Remote monitoring setup

H

HughF

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Jan 1, 2018
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What are my options for remotely monitoring my wm4 system? Should I adopt one of the following strategies:

1. Laptop connected to wm4, GSM modem connected to laptop, vnc server running on laptop, dynamic DNS mapped to a domain...

2. Wm4 set to WiFi connection, GSM WiFi router bridged to wm4 WiFi, GSM WiFi router port forwarding the required ports. Run watchmon toolkit on my laptop and tell toolkit to connect via network... Is this option even do-able?

3. Another option I haven't thought of
 
If you want to monitor your system from elsewhere option 1 should work.
You'd want to harden the laptop & the VNC pwd as it'll be exposed to web.
Expect to get hacked

Another option (3!) is to run a VPN server on your router or & connect to that.
Maybe an open firmware load on router eg Gargoyle, LEDE, OpenWRT
Still expect to get hacked.
 
I'm thinking option 1 too..... I've made an offer on a 3g router I can put in the power shed at this location and a data-only sim is cheap enough (10/month)...
 
If you're on the property yourself & don't want access from elsewhere, you can just use WiFi Bridges, eg a Ubiquiti loco M2 or M5?
 
Redpacket said:
If you're on the property yourself & don't want access from elsewhere, you can just use WiFi Bridges, eg a Ubiquiti loco M2 or M5?
Click to expand...

I need remote access as well as local...
 
WM4 has a great feature that I got up and running pretty easily

It can link to https://thingspeak.com/ - there is an option for it in the tools page

I then use an app on my android phone to have some key stats displayed on my home screen.. the app will also notify me if my cell voltages are too high or low, etc

The app is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ua.livi.thingspeakmonitor

I also use teamviewer to remotely control the Windows 10 machine thats running the watchman process

That combo works really well! and is a piece of cake to setup
 
farmerjohn said:
WM4 has a great feature that I got up and running pretty easily

It can link to https://thingspeak.com/ - there is an option for it in the tools page

I then use an app on my android phone to have some key stats displayed on my home screen.. the app will also notify me if my cell voltages are too high or low, etc

The app is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ua.livi.thingspeakmonitor

I also use teamviewer to remotely control the Windows 10 machine thats running the watchman process

That combo works really well! and is a piece of cake to setup
Click to expand...

Excellent, that looks just the job. So I just need to set the WM4 to join the Wifi hotspot that my 3g router creates and it will upload the data - excellent stuff.
 
HughF said:
farmerjohn said:
WM4 has a great feature that I got up and running pretty easily

It can link to https://thingspeak.com/ - there is an option for it in the tools page

I then use an app on my android phone to have some key stats displayed on my home screen.. the app will also notify me if my cell voltages are too high or low, etc

The app is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ua.livi.thingspeakmonitor

I also use teamviewer to remotely control the Windows 10 machine thats running the watchman process

That combo works really well! and is a piece of cake to setup
Click to expand...

Excellent, that looks just the job. So I just need to set the WM4 to join the Wifi hotspot that my 3g router creates and it will upload the data - excellent stuff.
Click to expand...

Yes but one caveat is that you need a PC running the Toolkit at all times to connect to thingspeak. The WM4 hardware itself does not communicate to it.
I purchased a lattepanda board with windows10 already installed and have that connected to it. It reduces my tare losses quite a bit compared to having a laptop or PC running all the time. It consumes less than 10 watts

https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1405.html - $149

I also got the 7" touchscreen for it - works great!
 
farmerjohn said:
HughF said:
farmerjohn said:
WM4 has a great feature that I got up and running pretty easily

It can link to https://thingspeak.com/ - there is an option for it in the tools page

I then use an app on my android phone to have some key stats displayed on my home screen.. the app will also notify me if my cell voltages are too high or low, etc

The app is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ua.livi.thingspeakmonitor

I also use teamviewer to remotely control the Windows 10 machine thats running the watchman process

That combo works really well! and is a piece of cake to setup
Click to expand...

Excellent, that looks just the job. So I just need to set the WM4 to join the Wifi hotspot that my 3g router creates and it will upload the data - excellent stuff.
Click to expand...

