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Let there be graphs

- Posted in Computer by

Some years ago I tried to monitor and display some domestic metrics, with my aquariums temperature as a main goal.
I thus bought a profilux monitor, which was expensive. It was also a close system (at least at the time, no API for external access, I quickly gave up trying to hack it), and... mine is now out of order...
So instead of fixing it, I decided to take the Home Assistant road, and, wow, what a trip :)
And guess what, temperature captors are available, easy to use and some of them are waterproof. See me coming?
Within a few hours, I had my long awaited water temperatures in a nice graph: enter image description here

Another proof, if needed, that happiness definitively lies in simple things.

ps: Yes, the Profilux can also monitor pH values, and I've yet to find a Zigbee device that can do that, other than some huge pool stuff. But unlike my temperatures, my pH is stable, so as long as I have to choose, I'd rather have my sexy temperature curves than ... nothing at all :)
And who knows, maybe tomorrow Amazon will offer me the Zigbee pH sensor I've been waiting for.
Peace out.

Take only pictures, leave only footprints

- Posted in Computer by

Twenty years ago, I roamed the four corners and like everyone else, I took pictures of Antelope Canyon. You know, the ones where yours are always 100 times uglier than everyone else's?
It just so happens that, at the time, I still had a film camera, which doesn't like X-ray scans at airport security checkpoints, which of course I didn't know, in my naivety at the time (and still a bit this day).
As a result, once developed, all my photos of a once-in-a-lifetime trip are all speckled, and therefore terrible.
Furthermore, the light (or lack of it) in Antelope Canyon already makes this kind of photo natively difficult (plus people everywhere, no photo tripod).
So even if the result is personal and therefore emotional, it's undeniably ugly.
And here, 20 years later, playing with Topaz's tools (no, I'm not sponsored), I've come up with a rather nice result, even if inventing pixels inevitably distances the final result from the original reality.

enter image description here
Yes, 20 years... Life begins when you realize you've only got one? Yes :)

Monitor progress

- Posted in Computer by

So, this is what it currently looks like on a 11.6" display (the pen's here for scale purpose): enter image description here
Otherwise:

  • I like this tree view better
  • All blocks have dedicated refresh times
  • Aquarium values are still fake, no Profilux yet
  • Will also track here my water pumps maintenance dates, no more 'Oooops, I forgot!' excuses
  • Upload to UG.com is up&running, some PHP skills will be needed now in order to display nice curves here
  • Perhaps I'll fill the still empty space with some local weather forecast, there are some nice free API such as https://api.met.no/

Have a nice one.

Monitor progress

- Posted in Computer by

Things are coming along nicely with my monitoring project:
enter image description here
One can already find there:

  • Minimal Banana Pi monitoring infos (top-screen block),
  • Netatmo infos collected via API call ('HOUSE' mid-screen block),
  • Future place holder for Aquariums data ('AQUARIUMS' bottom-screen block). Currently fake data is displayed, ain't ordered the Profilux yet :)

Next steps :

  1. Upload data to this very server, in order to provide a Web public display,
  2. Get a bigger screen for my Banana PI, my current 4 inches is way too small for me :)
  3. Begin the Profilux adventure.


What?
Aquarium plural is Aquaria?
Sorry, that hurts my french ears too hard, so I'll stick to the Aquariums form.

What bis?
Why a console version, no nice graphics?
Yep, my Banana Pi's a small thing, I wan to keep it w/o a graphical desktop environment.
And I do like its root look&feel this way :)

News will follow when I have new things to show. See ya.

Banana's back

- Posted in Computer by

A few years ago I bought a Banana Pi.
Never heard of it? It's a Raspberry Pi clone, but with at least one killer feature: a SATA interface. So, no more SD card ever lasting i/o, welcome to the SSD performances. Not that I need those performances, but I've always been worried about the lifespan of an SD card used as an OS storage.
I never went that far using my Banana Pi, mainly because the official distributions were unfriendly and outdated. But when I discovered Armbian, all those problems vanished. Armbian is an up to date robust and well documented 'Minimal Debian based Linux with powerful configurator and software installer'. And it's true :)
I'm thinking about automating the temperature and pH monitoring of my aquariums, with appliances like GHL ProfiLux 4 aquarium controller. This little but expensive jewel comes with an embedded web server. I would like to publish on this web site the result of this monitoring, but not only, I'd also like to add things like in house temperature and pressure, in order to have a complete view.
Having no ProfiLux yet (still saving €), I started playing with what I already have: my Banana Pi and in house data from my Netatmo weather station. This device has a public API and I found scripting the retrieving of my data quite simple.
So in a matter of hours, I managed to install Armbian on my Banana Pi, read Netatmo's API and write a small Tcl script that collects my data on demand.

Actually I'm quite happy with the result: enter image description here
Next step? Put the results in a database (yes, I know, I wanted a flat CMS to avoid databases, just to find myself needing one a few weeks later), and periodically send them to this public server. Yes, my Banana Pi will remain local only, the world is not ready yet for it :)
And later, build and publish a complete monitoring page with the Netatmo and the aquarium data. No roadmap ;)

Ps: Yes, I know, Tcl is not very trendy. I'm too old for Ruby/Python. A good friend of mine used to say: Tradition is a good thing, though in this particular case I would say One can be sexy without being trendy.