Fellow Geeks: Which devices have you been able to interact with best?

[dopey]

Have others tried to consume data from their various 'connected' products -- Lights, pumps, controllers, etc. Not to control them but just monitor what they are doing and collate the data with other information. Do any specific brands cater more towards this than others?

To some degree just looking for similar standards i'd expect at work. Ability to gather logs -- or forward logs, poll for metrics, have event based information sent, etc. Do any of the brands tend to cater to this? Did you just have to scrape the local web UI provided for data?

 

[Copingwithpods]

Just power consumption, which I think is the only value that's actually useful like monitoring a powerhead where a drop in consumption can indicate its time to clean it. I can't see a scenario where more information than that would be useful as there isn't anything to fine tune besides maybe pipe diameter, head pressure and the over efficiency of a return pump by measuring consumption at a given flow rate.

In my other hobby however (rc cars) power consumption was an invaluable piece of information and it wasn't until I was able to get a decent ESC that recorded wattage and voltage that I found my motor was pegging my lipo batterys with 2000w draws and peaks above that. My batterys were lasting 50 cycles instead of 200-350 and I couldn't understand why as on paper everything "worked". This allowed me to buy bigger batterys and then fine tune my gear ratios and torque curves to further reduce those high peaks via trial and error. In fact I could tell when my bearings were shot by simply looking at the graphs for temperature and power consumption.

My point is the data was useful to me because I had 10 or so things I could adjust. With aquarium equipment we don't have that. If we track a 100w heater and one day it starts pulling 20w we just throw it away. Any more data than that and we just don't have a use for it, or should I say at least I don't. Would love to hear other perspectives.

 

[dopey]

I agree with that, but how are you monitoring power draw? A DIY power bar or ?

I do think values like temp, pH and others are of value but in terms of equipment power consumption provides Allot of useful info.

 

[Copingwithpods]

Most people use a killawatt or their Apex to monitor power consumption. Some wifi power strips offer that as well.

 

[dopey]

Can you read them programmatically tho? The ones I've seen may give insights in their ecosystem but you cant poll them for data?

 

[Copingwithpods]

Can you read them programmatically tho? The ones I've seen may give insights in their ecosystem but you cant poll them for data?

 

[Copingwithpods]

Hmmm don't know where the second part of that comment went.

Your asking if it's exportable?

 

[chvvkumar]

Can you read them programmatically tho? The ones I've seen may give insights in their ecosystem but you cant poll them for data?

If you use Neptune Apex, I believe power data can be read. Any one with a full apex verify whether power data shows up as a value in the XML output of their Neptune?

I built a dashboard for my Apex Jr. in Grafana:

GitHub - chvvkumar/apex: Grafana+Influxdb+Telegraf config for Neptune Apex Aquarium Controllers

Grafana+Influxdb+Telegraf config for Neptune Apex Aquarium Controllers - chvvkumar/apex

github.com

If the XML export has power data, it can be read the same way other probes are read:

 

[chvvkumar]

Can you read them programmatically tho? The ones I've seen may give insights in their ecosystem but you cant poll them for data?

And here is my Apex status dashboard in real time:

Grafana

grafana.challa.co

 

[dopey]

@chvvkumar that is exactly the type of info and examples I was looking for So you can enable the ability to poll/receive XML from the Apex. I'm curious of other vendors/solutions folks have found similar capabilities with -- GHL, Reeflink, dosers, pumps, etc.

@Copingwithpods Yes if it's exportable. More specifically exportable without a human having to click, click, click to get the export.

I don't have super clear goals, but i'd say I am mainly interested in gathering data from each component in my reef to a central place. I know investing deep into the Apex or GHL ecosystem you get this sort of view, but it's only within their ecosystem. I'd like to be able to play with that data myself in my ecosystem -- very much like chvvkumar's example, leveraging grafana/elk type stacks I use at work.