Yes but one caveat is that you need a PC running the Toolkit at all times to connect to thingspeak. The WM4 hardware itself does not communicate to it.
I purchased a lattepanda board with windows10 already installed and have that connected to it. It reduces my tare losses quite a bit compared to having a laptop or PC running all the time. It consumes less than 10 watts

https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1405.html - $149

I also got the 7" touchscreen for it - works great!
Click to expand...

Interesting, thanks... I was going to use and old Dell latitude I have, this could be more suitable.
 
If you're gonna go with something of that price range, might as well go with a NUC. They come with windows and have pretty good sized onboard storage and built in wifi


Well, reviewing the panda further:
* Intel Cherry Trail Z8350 Quad Core Processor
* Base Frequency: 1.44GHz (1.92GHz Burst Frequency)
* Operating System: Windows 10 Home Edition
* RAM: 2GB DDR3L
.....I think NUC has 8GB at least
* Storage Capacity: 32G
....I think the NUC comes with 128GB
* GPU: Intel HD Graphics, 12 EUs @200-500Mhz, single-channel memory
* USB 3.0 x 1, USB 2.0 x 2
* Wi-Fi 802.11n 2.4G
* Video output: HDMI and MIPI-DSI
* Supports 100Mbps Ethernet
* Intel Processor GPIO x 6
* ATmega Processor GPIO x 20
* Voltage: 5V@2A
....The NUC runs on 12V. So you wouldn't need to buck the voltage down as far, which means more efficient on the lowering


With those few differences, the Panda is a very tempting board. It's nice that you can also program the internal ATmega board using the Arduino IDE for easy expansion and control of external sensors.
 
I bought a panda board, should be a good fit for this project
 
Keep us updated on the board. I'm interested in them as well for what they can do.
 
Korishan said:
Keep us updated on the board. I'm interested in them as well for what they can do.
Click to expand...

The NUC board looks interesting too - never heard of it before

So far my Panda board is working great! Batrium runs well on it and I am using the built in arduino to control my charge controllers and inverter since they are not yet supported by batrium natively
 
Where can you get a NUC incl the RAM, SSD, Win10, etc for a comparable price?
 
HughF said:
What are my options for remotely monitoring my wm4 system?
Click to expand...

It will not be long before we publicly release the MQTT connectivity, thiswill give you the remote accessfunctionality your requesting.MQTT requiresa web (cloud)message broker which we plan to offer asa service.However you can runyour ownprivate brokeror adoptotherthird parties.

This will beavailable with the release of the initialweb portal andmobile tools. We hope this will make the whole BMSfunctionality much more usefully and open its access beyond the Windows desktop. This objective hasbeen in the planning for some time which requiredthe WM4 hardware upgrade to ensure a secure IoT communication layerbefore offering the remote access.

MQTT access has beenroadmappedto be released inthe third upgrade (~Aug/Sept). The next update is focused on addinga number of inverters optionsand improve the features for the expansion board control.

In this thread they have listed a number ofsolutions thatwork today.
 
Batrium said:
HughF said:
What are my options for remotely monitoring my wm4 system?
Click to expand...

It will not be long before we publicly release the MQTT connectivity, thiswill give you the remote accessfunctionality your requesting.MQTT requiresa web (cloud)message broker which we plan to offer asa service.However you can runyour ownprivate brokeror adoptotherthird parties.

This will beavailable with the release of the initialweb portal andmobile tools. We hope this will make the whole BMSfunctionality much more usefully and open its access beyond the Windows desktop. This objective hasbeen in the planning for some time which requiredthe WM4 hardware upgrade to ensure a secure IoT communication layerbefore offering the remote access.

MQTT access has beenroadmappedto be released inthe third upgrade (~Aug/Sept). The next update is focused on addinga number of inverters optionsand improve the features for the expansion board control.

In this thread they have listed a number ofsolutions thatwork today.
Click to expand...

Interesting, thanks... I'll roll with an intermediate PC until then and keep an eye on the development of the mqtt functionality.

Any plans to add support for the outback Axs module?
 
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