. 3Give Karim’s phone Cloud; leave the five tablets on Automatic.
  4. 4Check again looks for the main terminal straight away — after moving a device to another Wi‑Fi, say.

What you’ll see

  • The connection pill says which way changes go right now: no pill while the main terminal has everything, Through the cloud while the cloud carries changes to it, or Offline with the number waiting. A device set to Cloud — and every device of a restaurant with no main terminal — treats the cloud as its server: no pill while the cloud has everything, Offline only when there’s no internet, never Main terminal offline. Tap it: under the route, Connection names the choice.
  • You can change the choice at any time, even with changes waiting: each one still arrives once.
  • iPhones and iPads don’t have the choice: they always use the cloud.
TipPick Main terminal only for a device that must never use mobile data or the cloud. If that main terminal is off for an evening, those devices keep everything to themselves until it’s back — the cloud won’t step in for them.

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