Using RF24Ethernet & RF24Gateway with the Arduino Cloud

 Using RF24Ethernet & RF24Gateway with the Arduino Cloud

 Pushing automation even further

 Recently, I was offered an Arduino Uno Q, Arduino Uno R4 Wifi and 1-year of Arduino Cloud access for free! This came as quite the surprise, because I was contacted out of nowhere by Per Tillisch, an Arduino Support Engineer, who offered me the devices and cloud access with no strings attached! I was quick to take him up on his offer. He stated it was due to my work contributing to the Arduino ecosystem.

In looking at the cloud access, it looks like it will be very simple to create dashboards etc, and integrate everything I want from my existing systems into the cloud! No code changes, no updates, no nothing. Just some simple changes in the NodeRed system I use.

With the current wireless IoT systems I am using, based on RF24Ethernet and RF24Gateway + wireless radios + MQTT, I also use NodeRed for managing all the data and interactions locally. This means that all I had to do was install the node-red-contrib-arduino-iot-cloud nodes, setup an API key, and use the newly installed nodes to communicate with the cloud!

 My system is setup so the RF24Ethernet nodes use MQTT to communicate with the RPi running RF24Gateway & NodeRed. NodeRed then handles the communication with the cloud.

See  https://docs.arduino.cc/arduino-cloud/guides/node-red/ for more information.

Right off the bat, I was able to create a simple dashboard that displays incoming Temperature, Humidity & Barometric pressure data on some charts!

 From here, it is very simple to add/remove & create new parts of the dashboard.

All of the existing Arduino devices in my network now have potential cloud access via NodeRed! I didn't have to modify any code, upload new firmware or really do much of anything! This all works with my existing systems!

The beauty of this is users can keep all their data and integrations local, logging to a database if desired etc, and still make use of the Arduino Cloud at the same time. Some data can go to the cloud, some to a local repository, and everything just seems to work in sync!

I currently have all my integrations set up via NodeRed + NodeRed Dashboard, so it is very similar already to the Arduino Cloud Dashboard, though only available locally. Using the cloud, I can now make some parts of it accessible from anywhere.

This is all very cool, I can't wait to get the new hardware! 

 

RF24: An advanced example for the Arduino Uno Q

 RF24: An advanced example for the Arduino Uno Q

 A new take on the RF24 GettingStarted example

In testing out the RF24 library and related features, I managed to get a few different things working together on the Arduino Uno Q to provide a more advanced example of RF24 interaction. 

 

 The main thing the sketch does is transfer data over RF24 radio link along with a standard Arduino device running the RF24 GettingStarted sketch included with the RF24 library.

Then, any data received is displayed in the Serial Monitor, Python Console and an associated webpage to demonstrate usage of incoming data etc.

 A button is included on the webpage that allows users to toggle the LED matrix on/off, which demonstrates how to pass data from Webpage to Python to Microcontroller. 

All in all its a simple concept, but it did take some figuring to work out how the functions and stuff all relate through JavaScript, HTML, Python, C++ etc.

My Arduino Q sketches can all be found here:

https://github.com/TMRh20/Sketches/tree/master/ArduinoQ 

For a limited time, a live real-time demo of a similar sketch will be available online.

The main functionality is tied into 4 files:

sketch/sketch.ino - The Arduino sketch handles radio input/output & passes its data to Python

python/main.py - The middleman between the webserver and the Arduino sketch

assets/app.js - JavaScript handling, communicates between index.html and Python via websockets

assets/index.html - The main webpage, provides variables that can be modified via JavaScript

Trying out the Arduino Uno Q - A quick and dirty overview

 Trying out the Arduino Uno Q - A quick and dirty overview

 Love it or hate it, it... exists 

 With the release of the new Arduino Uno Q board, I decided to get one and try it out. After a few days of playing around and experimentation I have to say I'm less than impressed.

 The concept seems to be a solid one, combining a standard Micro-Processor Unit (MPU) with a Microcontroller Unit (MCU), but the execution has been a little rough.

 The first and main thing to probably address is the Bridge concept, which is a way for users to make the MCU 'talk' to the MPU. It is driven by a serial connection running at 115200 baud, using RPC, which altogether is far too slow to pass copious amounts of data, or do it really quickly. On the other hand, it can be used to pass information between programs, be it Python to Python or C++ (Arduino) to Python.

 One of the first things I tried, of course, is running RF24 radio based applications. It appears to work OK initially with the core RF24 driver and RF24Network, but once I got into the RF24Mesh layers, I started to notice problems. I thought it was basic speed issues, but it turned out to be a radio power supply related issue it seems. After changing out the radio and calling 'radio.setPALevel(RF24_PA_MIN,0);', it worked.

Next, I attempted to create a basic TUN network interface in Linux using Python, to see about creating a RF24Gateway like interaction, but realized quickly that this too was outside the general capabilities of the device. It runs a Python virtual environment within a Docker container, with no apparent way to configure things, so I can't seem to get it working. That means an RF24Gateway style library is out of the question for now.

It seems that so much of what I've tried do to so far just doesn't work. There was also a forced, breaking update that happened recently, to version 3.0, where users have to manually download a new version of App Lab in order to program their devices.

 One essential thing to note, is that when the App Lab stops responding, or the Serial/Monitor output gets corrupted, I need to close App Lab, and run `arduino-app-cli system cleanup` from the command line to get it working again.

 Some of the features still seem promising, the ability to easily incorporate "Bricks" and features into your programs, and the underlying software for the MPU is Debian/Linux along with Arduino, so you can still do a lot with it. 

I don't think I'll get another one, but I will definitely be playing around with the one I've got for a while. 

In the meantime, I've included a new example in the RF24 core library that users can try with the Arduino Uno Q that allows users to configure the radio and print debug information.

I've also added an example sketch to go along with the stock RF24 GettingStarted example here:

https://github.com/TMRh20/Sketches/tree/master/ArduinoQ