For example. I have a Seneye connected to a raspberryPI and can get Ph/Ammonia/temp from that device and send it to my solution. I've also used IFTTT to let me voice record dosing, feeding, water changes, manual tests, etc. That data also ends up in my platform. It doesn't give some crazy edge or anything just an extension of the hobby that I enjoy

I don't expose my full grafana publicly as i'm not 100% confident in guaranteeing security. I generate pngs of certain graphs and keep them accessible so I can check them from my phone/work. -- http://dopey.io/stats/

 

[Copingwithpods]

An apex will give you 100% of all the data you will ever need, diy solutions will do the same at lesser cost but a much greater time investment.


I get this area is part of the hobby for you but I ask you for what means? It sounds like tech for the sake of tech. In rc cars sure, more info allows you to dial in performance but in aquariums such graphs are useless outside of element tracking. If you are doing it simply for the sake of tech and geeking out than that's OK just know that besides power consumption such monitoring yields zero advantages beyond saving a few cents on your electric bill.

 

[dopey]

An apex will give you 100% of all the data you will ever need, diy solutions will do the same at lesser cost but a much greater time investment.


I get this area is part of the hobby for you but I ask you for what means? It sounds like tech for the sake of tech. In rc cars sure, more info allows you to dial in performance but in aquariums such graphs are useless outside of element tracking. If you are doing it simply for the sake of tech and geeking out than that's OK just know that besides power consumption such monitoring yields zero advantages beyond saving a few cents on your electric bill.

I don't think it gives me any 'advantage', perhaps other than perhaps keeping me more engaged. It started with just trying to get a Seneye to work on a raspberry PI since I felt the 'web server' from them was completely over priced and I didn't want to setup a windows PC just for that. Then it went on to adding voice commands via google home for adding feeding, dosing, testing, etc.

My concern with controllers is they lock you into their ecosystem, and doesn't give me the same flexibility on adding additional data points how I may want to add them. For example, I use allot of voice commands on google home to record feedings and manual measurements. (Ok Google, record alkalinity measurement of 8.25) I haven't researched but I don't think you can do such things with APEX/GHL.

It's just an extension of the hobby for me. Unfortunately it's usually a bit hard to figure out which products will allow you to scrape/gather data from them yourself vs only looking at data in their application. I only ordered the Seneye after finding a 'Developer Kit' github maintained by Seneye which gave you a working C program to read the device yourself. Then I knew I could duplicate that functionality and work with the data how I wanted to. This thread I was hoping to find other folks and their experiences on gathering data from our various equipment brands.

 

[C. Eymann]

Metal halides on intermatic mechanical timers lol

 

[chvvkumar]

@chvvkumar that is exactly the type of info and examples I was looking for So you can enable the ability to poll/receive XML from the Apex. I'm curious of other vendors/solutions folks have found similar capabilities with -- GHL, Reeflink, dosers, pumps, etc.

@Copingwithpods Yes if it's exportable. More specifically exportable without a human having to click, click, click to get the export.

I don't have super clear goals, but i'd say I am mainly interested in gathering data from each component in my reef to a central place. I know investing deep into the Apex or GHL ecosystem you get this sort of view, but it's only within their ecosystem. I'd like to be able to play with that data myself in my ecosystem -- very much like chvvkumar's example, leveraging grafana/elk type stacks I use at work.

For example. I have a Seneye connected to a raspberryPI and can get Ph/Ammonia/temp from that device and send it to my solution. I've also used IFTTT to let me voice record dosing, feeding, water changes, manual tests, etc. That data also ends up in my platform. It doesn't give some crazy edge or anything just an extension of the hobby that I enjoy

I don't expose my full grafana publicly as i'm not 100% confident in guaranteeing security. I generate pngs of certain graphs and keep them accessible so I can check them from my phone/work. -- http://dopey.io/stats/

The Aquarium is one part of my home lab monitoring system. The other stuff is currently under maintainance but here are all the other things I monitor:

GitHub - chvvkumar/Monitoring: Monitor ESXi, Synology, Docker, PiHole and Raspberry Pi and Windows using Grafana, InfluxDB and Telegraf

Monitor ESXi, Synology, Docker, PiHole and Raspberry Pi and Windows using Grafana, InfluxDB and Telegraf - chvvkumar/Monitoring

github.com

I am not sure how open and accessible other controllers' stats are (I only have had the Apex). But on the Apex, you just select the option to enable XML output and make sure that XML file's URL is accessible from wherever Telegraf is running.

