I am looking for opinions of What Microprocessor with Wifi or Radio Frequency To Use. I am wanting to monitor water temperature and air(weather readings) at about 1 ft off the surface of water and send that to a phone app. My questions are:
Thanks,
Kevin
You’ve turned this into an x-y problem by posting your proposed solutions rather than properly defining your needs.
What is maximum distance between the sensors and your phone do you need?
Over an open surface like water, WiFi will go quite a long way, probably more than 100m. But WiFi is not low power. How will your sensor be powered? How often do you need to take readings? Air temp does not change very rapidly, and water temp even more slowly. How easy will it be to replace a battery in the sensor, and how often would you be prepared to do that?
If the sensor can be "mains" powered, by which I mean a low voltage dc power supply located safely away from the water, then an esp8266 board such as Wemos Mini could work. It can create its own WiFi access point which your phone could connect to, and display a simple web page showing the temps.
If battery power is a must, then things get more difficult. An esp board would need to spend most of its time in deep sleep to conserve battery, waking up perhaps every 15 minutes to take a reading. So there must be a way for it to connect to an existing WiFi access point and send the readings to, for example, a remote database. Then you can use your phone to view the readings on a Web page from the remote server. With this setup, the sensor could last many weeks on 3 or 4 AA cells.
If you need the sensor to last months or even a couple of years on batteries, then WiFi is out.
Maybe take a look at LoRa. Range of several kilometers but you need a LoRa base station in that range. Very low power.
@Avr Fred,
Sorry I posted and waisted your time, but it seems that if you didn't take the time to answer my post that it wouldn't have waisted your time. My suggestion is don't post if you feel it is a waste of your time because it may not be for someone else. There's a lot of great people on here!
ThankYou Paul I will evaluate what you posted.
SIRRY TO WASTE EVERYONES TIME!
Some forum members may be prepared to spend their time listing all the possible soloutions, but many will not, so you may not get the best answers.
In most all radio applications, a key question is 'how far' a question which you don't appear to want to answer.
And always worthwhile saying where in the world you are, what is legal to use in one place may not be in another.
There's a lot of great people on here!
And avr_fred is one of them. His comments are perfectly valid. You have started by proposing a solution, at least a partial one, rather than setting out your goals and requirements.
If you get upset and react badly every time someone criticises you, as you did in post #3, no-one is going to want to help you.
Did I, or did I not, write a long and detailed response for you in reply #2? Does that not earn me just a little trust and respect in your eyes? I hope so. If not, you join a long and tedious precession of "newbies" that we get every day here. They don't want to learn, they just want to use us. Use us to design circuits or write code for them so they look good in front of their mates or teachers. They learn, and want to learn, the absolute minimum they can get away with. The old saying is "give a man a fish and he will eat for a day". They come back the next day demanding another fish like they have a right to it. It's hard to distinguish between newbies. Just a few really do want to learn. You develop a sixth sense about them. But it's not infallible. Show us which kind of newby you are.
EDIT: I see you deleted your last response. I take this as a hopeful sign.
I said thank You in the post above and I also appreciate you answering me back. I also said I would evaluate what you said. I appreciate that you took the time and was right to the point. I guess I have an issue with how AVRFred answered my post. I don't like to be talked down to. I am not an idiot nor am I on here to use anyone. I love to learn and have learned a bunch here lately for some projects I am working on. I have learned some programming, cad/cam, got a cnc machine and put together and learned to set it up and program it to make some panels for a project etc. So like I said I am not here to use anyone, I am here to learn and enjoy the hobbies.
Yes I did take down the last post because I take things to heart ND can be a very outspoken person. People don't want to here Tthe truth when someone has something to say. so rather than so what I feel i decided to take it down to keep the peace. If i am not happy with the comments i get here i can go somewhere else, another forum or just learn like I have with info I find on searches or videos etc.
You seem more concerned with your perception of how you are being treated than supplying information that would help the forum to help you.
Consider the questions posed in post #4.
You may have assumed that the forum members know how far or what range you want, but we dont, so why not provide this simple bit of information ?
Correction post#4 is mine and I guess you are referring to Pauls post!
Ok!
Ok. An esp8266 averages around 80mA. So your battery needs to be at least 640mAh. You could use 3xAA cells or 4xAA rechargeable cells. They have a capacity of around 2000mAh. Or a 18650 size Li-ion battery which will have a 2000-3000mAh capacity. I recommend a Wemos mini. The standard or Lite version should have enough range, but if not, you can get the Pro version and an external antenna with a higher gain. 2x waterproof ds18b20 temp sensors. Simples!
KevinRoach:
Correction post#4 is mine and I guess you are referring to Pauls post!
Ok!
No doubt you are right, but below is a screenshot of what I see as post#4;
Hello!
I want to do a project where I can used a Wemos D1 Mini Pro and a BME280 to monitor weather and send it directly to my phone. Is this possible without send it up to see cloud or a server etc.?
Thanks,
Kevin
Hi Kevin. Yes, possible but with some (actually quite a few) limitations. And not a project for a beginner. What have you done with Arduino up to now? Wemos can be a server, but not a very powerful one. Maybe you could use a raspberry pi as a server?
send it directly to my phone. Is this possible without send it up to see cloud or a server etc.?
Over what distance do you want the phone to connect to theWemos D1 mini?
My coding skills are not the best but I am learning and I am willing to learn.
What I want to do is monitor water temp and weather on the water. I would like a wifi distance of 150ft.
What I want to do is monitor water temp and weather on the water
How are you planning to "monitor the weather" on the water?
I would like a wifi distance of 150ft.
Is this line of sight over open water with no obstacles? If so, you may be OK. In my experience, my D1 does not have anything like the range of my home router with wall and other obstacles. The D1 mini pro can use an external antenna.
Do you intend on using the Wemos D1 as a web server that you connect the phone to and browse a web page generated on the D1 or will the D1 push results to a cloud dashboard like Cayenne so you can view the results from an App/browser anywhere in the world.
So this is a continuation of this thread?
You should not start new topics on the same subject, it is called cross-posting, and is against the forum rules.
Riva:
will the D1 push results to a cloud
From the OP:
KevinRoach:
Is this possible without send it up to see cloud or a server etc.?