General Discussion

@Cliff-Karlsson Yes, you can power them from the same pins. You do have to make sure that the Arduino can source enough current for all of the sensors that you have. The amount they can source will depend on which Arduino you have. Cheers Al

@JoeStrout said: I started setting up a Z-wave network a couple months ago when I moved into this new house. For the most part, things are working pretty well. But I have a node in the back yard that controls the yard lights; it's located in the pool pump area, behind a concrete wall, and the far edge of the property. At first I couldn't reach that node at all, but then I stuck another module on one of the outside outlets on that side of the house. Then I was able to reach that remote node fairly reliably. But it was still a bit flaky, and for the past two days, I haven't been able to reach it at all. That means trudging out to turn the yard lights on and off by hand. WAF is low, and I'm not happy either. Moreover, we want to add Z-wave control of the pool pump as well, which would be in the same area, but that's going to require an extensive electrical refactoring — so we need to be sure it's going to actually work! So! This is why I'm asking: How can I best extend the range out to a remote node, when there are no outlets in between? Are there dedicated "relay" modules that have bigger antennas or more power? Or is there some sort of wired relay (the wire of which I suppose I could bury in the yard)? (And sorry for the non-MySensors-specific question... but I've found this forum to be friendlier and more helpful on all topics than other Z-wave forums on the net!) What controller are you using? I successfully changed antenna in my Vera Edge wich gavel alot better range :)

@Cliff-Karlsson There's a good example in the MySensors lib with sleep and two switches. https://github.com/mysensors/Arduino/blob/master/libraries/MySensors/examples/BinarySwitchSleepSensor/BinarySwitchSleepSensor.ino My adaption of that one to my own need and with one swtich looked like this #include <MySensor.h> #include <SPI.h> #define SKETCH_NAME "BinSwSleepBat" #define SKETCH_VERSION "1-2" #define CHILD_ID 0 #define BUTTON_PIN 3 // Arduino Digital I/O pin for button/reed switch. On Atmega328p (nano and pro mini) D2 and/or D3 are interrupt pins. MySensor mys; MyMessage msg(CHILD_ID, V_TRIPPED); // Change to V_LIGHT if you use S_LIGHT in presentation below int sentValue=2; void setup() { mys.begin(); pinMode(BUTTON_PIN, INPUT); // Setup the buttons digitalWrite(BUTTON_PIN, HIGH); // Activate internal pull-ups mys.sendSketchInfo(SKETCH_NAME, SKETCH_VERSION); mys.present(CHILD_ID, S_DOOR); } void loop() // Loop will iterate on changes on the BUTTON_PINs { mys.sleep(50); // Short delay to allow buttons to properly settle uint8_t val = digitalRead(BUTTON_PIN); if (val != sentValue) { // If value has changed from last transmission, send the updated value mys.send(msg.set(val==HIGH ? 1 : 0)); sentValue = val; } mys.sleep(BUTTON_PIN-2, CHANGE, 0); // Sleep until something happens with the sensor }

@zuru The gateway will dump info on the serial port, so you could write a script or application to parse that. The API info is here: http://www.mysensors.org/download/serial_api_15. Note that the controller also assigns node IDs so you would need to hard code them if the script or app you build does not respond to those requests. Cheers Al

I looked at your recommendations when provided, but was busy with other things so forgot to reply. I now have 3 systems of sensors reporting to the Uno (Blueline power meter reader, Acurite 5n1 weather station, Acurite 592TX temperature sensors (1 currently, but up to 3 channels))and will be adding 1 or more local sensors to it as well (barometric pressure currently, but probably temperature also at a minimum). I have all of this sending data to the RPi via MQTT and am working on optimizing the location for the Uno for best reception/least packet loss. I'm also planning on tracking UPS performance as well as RPi CPU/memory. That being said, I looked into emoncms again this morning and it appears that the data is stored on the cloud somewhere. If so, that's not ideal due to reasons I originally posted. I thought this would be the option I would utilize until I saw that. I've looked at Grafana/influxdb and they look great, but it will take more effort to figure them out. I decided against freeboard since I specificially want plots and not gauges. I considered using rrdtools, but it looks like it's only capable of storing at a single frequency and then purges anything over a certain age (maintains a certain database size and loops to overwrite the oldest data next). There's a number of tutorials/guides, but I haven't found one that's a close enough match to proceed. I have a working HA server at the moment, so I'm leery of installing too much and risk corrupting things. When I do proceed, I'll certainly back up the SD first!

Ahh..That seems to be the "green it" everyone speaking of a few years ago. ;)

cheers for that sparkman ... i was thinking of trying some sort of 433mhz sniffer to wifi serial setup..and hook up a 70cm coliner antenna to the radio with a bit of filtering and narrow the band down and see what is out there that can be used in a local (mesh) of sensors.. i turned my 70cm ham radio and tuned it down to 433.92 and there is a load of traffic out there .. how many are remote weather sensors same with 315mhz ...could be handy in mapping local climate hotspots and microclimates.....

Let me UP this thread. mb @tekka could help?

Maybe you can post a picture or schematics showing how you are connecting the radio to arduino? You last screenshot is showing only 'failed' for any radio operation.

@diggs I expect the first usable snapshot builds at the end of this week. They are located at: http://builder.pidome.org/view/Snapshot builds/job/PiDome clients collection/ These clients are build to provide ease of use. Data aggregation and details will stay on the server.

@boozz glad to see you got your head around it.

Hello, I just started off trying to make a few sensors, Just like you i only had uno's and pro mini and no nano. Read this article and thought everything would be fine, but. So i loaded up the sketch onto an uno and plugged it into my vera loaded the files but Vera Serial port configuration dosent detect anything. Any idea how to get that working?

I bought 5 of these from iTead a long time back.. excellent to get going quickly and for testing.! Highly recommend these! This one has been running on my desk just as a light lux sensor for months without needing any attention. IMG_20150808_135557.jpg

Thanks... tried to update. But my serial is a Mega 2560. So it gives an error. Remembers me i found a topic to switch the pins and change them in the sketch.

I tapped into a newer alarm systems door sensors by measuring the voltage via the analog pins. My alarm still works, but I can also see open/closed via mysensors/openhab.

ok cool i understand ...and if people for what ever reason need that kind of accurcy then a simple dunio ntp gateway will do the job ..