diff --git a/lib/towerops/monitoring/etcd_coordinator.ex b/lib/towerops/monitoring/etcd_coordinator.ex
index 1e66ffa0..344538e5 100644
--- a/lib/towerops/monitoring/etcd_coordinator.ex
+++ b/lib/towerops/monitoring/etcd_coordinator.ex
@@ -109,10 +109,11 @@ defmodule Towerops.Monitoring.EtcdCoordinator do
 
   defp connect_etcd do
     # Connect to etcd StatefulSet in Kubernetes
+    # eetcd is an Erlang library and expects charlists, not binary strings
     endpoints = [
-      "etcd-0.etcd.towerops.svc.cluster.local:2379",
-      "etcd-1.etcd.towerops.svc.cluster.local:2379",
-      "etcd-2.etcd.towerops.svc.cluster.local:2379"
+      ~c"etcd-0.etcd.towerops.svc.cluster.local:2379",
+      ~c"etcd-1.etcd.towerops.svc.cluster.local:2379",
+      ~c"etcd-2.etcd.towerops.svc.cluster.local:2379"
     ]
 
     :eetcd.open(:towerops_etcd, endpoints)