WiFi LoRa with Arduino Sensors, RX/TX not working right?

[jsteiwer]

Hi Nick, thank you for your detailed reply and encouraging words.

This is a common trap that many academics fall in to, usually a senior staff member who then puts pressure on to a colleague to get something done that is outside the skill set & experience of the discipline that they are all involved in. In some cases the expectations fall under the heading of bullying and illegal.

What you mentioned is something that happened to me at the university, which is why I have a new job elsewhere since the beginning of the year. The group I worked in was part of the Electrical Engineering department but the experience with sensors they had was limited to BMEs and other rather simplistic sensors, none requiring calibration or IP68 protection standards etc. Combine such a group, that is also led by someone who does not have any EE expertise but has high demands, with a tight budget (less than 500€ per node) and someone (me) who doesn’t know anything about Arduino but believes that being a PhD candidate (with a maritime mechatronics background) means you must be an expert in any field that is tangent to your main research area. I think you can make a rough estimate of my stress levels from this…

To not make this too negative: At my new job, I do some new stuff but my new supervisor is also super interested in what I previously did and is very supportive, so I’m looking ahead to positive developments.

Honestly, last weekend, had I a car, I would have driven all the way to Steven and build his cabinet and do whatever furniture assembly tasks he has (I can also paint walls, strip old wallpapers etc.) in exchange for him getting the sensor to work for me. Would probably have been more enjoyable for both of us…

There are dozens of microcontroller platforms around they can’t possibly support all of them or even come close to testing on each of them.

They usually check the following boards for their libraries: Arduino Uno, Mega2560, Leonardo, ESP32, micro:bit, FireBeetle M0. It just seems that, once something does not work on a board, they just put “doesn’t work” and then leave it at that. The pH sensor has an issue open since 2022 with last posts from 2024 as to what “work wrong” (that’s how it’s written in the test sheet) on ESP32 even means.

Heltec try to create

The library I was talking about is the one from the sensor manufacturer, see here. Paired with them having lots of sensors and “AI” stuff for monitoring purposes (especially indoors), I do not understand why they don’t push testing on WiFi+Bluetooth supporting boards more. It seems unlikely that someone will just check the value on the small MCU screen all day or have a designated laptop/computer solely for running the MCU and sensors…

stop hoping that this stuff just works

Well, “that stuff just working” is a hope that will die last for me, maybe one day we get to experience true “plug and play” which doesn’t cost an arm and a leg (please let me dream here for a moment).

[jsteiwer]

Thanks, Pete, I checked your codes and will try modifying the manufacturer’s code with your insights and report back on the results, most likely this weekend in a new, designated thread!

[nmcc]

The library I was talking about is the one from the sensor manufacturer, see here.

That library is likely a hack of the Heltec LW porridge, using a code base from 2020 with examples that we would consider inappropriate and is clearly not formatted for general circulation.

So I wouldn’t get too invested in the idea that they have produced something good, just something they can sell.