Weather Station and IoT Kits?

[carlosviansi]

Hi folks, has anyone posted yet anything concerning building a weather station with the ambient light sensor and humidity temperature sensor and what else would be needed to assemble one? :-) I've been considering sticking a post with the different combinations and this one appears to have been missing as a package. 

Additionally, has anyone bought the IoT kit? I've been curious on the possibilities and what know-how is required. 

Thanks!

[NWUK]

Hi,

I'm interested in building a weather station as well. I have used DS18B20 with the Raspberry Pi for temperature measurments (following this guide http://www.danielhansen.net/2013/03/rasp...using.html) and it is working reasonably well. I think this should work with the Pine A 64 as well.

Otherwise, I have not gone any further. A good blue-print might be this: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/school-...n-project/

[carlosviansi]

I am still puzzled in the difference between the wifi remote and the wifi itself from Bule response. How viable is to have a weather station sampling data with the wifi/bluetooth one and automatically pushing data to the database by itself?

Thanks for the link NWUK. It seems that the pine sensors make the whole thing more uniform than on the Pi, interesting.

Another thing I am too stil clueless is if those photos for the Pine are the actual sensors or just something to interpret something I would still need to hook in. Any thoughts? (p.s. some questions still remain unanswered in the original thread on other things available at the store!).

[khgoh]

The Humidity and Temperature Sensor  and  Ambient Light Sensor  is the board having the sensor solder on the bottom side. You just need to connect the I2c cable to the Multi I2C Bus POT  or WiFi Remote I2C  and you can direct access the sensor information through the I2c bus. Since the I2c cable is included with 5V supply, the sensor board do not need any extra power supply.

As for the WiFi Remote I2C , you can make use of the PineA64 as your "sensor router". When the WiFi Remote I2c is power on, it will automatically connect to the wifi network and after that connect to the PineA64. There will be a small server program in the PineA64 that handle all the incoming connection from the WiFi Remote I2C.

As for your weather station application, your application will connect to the Server Program in the PineA64 through Tcp connection. You can either write the program and put it in the PineA64 or put it on the separate pc. 

With this type of topology, Each Pine64 will be come the "router" of a sensor cluster and your weather station application can connect to multiple Pine64 to monitor multiple cluster. The sensor cluster can even located remotely since all the connection between the weather station program and small sever program in Pine64, are base on Tcp networking. 


../KHGoh

[carlosviansi]

The Humidity and Temperature Sensor  and  Ambient Light Sensor  is the board having the sensor solder on the bottom side. You just need to connect the I2c cable to the Multi I2C Bus POT  or WiFi Remote I2C  and you can direct access the sensor information through the I2c bus. Since the I2c cable is included with 5V supply, the sensor board do not need any extra power supply.

As for the WiFi Remote I2C , you can make use of the PineA64 as your "sensor router". When the WiFi Remote I2c is power on, it will automatically connect to the wifi network and after that connect to the PineA64. There will be a small server program in the PineA64 that handle all the incoming connection from the WiFi Remote I2C.

As for your weather station application, your application will connect to the Server Program in the PineA64 through Tcp connection. You can either write the program and put it in the PineA64 or put it on the separate pc. 

With this type of topology, Each Pine64 will be come the "router" of a sensor cluster and your weather station application can connect to multiple Pine64 to monitor multiple cluster. The sensor cluster can even located remotely since all the connection between the weather station program and small sever program in Pine64, are base on Tcp networking. 


../KHGoh

@@khgoh

I went over this in my research lab for net-zero buildings and there are still some questions. Please bear with me :-) I am trying to be our advocate to the group and have some pines running there instead of only rhasberry pis. 

Q1) I think I am clear on the Multi I2C Bus Pot. I attach it on top of the Pine, then go crazy with the cables and the sensors, and since everything is directly connected to it anyway, it makes sense the data is readily available. If my pine A64 has a Bluetooth/Wifi-Internet module, I can just code it to say, upload to a remote database with a cron. Is this correct?

Questions 2, 3 and 4 are about the Wifi Remote module. Question 5 and 6 is about both Multi I2C Pot and the Wi-fi Remote.

