I am thinking about 6.0 release and what are the major features I want to see. I want to work on docs, but its almost 2nd priority compared to the core controller software.
On the software side, i want to integrate esp32 based capabilities. This is triggered by the shortage of raspberry pi, their cost and ability to augment the capabilities across multiple controller hardware. In that regards, i was tinkering with esp32 recently. As of now I think i am quite comfortable with getting a dumb wifi based controller capable of relay control, pwm output and temperature sensors reading. Over the past two weeks i got an end to end prototype woriking capable of doing all of those three via http api. I dont know if I'll have the time to integrate ph IC , but if not we'll address that in next following minor release. Other than the esp32 controller software, we need a reef-pi driver counter part that will use the api to read temperature/ato sensor value from esp32 and then control relay (or other driver based outlets). Finally we want the changes to be able to run reef-pi in non-pi, x86(intel mini pc) architectures, without devmode. It should be possible to run reef-pi in orange pi or something similar (since pi specific dependencies will be made optional), but I'll only release builds for x86 and test on that, other than Pi.
I started with the docs, because as i am doing this i realized this will entail significant documentation requirement for any users (who are already not familiar with reef-pi), not making incremental upgrade. There is no way I can catch up on existing docs lag, do the new software coding and also add docs for the new software/hardware changes coming. At the same time, i think documentation is getting to a place that its hurting the project.
So here is what i am thinking, i am planning to make the documentation process continuous, instead of trying to catch up on the lag, i'll start creating place holder documentation here in the sub-forum, make them sticky and we'll setup some convention to continuously update them. Because we can not have multiple person editing the same post, all of these threads first post will be from me. You all can tag me in different threads or comment there to suggest, ask and collectively improve it from there on. If not immediately, i can regularly go through the requests weekly , or monthly and incorporate those feedback. I think it will make the documentation process sustainable.
What you all think? makes sense? or bad idea? Irrespective of what happens on the documentation side, I am bit excited about the esp32 integrations. At 6$ a piece they bring lot of bangs for the bucks. It also paves the way for easier analog sensor integration, lower power consumption, more pwm outputs ... lots of potential
. I dont know how the reliability will be , in terms of hardware, wifi etc. It will be interesting. Given its so popular in IoT devices , im not too worried, I'm more curious about long term performance of ds18b20 etc. wifi reliability, ability to multiple concurrent logic etc. But we'll deal with those later.. and start small,. a dumb wifi controllable driver will be the starting point, along with a set of tested hardware, like:
esp32 board: ds18b20 as temperature sensor, sainsmart relay as relay mechanism,
pwm based power mosfet controller for led,dc motor (peristaltic pump) control:
A wonderful side effect of this will be i'll free up a bunch of pi zero that im using for different type of sensor reading across house and garden
, all of those could be offloaded to esp32 and I can use the pi zero for some higher purpose
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