Hello, I am working with the team at The Things Network on their Kickstarter campaign.
We thought it would be great to hear and see a bit more on your progress with the UNOs or the plans you have. What cool or working ideas do you have?
Please let us know and send photos, scribbles ideas, etc.
We want to start telling the story of The Things Network and you are a viatl part to this.
Please send anything to web@resonancedesign.co.uk or wienke@thethingsnetwork.com
I believe @gonzalocasas had a nice working idea?
Multifunction shield
Have a Things Uno Beta since IOT TechDay 2016. Added a cheap arduino multifunction shield (with four 7 segment display, buzzer, 3 switches, potmeter, 4 LEDs and ready connectivity for other sensors). Prices start at 3.18 e free shipping (at ali express).
Blocking IO
I decoded the alphabet to the 7 segment display, to show words like INIT, DONE, STOP etcetera. The loop() needs to feed the 7 segment display each iteration. So blocking I/O means no display. Unfortunately currently the TTU API blocks. So I’ll work around it by first displaying ‘SEND’ for a short period, then execute the TTU send, and then display ‘DONE’. It would be an interesting feature to have non-blocking IO, so the Arduino can continue.
Callback or result
While working on that; the sendString has a confirm parameter. Currently there is no return value, nor a callback on a success or failure. There seems to be only a debug log (see hello-world.ino). I’d like to see that improved to have a coded result. The TheThingsUno class could have that easily.
Parameters
It might be me but sometimes it gets confusing what value is what meaning. At the https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/sdk/tree/master/node/TheThingsUno the public API describes parameter appKey and appSKey. I probably need to dive into the AT command specification how to use this and what the difference is. Do I get the parameters for otaa join via a ttnctl command? What to do when I have a node abp and want to use it as otaa instead, or vice versa?
REST Gateway search by location
According to some online maps there are gateways covering my area; but last time I checked these are currently not active. Where is an active gateway located around my position, and how can I see if my message arrived on it? It would be interesting to have the REST interface provide a location search using WGS84. For example; on the ttnstatus.org page, when I select a node, I can see its location, so a search on location (and radius) could be possible to list gateways in for example a 2km radius; http://ttnstatus.org/gateways/1DEE192E3D82B8E4
Then it is also easier to manually look for arrived packets. Especially when it is unknown to me what my node’s address is at the gw.
Thanks for the ability to work with this network!