Q2) My best intuition on why I would want to buy the WiFi remote is to go cable free from my PineA64. Say, if I want to spread sensors all over a room and don't want them wired through the walls, ceiling or ground then I would go after it. Is this correct? 

Q3) From the photo:



and from the Wiki: 

DC Jack socket (suitable for 4.0mm X 1.7mm DC Jack) for system power input

Did I get it right that the Wi-fi remote is a standalone piece and does not require to be plugged to the PineA64? In such a way, I can have then several of those remotes scattered throughout the room close to their sensors, and have my Pine (do I require it having the Wifi-Internet/Bluetooth module in this case?) talk with each one Wi-fi remote? Do we have this Dc Jacket Socket as an add-on? I don't seem to find it.

Q4) What is the range? It should be in the pdfs but TBH given my lack of knowledge I find a bit hard to dig in still. How much can we go if we attach an external antenna? 

Q5) This question concern the timestamp applied to the sensor readings. Can the wi-fi remote module apply timestamps? Or it is it only applied when read by the PineA64? If that is the case, then how inaccurate the wi-fi remote can get on the timestamps delay? And if that is also the case, does that mean the Multi I2C POT is a better option for timestamp accuracy than remotes? If so, by how many seconds, mili seconds, etc?

Q6) How many gigabytes of RAM do you recommend for the Pine to be a weather station pushing in data to a online database server by itself? Would 1 GB Ram suffice or do I need to go 2GB? Also what OS is best here? It sounded like Remix OS would eat more RAM memory than the Arch Linux. Up to how many sensors / POTS / Remotes could the Pine manage for the 1GB and 2GB RAM?

Thanks!

[khgoh]

The Humidity and Temperature Sensor  and  Ambient Light Sensor  is the board having the sensor solder on the bottom side. You just need to connect the I2c cable to the Multi I2C Bus POT  or WiFi Remote I2C  and you can direct access the sensor information through the I2c bus. Since the I2c cable is included with 5V supply, the sensor board do not need any extra power supply.

As for the WiFi Remote I2C , you can make use of the PineA64 as your "sensor router". When the WiFi Remote I2c is power on, it will automatically connect to the wifi network and after that connect to the PineA64. There will be a small server program in the PineA64 that handle all the incoming connection from the WiFi Remote I2C.

As for your weather station application, your application will connect to the Server Program in the PineA64 through Tcp connection. You can either write the program and put it in the PineA64 or put it on the separate pc. 

With this type of topology, Each Pine64 will be come the "router" of a sensor cluster and your weather station application can connect to multiple Pine64 to monitor multiple cluster. The sensor cluster can even located remotely since all the connection between the weather station program and small sever program in Pine64, are base on Tcp networking. 


../KHGoh

@@khgoh

I went over this in my research lab for net-zero buildings and there are still some questions. Please bear with me :-) I am trying to be our advocate to the group and have some pines running there instead of only rhasberry pis. 

Q1) I think I am clear on the Multi I2C Bus Pot. I attach it on top of the Pine, then go crazy with the cables and the sensors, and since everything is directly connected to it anyway, it makes sense the data is readily available. If my pine A64 has a Bluetooth/Wifi-Internet module, I can just code it to say, upload to a remote database with a cron. Is this correct?

Questions 2, 3 and 4 are about the Wifi Remote module. Question 5 and 6 is about both Multi I2C Pot and the Wi-fi Remote.

Q2) My best intuition on why I would want to buy the WiFi remote is to go cable free from my PineA64. Say, if I want to spread sensors all over a room and don't want them wired through the walls, ceiling or ground then I would go after it. Is this correct? 

Q3) From the photo:



and from the Wiki: 

DC Jack socket (suitable for 4.0mm X 1.7mm DC Jack) for system power input

Did I get it right that the Wi-fi remote is a standalone piece and does not require to be plugged to the PineA64? In such a way, I can have then several of those remotes scattered throughout the room close to their sensors, and have my Pine (do I require it having the Wifi-Internet/Bluetooth module in this case?) talk with each one Wi-fi remote? Do we have this Dc Jacket Socket as an add-on? I don't seem to find it.