I run Telegraf along with PiHole on a RaspberryPi 4 which sends data points to InfluxDB running in docker on my Synology NAS.

And here's my docker compose file for all of the above:

chvvkumar/docker

Contribute to chvvkumar/docker development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[Greenjeans]

Yeah, you can get at all the logged data from the apex in an XML via a URL, and process it how you like.

http://<your Apex IP address>/cgi-bin/datalog.xml?sdate=yymmdd&days=n

eg http://192.168.86.54/cgi-bin/datalog.xml?sdate=200523&days=7

I did some manual processing to investigate my Vortech power head's power draw in various modes and settings:

Surprising! Vortech anti-sync behavior in "Ecosmart" modes

The Ecotech manual isn't very clear about the behavior of a slave pump in anti-sync mode when the master pump is set to a particular profile, so I decided to investigate. From ecotech- When a master pump is initiated and running in any one of the normal modes (such as Constant Speed, Random...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[chvvkumar]

I don't think it gives me any 'advantage', perhaps other than perhaps keeping me more engaged. It started with just trying to get a Seneye to work on a raspberry PI since I felt the 'web server' from them was completely over priced and I didn't want to setup a windows PC just for that. Then it went on to adding voice commands via google home for adding feeding, dosing, testing, etc.

My concern with controllers is they lock you into their ecosystem, and doesn't give me the same flexibility on adding additional data points how I may want to add them. For example, I use allot of voice commands on google home to record feedings and manual measurements. (Ok Google, record alkalinity measurement of 8.25) I haven't researched but I don't think you can do such things with APEX/GHL.

It's just an extension of the hobby for me. Unfortunately it's usually a bit hard to figure out which products will allow you to scrape/gather data from them yourself vs only looking at data in their application. I only ordered the Seneye after finding a 'Developer Kit' github maintained by Seneye which gave you a working C program to read the device yourself. Then I knew I could duplicate that functionality and work with the data how I wanted to. This thread I was hoping to find other folks and their experiences on gathering data from our various equipment brands.

Here's an example of how useful this data can be. I have this Apex on my planted tank and it is really obvious from looking at the graphs by how much my lights increase the tank temperature. Mind you, the tank is open top with no cover but still the lights bump up the temperature by 2 degrees. Also, it takes around 12 hours for the tank to shed this extra heat.:

Lights are the two white lines and the heater is the red line at the bottom.

Over the last 36 hours:

Over the past 3 days:

Grafana

grafana.challa.co

 

[carpman179]

Have others tried to consume data from their various 'connected' products -- Lights, pumps, controllers, etc. Not to control them but just monitor what they are doing and collate the data with other information. Do any specific brands cater more towards this than others?

To some degree just looking for similar standards i'd expect at work. Ability to gather logs -- or forward logs, poll for metrics, have event based information sent, etc. Do any of the brands tend to cater to this? Did you just have to scrape the local web UI provided for data?

Any chance you have a link as to how I can use my Seneye on a Pi? I just want it to send the readings to the Seneye cloud

 

[dopey]

Sorry I only read it via the pi and send it to my own webserver/backend. Never attempted to send it to seneye cloud (I'd be surprised if you can, and even if you reverse engineer it you are probably breaking the EULA if I had to guess :X).

Here is the code I use. https://github.com/jpyth/seneye-python Believe it's basically up to date.

I send it to a webserver and ultimately ends up in elasticsearch then use grafana/kibana to make various dashboards. Also have google assistant integration with IFTT to let me record other things such as manual test, water changes, feedings, etc.

It sends the hello, checks for proper respond, then reads the device. From it I capture temp, ph, ammonia. I do not collect PAR in these attempts since it's just sitting in the sump

 

[carpman179]

Wow this is way above my knowledge level but thank you for the response. I only wanted to dust off the old seneye to use on a QT to monitor ammonia.