Really struggling with pairing issues - A7rIII

I’m completely confused by the pairing function of the A7rIII with my iPhone. I’m not understanding what the phone is doing, and why all pairing appears to be through wi-fi connections of both the phone and camera to my home system. As far as I can tell, they cannot talk directly to each other when outside of a network. Is that right? If so, great, because I can stop messing with this as the function is useless.

What I want is for the phone to control the camera when I’m in the middle of nowhere without wifi. If it cannot do that, I’ll buy a remote shutter release.
When I see Bluetooth, I assume this means the two devices will talk to each other directly with no other network, like how my phone and car can talk to each other. But when I try “Pairing” with the Sony in bluetooth, it tells me to first connect through the Play Memories app (PMM).
I went to the PMM app on my phone, and eventually got the phone and camera paired. But the way I did this was by connecting both of them to my house wi-fi network. Then I got a QR code on the camera and finished the pairing.

As soon as I left the house (and wi-fi network), The PMM app says “Not connected to a camera”. If I go into the Sony Bluetooth settings and select “pairing”, it once again tells me to make a connection with the PMM app. PMM cannot pair without a QR code, which I can only get through a wi-fi network on the camera.

Round and round I go, and I’m wondering if these devices are not supposed to be able to do what I’m trying to do.

Can anyone help me here?

I don't have experience with the A7riii, but with both my A7 and A6500 the camera can act as a Wifi source, and my phone connects directly to the camera's Wifi signal. There's probably a setting buried in a menu that allows you to turn on the camera's Wifi.

JeffreyG wrote in post #18548529
I’m completely confused by the pairing function of the A7rIII with my iPhone. I’m not understanding what the phone is doing, and why all pairing appears to be through wi-fi connections of both the phone and camera to my home system. As far as I can tell, they cannot talk directly to each other when outside of a network. Is that right? If so, great, because I can stop messing with this as the function is useless.

What I want is for the phone to control the camera when I’m in the middle of nowhere without wifi. If it cannot do that, I’ll buy a remote shutter release.
When I see Bluetooth, I assume this means the two devices will talk to each other directly with no other network, like how my phone and car can talk to each other. But when I try “Pairing” with the Sony in bluetooth, it tells me to first connect through the Play Memories app (PMM).
I went to the PMM app on my phone, and eventually got the phone and camera paired. But the way I did this was by connecting both of them to my house wi-fi network. Then I got a QR code on the camera and finished the pairing.

As soon as I left the house (and wi-fi network), The PMM app says “Not connected to a camera”. If I go into the Sony Bluetooth settings and select “pairing”, it once again tells me to make a connection with the PMM app. PMM cannot pair without a QR code, which I can only get through a wi-fi network on the camera.

Round and round I go, and I’m wondering if these devices are not supposed to be able to do what I’m trying to do.

Can anyone help me here?

I'm not near my a7r3 now but with my a7s this is what I do. I turn on the WiFi connection in camera this creates a Hotspot for the phone to connect to something like ilce etc etc . after your phone connects to that you can then turn on playmemories and you can proceed

JeffreyG wrote in post #18548529
I’m completely confused by the pairing function of the A7rIII with my iPhone. I’m not understanding what the phone is doing, and why all pairing appears to be through wi-fi connections of both the phone and camera to my home system. As far as I can tell, they cannot talk directly to each other when outside of a network. Is that right? If so, great, because I can stop messing with this as the function is useless.

What I want is for the phone to control the camera when I’m in the middle of nowhere without wifi. If it cannot do that, I’ll buy a remote shutter release.
When I see Bluetooth, I assume this means the two devices will talk to each other directly with no other network, like how my phone and car can talk to each other. But when I try “Pairing” with the Sony in bluetooth, it tells me to first connect through the Play Memories app (PMM).
I went to the PMM app on my phone, and eventually got the phone and camera paired. But the way I did this was by connecting both of them to my house wi-fi network. Then I got a QR code on the camera and finished the pairing.