Q4) What is the range? It should be in the pdfs but TBH given my lack of knowledge I find a bit hard to dig in still. How much can we go if we attach an external antenna? 

Q5) This question concern the timestamp applied to the sensor readings. Can the wi-fi remote module apply timestamps? Or it is it only applied when read by the PineA64? If that is the case, then how inaccurate the wi-fi remote can get on the timestamps delay? And if that is also the case, does that mean the Multi I2C POT is a better option for timestamp accuracy than remotes? If so, by how many seconds, mili seconds, etc?

Q6) How many gigabytes of RAM do you recommend for the Pine to be a weather station pushing in data to a online database server by itself? Would 1 GB Ram suffice or do I need to go 2GB? Also what OS is best here? It sounded like Remix OS would eat more RAM memory than the Arch Linux. Up to how many sensors  / POTS / Remotes could the Pine manage for the 1GB and 2GB RAM?

Thanks!

Refer to your question Q1, you can do it either by using wifi or making use of the ethernet RJ45 connector, should be no problem.

Q2, yes, you are correct. The Wifi Remote I2c will poll the data from the sensor upon request from the  back end Server that is running on the PineA64 and the linkage between the Wifi Remote I2c and PineA64 is base on Wifi connectivities (through wifi Access Point).

Q3, yes, it is a standalone unit. An DC Power adapter will be included in the package. You can connect as many WiFI Remote I2c as you want and all of it will communicate with the PineA64. The PineA64 will become the router for your sensor network cluster.

Q4, The transmission power of the unit is about 20dbm, which is the same as the wifi transmission power of your notebook. The module we use is model ESP-07 with ESP8266 chip on it. This module has a on board Chip antenna on it and also a UFL connector that allow you to connect to an external antenna. Some people from the net have test out the range of this chip. Please check out is Wifi Range video and you might  have a better understand on the wifi range of this module.

Q5, The Wifi Remote I2c do not have time stamp on it. Anyway, the Wifi Remote I2c  will not have any I2c polling/reading/writing action unless command is send by the Server in the PineA64. Once the Wifi Remote I2c has finish with the request from the server, it will immediately return back the result to the server. It will not store any result in the Wifi Remote i2c module.

Q6, If you only running the Pine64 with the Wifi Remote I2C Server with linux but without any GUI, 1GB ram should be more then enough. But you are running it with GUI, it is better to use the 2GB Ram model.

Hopefully i have answer your question.

../KH Goh

[carlosviansi]

Thank you KH Goh :-) Hopefully by the time I get my pieces together I can wrap up the tutorial with some videos for our wiki. Your answers did bring me three more questions:

From Q5) What do you mean by no timestamp? We can't know when the sensor sampled the data? This basically kills the application of this data. The need here is a stream of sensor data coming in the Pine A64 with their timestamp that from time to time through a cron job upload to an online database (best case scenario, on Real Time or delayed by a few seconds/minutes). The timestamp is critical to understand the conditions in the room and even make informed decisions on the usages depending on the date and hour (we will have a dashboard online). I am not clear what would then mean no timestamp is available. Could you elaborate a bit more?

Q7) Depending on your answer to Q5), I would also like to know if it is possible to ensure all the sensors are synced (i.e. one sensor doesn't sample at 05:20:33 and the other at 05:20:35.

Q8) It sounded to me the Wifi remote I2C would have no means to store any data at all. Is this correct? Typically the device used has some memory to keep storing the readings and is emptied by an external device when loading on the computer (in this set-up, I envisioned the Pine as the computer and the remote being able to store the data to be emptied from time to time). However I am now confused after what you said on Q5).

Thanks!

[khgoh]

Thank you KH Goh :-) Hopefully by the time I get my pieces together I can wrap up the tutorial with some videos for our wiki. Your answers did bring me three more questions:

From Q5) What do you mean by no timestamp? We can't know when the sensor sampled the data? This basically kills the application of this data. The need here is a stream of sensor data coming in the Pine A64 with their timestamp that from time to time through a cron job upload to an online database (best case scenario, on Real Time or delayed by a few seconds/minutes). The timestamp is critical to understand the conditions in the room and even make informed decisions on the usages depending on the date and hour (we will have a dashboard online). I am not clear what would then mean no timestamp is available. Could you elaborate a bit more?

