I know nothing about Arduino and before I spend too much time in attempting to build a project I wondered if I could ask about the feasibility of building what I want:
The internet service from my ISP occasionally drops out for a few minutes.
I want an LED that I can have beside my TV in the living room that tells me my wi-fi is working OK. If I'm streaming a movie, and it hangs or lags, I want to instantly be able to see that I still have an internet connection without having to go upstairs to look at the router or getting out my mobile to check the signal.
Is this something that could be achieved with any of the Arduino boards? Would it be a simple thing to do as a first project?
This actually has little to do with WiFi as such because it is not the WiFi that is failing, but the broadband link from your modem to the ISP (and beyond).
An ESP-01 with its USB module plugged into a "phone charger" and with a LED and resistor should be able to "ping" a reference site (Google?) every so many seconds without causing excessive traffic.
I would actually try to avoid wifi as long as you have spare ethernet ports on your router..
There´s ethernet shields available, at least for the UNO.
By avoiding wifi you avoid any intermittent issues with the wifi signal & connection, as well as limit radio noise.
I would also use ping to determine link status, perhaps use the DNS of your ISP as target (if it answers to pings).
Depending on what other hardware you have, a arduino may not be your best option.
Perhaps you already have a raspberry pi hooked up as a media player / retro gaming station?
There are other devices that already have the network bits in place, meaning you would only need to add a check-url>report status to LED on top of that existing software.
There may even be a solution that doesnt require you to solve anything, like a widget for your android phone that checks the current network status?
It wont display a LED next to your tv, but it could give you somewhat instant status report by checking your phone.
xarvox:
There may even be a solution that doesnt require you to solve anything, like a widget for your android phone that checks the current network status?
It wont display a LED next to your tv, but it could give you somewhat instant status report by checking your phone.
rjhoward did say in his original post that he didn't want to be using his phone.
Presumably he can already do this, and saw the use of an Arduino as an improvement.
