What does a yellow light on a Genie client mean?

There’s a great clip from the old show Taxi that you really should watch before reading this article:

That one cracks me up every time. But if you see a yellow light on your Genie mini client, you might not be laughing so much.

Is the light really yellow?

The light on the front of the client has three colors. “Green,” “Yellow,” and Red. Red is pretty obvious and it’s very, very red. The problem is that green and yellow look pretty similar. These images are photoshops but they are very similar to the colors you actually see.

This is green.

This is yellow.

See, the “green” is actually kind of yellowish green while the “yellow” is sort of yellowish orange. In order to keep costs down, AT&T doesn’t use a true multicolor LED. The LED light has three states: “Green” on, “Red” on, and “Green+Red” on. So, the colors aren’t very pure and you can be worried about nothing.

But let’s say that you really are sure that you have a yellow light.

The yellow light on the client means “reduced connectivity.” It means that the client isn’t getting as strong of a signal as it could. Now, if you’re not seeing any problems, then there aren’t any problems. It just means that there’s an internal test for signal strength and the numbers could be better. It means that you might want to look at the quality of your cabling, or any interference between your wireless client and base, and see what can be improved.

Should you be worried about a yellow light?

If your TV picture isn’t breaking up and the remote is working as it should, there’s no reason to worry.

What can be done?

Replacing the client isn’t usually the answer. Yellow lights come from either cabling issues or wireless issues. If it’s a wireless issue, you can try moving the client closer to the Genie 2 or Wireless Video Bridge. Sometimes that’s not possible. If it’s wired, you can replace the cabling or try moving the client so that you use less cable.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.