Our Assistant Thingy gets an update. Intercom Audio Echo Cancellation Improvements.

16-Sensor Temperature Monitoring App Released: OW101

It has been a busy week of development at IoT-Portal, with improvements to our AI assistant, 4G intercom firmware and our 1-Wire temperature monitoring system.

Rather than simply releasing new hardware, much of our development work is focused on improving products already installed in the field and adding useful functionality through software and firmware updates.

Add or Remove Users From Multiple Devices Using Thingy

Our IoT-Portal assistant, Thingy, can already help users configure and manage their devices using normal questions rather than navigating through complicated menus.

We have now extended this so that a single request can make the same user change across multiple devices at once.

What's particularly useful is that you don't have to select every device manually. In the example below, we simply asked Thingy to add a number to “the gates”. Thingy recognised which devices were gates from their names, presented the matching devices for confirmation, and only then prepared the change.

There is also a second confirmation before anything is actually altered. This gives the convenience of natural-language control without making potentially significant changes without the user checking exactly what is about to happen.

Adding a user to all the gates

Removing the same user again

Removal works in exactly the same way. There is no need to open each gate individually or remember which devices the user was added to.

For installers, property managers or anyone responsible for several entrances, this means a task that previously required opening and editing several devices can now be completed with a simple instruction such as “Add this number to the gates” or “Remove this number from the gates.”

Thingy works out which devices you mean, shows you its selection, tells you exactly what it intends to change and asks for confirmation before carrying it out.

It is another step towards our aim of making cellular alarm, access-control and monitoring equipment manageable by simply telling the system what you want to do.

Intercom Audio Echo Configuration Improved

We also made a firmware improvement to our cellular intercom range.

At the heart of the intercom is the Quectel EG915U modem with Rel13 LTE support - essential for VoLTE calls in Europe.  Recent devices gave pretty echoey audio during the call. There is no hands-free mode on this modem which means we have to run it in normal handset mode like a phone. To counter the echo created by the microphone hearing its own speaker, we have a special echo cancellation map that we load into the intercom during initial testing. Well recent modems have been found to go back to the default echo settings every reboot; that means echoey calls!

To correct for this, our new 7.20R029 firmware includes the echo map within the main firmware and we load it each time the intercom boots up. 

AT+CNMI=2,1
AT+CLIP=1;+CUSD=1;+CMGF=1
AT+QIDEACT=1
AT+CREG=2;+CEREG=2;
AT+QURCCFG="urcport","uart1"
AT+CTZU=3
AT^DSCI=1
AT+CIMI
AT+CMGD=1,4
AT+QAUDCFG="cavqe",0,0,2,"010000000100a...
AT+QAUDCFG="cavqe",5,0,2,"010000000100a...
AT+QAUDMOD=0
AT+QTONEDET=1
AT+CLVL=3
AT+QICMIC=7,8
AT+GSN

If you have an echoey intercom where you can hear yourself during the call, give us a shout and we'll update it for you. We just need the phone number.

16-Sensor 1-Wire Temperature Monitoring

A major development this week has been completing our expanded 1-Wire temperature monitoring app which you can load onto v9 devices; increasing support from four temperature sensors to up to 16 sensors on one device.

It also includes temperature logging, logging 0.3C temperature changes or more to our zlog.

This is particularly useful for installations such as:

• Server and communications rooms

• Refrigeration and cold storage

• Plant rooms

• Agricultural buildings

• Heating systems

• Equipment cabinets

• Multi-point temperature monitoring

Each sensor can be individually identified and monitored by the IoT-Portal. 

Temperature history can then be viewed graphically, making it much easier to identify changes and compare readings around an installation.

Diagnostics and Fault Finding

We've also release our 1-wire DS18B20 diagnostics app for the ZR5/ZX5/LX5 cellular RTU devices. This allows you to pinpoint issues with the DS18B20 sensors and provides advice when you can't get one to work. This includes issues such as data corruption (bad CRC), slow rise times, ringing, bad wiring etc...

Simply click to install the 1-wire diagnostic app

Operating 16 sensors can be tricky in practice. If they're all connected to the terminal using short cables, it's relatively easy. If they're distributed along a long cable run, however, you can start to encounter problems.

The diagnostic tool checks each sensor individually and provides recommendations when it detects issues such as poor signal rise time, ringing, wiring problems or CRC errors.

We recommend installing and running the diagnostic app before installing the OW16101 16-sensor monitoring app.

Why We Keep Updating Existing Products

A recurring theme in our development is that the hardware is only part of the product.

Our alarm diallers, intercoms and remote monitoring devices are connected to IoT-Portal, which means we can continue adding capabilities after installation.

Sometimes that means a completely new application such as flow monitoring or pulse counting. Other times it means fixing an unusual modem behaviour, improving diagnostics or making an existing feature easier to use.

We'll use these weekly updates to share some of that development work, along with useful technical information from cellular alarm, access-control and remote-monitoring installations.