Monthly Archives: February 2021

Kootnet Sensors Ver. Beta.32.x in Stable!

I have been doing a bit of testing today, and so far, things are working great, especially around graphing through the MQTT Subscriber database (AKA using recorded data from remote sensors). New and upgrade installs have been tested and seem good as well.

So out with Beta.32.64 as the new Stable version!

Be sure to check out the improved MQTT Publisher & Subscriber as both have been enhanced decently. There’s a good chance you’ll be able to configure MQTT Publisher to send your readings to almost any sensor collecting website that supports MQTT.

If anyone is trying it, let me know if you come across any bugs!

Find installers here or if you are already using Kootnet Sensors, goto the advanced section and upgrade to the latest stable version.

P.S. Please note, due to changes to the MQTT Publisher system, your MQTT Publisher configuration will be reset to defaults.

Kootnet Sensors finishing touches and optimizations

Development version Beta.32.x is getting closer to being ready for the Stable channel. I have added some final touches around the MQTT Publisher, such as fixing some things around changing settings and adding a page to view the replacement variables for a custom string.

I have also gone through a bunch of my SQLite database code and optimized it for performance and clarity. Two particular places of improvement are the Notes section and the Sensor Checkins page, both have a significant boost in performance.

Last but maybe not least, I updated the documentation, but not the pictures in it yet … I wonder if I should bother with pictures… it’s a pretty big time hole to get new screenshots, so maybe I’ll remove pictures from a few sections.

Anywho, I’ll probably be doing testing for the most part then out with the new release!

More MQTT Updates

I have revisited the MQTT Publisher and Subscriber again. I have created 3 different “types” or “ways” to send data through MQTT Publisher. The 3 types are as follows

  1. Kootnet Sensor Format – Send a dictionary of all selected and available readings. Each index of the dictionary is specific to Kootnet Sensors database column names and used when writing data to the MQTT Subscriber SQLite database.
  2. Topic Per Sensor – This sends each sensor reading to a specific topic, including readings with multiple variables, such as the accelerometer. So there is a separate topic for accelerometer X, Y and Z for example.
  3. Custom Single String – A text string is provided by the user, of which, specially formated text inside it is replaced with actual sensor values, then sent to the base MQTT topic.

Type 1 and 2 are fairly straight forward, but type 3 deserves a bit more explination. Here is an example of a custom string.

{“DeviceID”: {{ SystemHostName }}, “Temperature”: {{ EnvTemp }}, “Humidity”: {{ Humidity }}}

In this example, a JSON (or Python dictionary) string is sent. However, all text with {{ Something }} is replaced with actual values. So if this was to be sent, it might look like this to the MQTT broker.

{“DeviceID”: MySensorName, “Temperature”: 45.23, “Humidity”: 22.5}

There will be a link above the MQTT Custom string text area to give a list of all the available text that gets replaced by sensor data. Using the MQTT Publisher custom string should allow Kootnet Sensors to work with almost all MQTT brokers being used for sensor readings collection. The MQTT Subscriber has also been updated to work with the new Publisher send types.

I also did some other misc. updates and fixes to things like Plotly graphing and the GUI test program. I need to work on updating the documentation, doing some more tests then I’ll release it to the Stable channel. After that, I kinda want to do some courses on web design, specifically HTML, CSS and javascript. I’m hoping to not only make the web interface look better, but I also want to cut down on the required 3rd party scripts to improve load time and data transmission. It’s also fairly messy… so cleaning it up would be a bounus.

This new version is in the Dev channel and seems stable, so it should be safe to try out, just be warned, the MQTT Publisher configuration gets reset on this upgrade.

Kootnet Sensors Updates

I have made a few updates to Kootnet Sensors now. Here’s the short list.

  • Created new index.html (main web page) – It’s now a very simple page
    • Does not require any special scripts
    • Contains quick basic info
      • Sensor ID
      • Version
      • Hostname
      • Local IP
      • Disk Space check
      • Sensor’s date/time in UTC0 and with its local TimeZone
      • Link to Main Web Interface
  • Added SQLite3 Database Management Page
    • View information on Main/MQTT/Sensors Checkin Databases
    • Download Main/MQTT/Sensors Checkin databases
    • Download or Delete backups of the Main Database
    • Upload Databases
      • Replace Main/MQTT/Sensors Checkin databases
        • Replacing the Main database creates a zipped backup of the old one
      • Upload Custom databases for Graphing
    • Manage Custom Databases
      • Rename, Delete or Shrink (Vacuum) Databases
  • Updated Graphing to work with other Databases
    • Can now graph Main or MQTT Databases
    • Can graph Custom uploaded databases (Main or MQTT)
  • Create and Manage multiple IP lists in Remote Management
  • Added /robots.txt route to discourage web crawlers when set to port 80
  • Created an “Online” installer that’s only 1.4MB compared to the Offline installer at 44.5MB. The Online installer is now used when upgrading.
  • Bunch of refactoring

Things appear to be working well, so I have uploaded it into the Dev channel and it’s probably safe to try out. I’ll be running more tests in a few days and then I might release it into the Stable channel.