As soon as I left the house (and wi-fi network), The PMM app says “Not connected to a camera”. If I go into the Sony Bluetooth settings and select “pairing”, it once again tells me to make a connection with the PMM app. PMM cannot pair without a QR code, which I can only get through a wi-fi network on the camera.

Round and round I go, and I’m wondering if these devices are not supposed to be able to do what I’m trying to do.

Can anyone help me here?

So how it works is that when you turn wifi on with the a7rIII, it will start broadcasting a wifi signal. It'll show you the network name on the screen. Connect to that on wifi network on your iphone and the two will be paired together. From there, open up the play memories app to shoot remotely, or transfer files from your camera to your phone.

mystik610 wrote in post #18552001
So how it works is that when you turn wifi on with the a7rIII, it will start broadcasting a wifi signal. It'll show you the network name on the screen. Connect to that on wifi network on your iphone and the two will be paired together. From there, open up the play memories app to shoot remotely, or transfer files from your camera to your phone.

Edit -
I deleted my long post. I'm not sure this is working still, but I actually have to leave the house to be sure.

I can get the camera and phone to link, but I have to double check if the link will remain durable. One problem is that I have to shut off the wifi in my phone every day. My work blocks our phones from the wifi network (because we have unlimited data) and so if you have wifi turned on at work it refuses to use data and simply sits dumb because it detects wifi that it cannot use. Very dumb.

Alright - I think I can get this to work. I'll report back if I'm still dumb later.

I think what was originally confusing me was that I expected the pairing to be 'sticky', like when I pair my phone to a car with bluetooth, or if I pair a fitness tracker to my phone. You generally just pair them once, and whenever they are near each other they work.

It appears that basically every time I want to pair the A7rIII to my phone, I have to get the QR code displayed and reset them. My phone doesn't like the unsigned certificate from my camera, so I usually have to do the pairing twice. (unless I'm wrong here, but so far I've had to do this every time.)

1. Turn on wifi on phone.
2. Turn on camera, select "control camera with phone" or "Send pictures to phone"
3. Start PMM app.
4. Scan QR code.
5. Get told the phone has no certificate, enter phone passcode (fingerprint not good enough). The application fails.
6. Start over, repeat 1-5. For some reason, it always works the second time.
7. Go to phone settings, find DIRECT ICLE-A7R3 in the wifi list.
8. Go back to PMM App. Voila. Up and running.

In the meanwhile, the Pixel intervalometer / remote shutter is $28. But odds are usually good that when I need a remote, I've left it home. I guess I can use the phone as a backup.

JeffreyG wrote in post #18552090
I think what was originally confusing me was that I expected the pairing to be 'sticky', like when I pair my phone to a car with bluetooth, or if I pair a fitness tracker to my phone. You generally just pair them once, and whenever they are near each other they work.

It appears that basically every time I want to pair the A7rIII to my phone, I have to get the QR code displayed and reset them. My phone doesn't like the unsigned certificate from my camera, so I usually have to do the pairing twice. (unless I'm wrong here, but so far I've had to do this every time.)

1. Turn on wifi on phone.
2. Turn on camera, select "control camera with phone" or "Send pictures to phone"
3. Start PMM app.
4. Scan QR code.
5. Get told the phone has no certificate, enter phone passcode (fingerprint not good enough). The application fails.
6. Start over, repeat 1-5. For some reason, it always works the second time.
7. Go to phone settings, find DIRECT ICLE-A7R3 in the wifi list.
8. Go back to PMM App. Voila. Up and running.

In the meanwhile, the Pixel intervalometer / remote shutter is $28. But odds are usually good that when I need a remote, I've left it home. I guess I can use the phone as a backup.

might be an apple thing but with my android I don't have to scan anything. I just turn on wifi in camera and it starts it's own wifi Hotspot. I go to my phone turn on wifi and choose the camera Hotspot and then it's set since the phone already knows the wifi password for the connection