Ethernet vs Serial gateway performance.

[ahmedadelhosni]

Hello

It is kind of a silly question but does anyone have any lesson learned regarding which gateway can handle packets better and also regarding serial port stability.

For example if some packets were missed when using serial and after switching to ethernet everything was fine.

Personally I have used serial for a short period with OpenHab. My problem was that sometimes the usb port in the laptop (windows) stops working and I had to disable and enable it again. Thus I was afraid to face the same problem usinh Raspberry pi. Thus I am using Ethernet.

But Currently for ease of hardware assembly I want to use Serial again but would like you to share your experience with using Serial gateway and whether it is stable i.e. won't stop, and also can handle packets (maybe someome can define the minimum number of packets per second which the Serial can handle)

Thanks.

[ahmedadelhosni]

you have any experience to tell me which is better please ? @mfalkvidd

[mfalkvidd]

I haven't got any ethernet gateways unfortunately. these posts have some cluses though:
http://forum.mysensors.org/topic/594/arduino-yun-linino-openwrt/14
http://forum.mysensors.org/topic/2437/step-by-step-procedure-to-connect-the-nrf24l01-to-the-gpio-pins-and-use-the-raspberry-as-a-serial-gateway/10

[ahmedadelhosni]

@mfalkvidd Thanks for the links.

So this means that you have no trouble using serial gateway or you mean your setup is using raspberry pi + nrf like the second link ?

[mfalkvidd]

I am using the direct gpio connection on my 5 Raspberry Pi's.

[alexsh1]

@ahmedadelhosni I think it is a matter of taste. You can either emulate GW with a software or have it separate (Ethernet). With the latest RPi 3 performance is not an issue.

Personally, I like Ethernet GW for several reasons. 1) Serial GW was lacking development (MYS 1.4 ver) 2) If there are software issues (like 100% processor usage) you won't be able to receive/send anything.

[ahmedadelhosni]

@mfalkvidd 5 ? What 5 :) ?

[ahmedadelhosni]

@alexsh1 I have not used MYS yet. Isnt it for OTA updates ?

[alexsh1]

@ahmedadelhosni said:

@alexsh1 I have not used MYS yet. Isnt it for OTA updates ?

It is not MYS connector, it is MySensors v1.4 ;-0

[mfalkvidd]

@ahmedadelhosni said:

@mfalkvidd 5 ? What 5 :) ?

Yes :-) One at home, four at work in different offices (Göteborg, Stockholm, Münich and Tulsa)

[fets]

@mfalkvidd since your first answer I was wondering what could you do at home with 5 GW !!!
Thanks for clearifying things up :)

[Yveaux]

@mfalkvidd that's a lot of plants to monitor :bowtie:

[mfalkvidd]

@Yveaux Indeed. I've got requests from one partner in New York and one in California as well, will configure gw's for them and ship next week. Next up is Bangalore, India. It is a really fun project :)
Status for the plants can be seen live here if anyone is curious. Just click the big "PRESS HERE TO ACCESS THE DEMO SYSTEM" button and you'll be logged in.

Screen dump:

[Yveaux]

@mfalkvidd nice! Thanks for the link!

[ahmedadelhosni]

WOOOW :) This is really great.

I do really want to switch to pi + nrf like in your tutorial, but I need to add signing ( as I have asked before ) :)
Maybe I will begin first with running it and then see how to enable the singing.

THanks for your help.

[SuperKris]

I have Domoticz with a RFlink (433mhz kit with aurel transiever on a arduino mega). Its connected to my raspberry pi 2 with Jessie trough USB. This works great. Domoticz always sees the RFlink kit, and communication works flawless.

After reading al lot about mysensors i ordered a whole lot of of arduino and nRF24L01stuff. After reading this topic, i still dont see any real reasons for choosing USB(serial) or Ethernet.

• I will place my mysensors gateway next to my Raspberry with Jessie
• For not i only want to acces my nRF24L01 mysensor network with Domoticz
• Power usage should be as low as possible
• Connecting the gateway with Domoticz should be as plug and play as possible
• I dont care about the extra costs of a ethernet gateway

Next to the above, i have a small preference for a USB gateway, so i dont have to be carefull with IP addresses, configs, etc.

What are the advantages or disadvantages between a USB(serial) gateway, and a Ethernet gateway? I'm planning to use a Arduino nano, or a UNO.

Your advice is very welcome!

[alexsh1]

@Kristiaan-Nugteren said:

What are the advantages or disadvantages between a USB(serial) gateway, and a Ethernet gateway? I'm planning to use a Arduino nano, or a UNO.

This is really a loaded question. I suppose there are pros and cons - personally I wanted to have a separate GW with an IP address. Additionally, the Ethernet GW is updated regularly. Pros of a serial GW are 1) simplicity 2) all in one design 3) no need for a separate box/PSU. On the other hand, it is not updated regularly. I think the latest software when I looked at it in December 2015 was MySensors v1.4

[hek]

On the other hand, it is not updated regularly

I don't really understand the argumentation here, why should the serial gateway be updated regularity? It's a good sign you don't have to do frequent updates of it.

The serial gateway is much simpler than the ethernet variant => Less can go wrong. :)

[alexsh1]

@hek

I am not suggesting this is good or bad. This is the fact that one has got 1.5 or 1.6 (dev) and the other one only 1.4 unless anything changed.

I did experience issues with the serial set-up. I think it is due to the fact that I have multiple scripts running on my RPi and it was more due to one of those scripts taking too much processing power and not due to the serial software.

[ahmedadelhosni]

@alexsh1 What do you mean by not updates regulary ? You mean it updates on serial interrupts while ethernet is always running in a loop ?