Q7) Depending on your answer to Q5), I would also like to know if it is possible to ensure all the sensors are synced (i.e. one sensor doesn't sample at 05:20:33 and the other at 05:20:35.

Q8) It sounded to me the Wifi remote I2C would have no means to store any data at all. Is this correct? Typically the device used has some memory to keep storing the readings and is emptied by an external device when loading on the computer (in this set-up, I envisioned the Pine as the computer and the remote being able to store the data to be emptied from time to time). However I am now confused after what you said on Q5).

Thanks!

You can imagine Wifi Remote I2c is just the bridge between the sensor and the server in PineA64. And the Server is just another bigger bridge that allow you application to reach the sensor. When your application (be it install in the PC or install in Pine64) connect to the Server, your application will be able to direct get the sensor data (by requesting a I2c read command) through the Server and Wifi Remote I2c. Your application will be the one having full control on when to extract data from any one of the sensor. So the timestamp should be coming from your application. In the future, if you have eg. an I2c eeprom hock on the Wifi Remote I2c bus, you application can read or write data from/to the EEProm without changing any or the firmware (in the WiFi remote I2c device) and the Server code. You just need to modify your application to add in this feature.

[carlosviansi]

@@khgoh Thank you for the very (very!) nice schematic. :-) It clarifies well the topology and will make it easier to explain to the lab members here.

What worries me on the application being the one in charge of time stamping the data, is the time for the data to travel from the remote to the application. In that sense, I fear there will be inconsistency across all Cluster of Sensors depending on the timing. Say my Weather Station application sits on my home PC. And I have two PineA64 on the arrangement you made. Suppose I issue an order to collect the data through the remotes. How likely is that they all collected samples at the same time?

Also, is there any way for me to know what was the original timestamp of the readings somehow? I still don't see on this topology how this would be possible. Likely it will be x seconds behind, and like I said I don't see how x would be consistent over every request. 

Finally, how quickly would I be able to keep issuing requests for the remotes? I believe this would dictate the resolution I could get of the data (seconds, minute, hour), since I would be requesting one reading at a time from the Weather Station Application, right?

I need to do some research on what the I2c eeprom is and where it connects.. are you planning on offering this anytime soon, or I can just buy any I can find on google? (p.s. the Lab I am in now uses this HOBO as a data logger. I imagine in this case there would be no delay on the timestamp intervals: http://www.onsetcomp.com/products/data-l...ux120-006m ; Please correct me if I am missing something!).

Thank you! :-)

[khgoh]

@@khgoh Thank you for the very (very!) nice schematic. :-) It clarifies well the topology and will make it easier to explain to the lab members here.

What worries me on the application being the one in charge of time stamping the data, is the time for the data to travel from the remote to the application. In that sense, I fear there will be inconsistency across all Cluster of Sensors depending on the timing. Say my Weather Station application sits on my home PC. And I have two PineA64 on the arrangement you made. Suppose I issue an order to collect the data through the remotes. How likely is that they all collected samples at the same time?

Also, is there any way for me to know what was the original timestamp of the readings somehow? I still don't see on this topology how this would be possible. Likely it will be x seconds behind, and like I said I don't see how x would be consistent over every request. 

Finally, how quickly would I be able to keep issuing requests for the remotes? I believe this would dictate the resolution I could get of the data (seconds, minute, hour), since I would be requesting one reading at a time from the Weather Station Application, right?

I need to do some research on what the I2c eeprom is and where it connects.. are you planning on offering this anytime soon, or I can just buy any I can find on google? (p.s. the Lab I am in now uses this HOBO as a data logger. I imagine in this case there would be no delay on the timestamp intervals: http://www.onsetcomp.com/products/data-l...ux120-006m ; Please correct me if I am missing something!).

Thank you! :-)

Normally for TCP communication, the data travel across the tcp network should be withing 1 sec (eg normally ping return is about 100 to 500ms if across public network.). Furthermore, the server allow multiple request to different wifi Remote I2c at the same time. Once you make the request, it should take within 1 to 2 second for all the request to return back to the server.

Once the request got reply, you can immediate send another new request.