Well, did you start with a Bluetooth connection?
Agreed. Start with the Bluetooth connection. After connecting Bluetooth, it will automatically start a WiFi connection (it looks like from the camera) for faster speed.
Yes, that is how it is supposed to work. Except, sometimes it doesn't, and when that happens, there is no obvious way to fix it
My initial struggles with R5 II are here -
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/67885607
II short, bluetooth worked as charm, then wifi connection struggled to happen
I have had similar issues with R5 and R7 too in the past. Slightly different each time, with the same end result that the connection will stop happening suddenly one day with very limited ways of troubleshooting. Then it is an unpredictable cycle of reset at camera or phone end, clean settings, start over again and cross fingers until it works - at which point it seems easy again
There have been past threads too
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/67040953
This process is MUCH simpler and easier than with the R5, where you have to set up a Wifi connection to your network manually, then have your camera and phone talk over that network.
No, that is not needed on R5 either. I had my R5 and R7 both paired via Bluetooth and then camera connect automatically switching to wifi when needed. All the while without touching any wifi specific settings on the camera. I could not get that mechanism to work with R5 II and had to switch to direct wifi connection instead. It should work in either mode, but somehow didn't. Perhaps an edge condition that firmware or camera connect ran into
If no network was available, you have go in and have the camera act as the WiFi network connection andthen go into the Cell phone's settings and pick the camera's network.
I mostly connect outdoors where there is no known network, so direct phone to camera connection is what I want. The linked thread has what I did, but basically I connected them directly over wifi with camera acting as AP. If it helps OP, the summary is - I setup ssid name and password for Camera in camera menus, then started connect to smartphone from camera menu. Then looked for camera SSID on the phone and connected to it. Later connection happen automatically as soon as I enable connection from camera end
Getting wifi settings to show up on camera first time was a struggle, which somehow fixed itself without a clear reason to me.
Once it starts working, it works perfectly fine (same experience on older bodies too). The R5 II menu system is better to manage multiple connection settings, so makes it easier to switch between them if you have a diverse ecosystem - at least when it works
After struggling to get the R5 to work with and without a WiFi network available, the R5m2 was trivial to get working. I was shocked withthe R5m2 that I never had to even look at a manual; it just started working with a few clicks.
Was other way round for me, trivial with R5, hard with R5 II. Over many years dealing with this, I think this is just Canon software at play
Also, no EOS utility is needed if you are just talking between the phone and the camera. So it looks like the O.P. was pretty far off in what was being done.
Agreed
. I seem to have almost the exact opposite experience as you, but then I have an iPhone. It's been much easier for me to connect to the R5m2.
