Refrigerator history monitoring stopped a week ago

[mshulman]

The sensor broadcasts it's value infrequently, like once a minute. When the Bluetooth sensor plugin receives the broadcast, it sends it out via SignalK.

Let me see if we can make the Bluetooth plugin broadcast every 30 seconds or whenever it receives a broadcast.

[mshulman]

I asked if the Bluetooth plugin could rebroadcast data for up to 30 seconds. Here's the reply I got:

It'd be bad design to rebroadcast as SK assigns a timestamp for the delta. Rebroadcasting would create spuriously timestamped data and be redundant with existing function -- plugins like SailLogger can ask for the temperature path at any time. If SailLogger is marking infrequently updated paths like temperature missing after 60 seconds that's a SailLogger issue/limitation.

[admin]

I think things are getting a bit confused here. You don't want to rebroadcast data, you want fresh data relatively frequently. Saillogger requests the path every minute and checks the age of the data. If it is more than 60 seconds, it doesn't consider it fresh enough. Otherwise what it displays would be obsolete information (i.e. it is identical to rebroadcasting the stale data into Saillogger).

Which plugin is this and how frequently is the data refreshed (like not rebroadcast but actually refreshed)?

[mshulman]

This workflow is using the "BT Sensors plugin" (https://github.com/naugehyde/bt-sensors-plugin-sk).

By default, the sensor broadcasts its data whenever it changes significantly, but at least every 60 seconds by default with the stock firmware.
(link to custom firmware: https://github.com/atc1441/ATC_MiThermometer)

When the "BT Sensor Plugin" sees this reading, it broadcasts it out to SignalK.

The bad user behavior is that the sensor broadcasts (or "advertises") its current state every 60 seconds by default, which just matches the obsolete timeout in Saillogger.

This leads to the refrigerator reading being missing some or most of the time.

We could fix this by increasing the broadcast rate from the sensor, but these sensors use tiny little batteries, so maximizing battery life is important.

Perhaps Saillogger could have an override for devices that don't change quickly, like tanks or temperature sensors, and tolerate a 5 minute data refresh interval?

[admin]

Please try plugin version 4.0.2 that we just published. It increases the refreshment timeout to 90 seconds, hopefully it will solve your problem.

[mshulman]

I just updated to 4.0.2 and I'll let you know. Thank you.

Btw, perhaps the plugin could announce its version number in the server log at startup?

[admin]

Plugin version is available on Saillogger settings in the boat tab: https://saillogger.com/settings/?tab=boat

[mshulman]

I have version 4.0.2 and my refrigerator still read 0F when looked this morning. After leaving the realtime monitoring tab open, it now shows 34F.

[mshulman]

This is still happening. When I first open the Real Time monitoring page, the refrigerator shows 0F. After sitting on the page for a minute or so, it shows the correct temperature.

My other temperature sensors don't have this problem. They show the temperature when I first open the page

[admin]

Hi Michael, if the 90 second refresh period is not enough, I am afraid you need to address it in the sensor side or use a different sensor. Using anything more than 90 seconds defeats the purpose of having a minute level granularity for Saillogger.

[mshulman]

Makes sense. I think we just won't recommend that particular sensor, since it's refresh rate is r fast enough for monitoring.

I'm really excited to have SailLogger on the boat. That you for making it available.