Setting up Ruuvi sensors

I flashed an ESP32 with OpenMQTTGateway which works as an MQTT BLE proxy for both Home Assistant and Node-Red. It also supports RuuviTags by default and delivers human readable sensor values in the payload.


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@pat I have been testing a few gateway options, OpenMQTTGateway, Tasmota-BLE and ESPHome.
They are all firmwares for ESP32, OpenMQTTGateway and Tasmota-BLE are similar MQTT gateways and ESPHome acts as a Bluetooth proxy for HA.

But another option I came across is using an android device, and old phone or cheap android TV box may be perfect. Could be a good option for Gateways considering an Android TV box could be got for about €30. The Ruuvi app has a Data forwarding option which plays well with Node-Red and delivers sensor payload in human readable format.

Hah… nice to have some gateway options.

So, you use the mobile bluetooth and ruuvi-app with forwarding then?
Where do you forward to if node-red is the destination?

Just create a Node-Red endpoint with a http-in node.
It forwards using a simple post request. Similar to how the Ruuvi gateway works.

Ah. Smart.
Then it should work to forward my gateway to a http-in node too.
I’d better start some testing this myself. I have one extra ruuvi for testing and a few old phones.

Next up is some monitoring on my central heating.

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I thought we already did that with your gateway, before we started playing with the cloud API?

Uh… you may be right. Don’t remember exactly what we did there.
That part could be more relevant now, that the free Ruuvi cloud gets less history.
I like the interface of the cloud, but now that I got my Neuro Sensors I see the need for a more uniform sensor view. I’ll post some ino about them too when I get time.

I’ve started to polish my Node-Red dashboard skills now. Feeling the need to make some more advanced user interface. I even made my first subflow. (Check the result of a API call and provide dialogs for result)
I also have to dig into the git part too soon.

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There are a few limitations with the free tier of cloud including a max number of sensors.
Have you a link for the Neuro Sensors?

Good work…
I’ve a good bit of dashboard work planned too, think I will build most of my field tools in Node-Red for the coming season.

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Neuro Sensors

A bit pricy but they are qualtiy sensors for rough environment.
Only 2 alternatives here for insurance discount when mounted in fuseboxes.
The other company has close bindings to the biggest insurance company, and are definately closed for creative interaction.

Exiting.
Until now, I’ve focused on PC dashboard. Will try out a more mobile-friendly dashboard ahead.
I’ve got wifi almost in all corners of my farmyard now, so that makes a central Node-Red fine for the things I need at first. But an offline alternative could be interesting once I have the FieldBee API.
Unless I dare to open up my Node-Red for external access. :fearful:

I’m not sure if I should run 2 Node-Red units so I have one dashboard for mobile.
Actually considering a cheap used ThinkCentre or similar for hosting stuff. I think it should be more reliable than RPi in the long run, and better than a regular computer.
Although there’s been no trouble so far.

A VPN is another option. Wireguard works on Pi and Mobile, will allow you to connect to local network without exposing anything else to the internet.

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Neuron dashboard. The white boxes are gateways. Brave doesn’t render them too well.
Small black boxes are my fuseboxes door status and temperature.
The big red one is an extra tempsensor with open/close.
The black big one is an surface temp sensor.


This is the detail view of my pig-barn fusebox sensor.
As you can see, I opened the door yesterday.

It’s also possible to add graphs from other sensors to compare.

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Some Test Sensors, (Have them in my pockets all morning)
Not sure how I’d like to store these in farmOS, it’s 1 sample per second I think sending to the data stream may be overkill and a lower sample rate less useful for monitoring movement. Perhaps posting an array of data every few hours would be more useful.

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Awesome.
I store temperature and humidity one time pr hour in the barn. Thats perfect there.

But your case may be different.

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Yea, temperature would be fine, but movements to track how vigorous or lethargic a calf may be, would require a much higher sample rate.

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At least with a custom gateway I could store that as an array and forward the data much less frequently.

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Sure. Maybe start with as long interval as makes you comfortable, and then decrease till your satisfied.

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Do you think you can distinguish on movement out of the kurves?
E.g. Track walking time, feeding time etc

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It may be possible to decrease but would still need to be several a min to cover it, so will need to do some manipulation of data at the Gateway which probably rules out the ESP32’s, so some sort of ARM based device.

Don’t know, but possibly, I can see a distinction in orientation from the charts. And proximity to the gateway. With custom firmware on the tags proximity to other tags is possible too (like its mother).

Do you need the complete history in FarmOS?
Could track daily details in a dashboard, and store a summary or something in FarmOS

That’s nice