IDT Wireless Flow Rate, Humidity&Temp Sensing Kit

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About

The kit demonstrates using the IDT ZWIR4512 6LoWPAN Low-Power Wireless Module to communicate humidity, temperature, and flow sensor measurement data to the kit’s 6LoWPAN-WiFi Hub, which functions as a WiFi hub, allowing a linked device to display and graph the measured data in real time. The kit’s Hub can also link to an end-user’s WiFi hub, which also allows any network device to display and graph the data in a web browser.

 

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The kit’s Hub also permits sending the measurements to Amazon® Web Services with all the required permissions and setup of the data to be viewed worldwide. The end-user only needs an Amazon Web Service account. The SDAWIR03 kit uses the IDT HS3001 Humidity and Temperature Sensor and the FS2012 Flow Sensor for the measurements.

 

The sensors are mounted in a 5cm clear plastic cube that contains a ZWIR4512 Wireless Module to communicate with the Hub. The 6LoWPAN-WiFi Hub and the Sensor Cube are powered by a separate AC/DC wall mount adapter. If using only the HS3001, it can be powered from coin cell batteries. The Hub utilizes a Raspberry PI Zero W to provide the WiFi hub function interfaced to the ZWIR4512 Wireless Module. The Hub uses the Raspbian LXDE Lightweight Desktop Environment, which is a Debian-based computer operating system for the Raspberry Pi.

 

Many of the Hub functions are written in Python. The Hub microSD card is fully loaded and ready for operation. The Sensor Cubes use the software modules provided with the IDT ZWIR4512 6LoWPAN radio module. The sensor interface is either I2C or an analog voltage. The Cube can be expanded to operate other 3.3V I2C capable sensors.

 

Contents

  • 6LoWPAN-WiFi Hub operating with a Raspberry PI Zero W
  • Sensor Cube including the HS3001 Humidity Sensor, FS2012 Flow Sensor, and ZWIR4512 6LoWPAN RF Module
  • Hose; USB and HDMI adapters
  • 2 AC/DC Wall-Mount Adapters depending on the kit part code:
    • SDAWIR03-AMZ01-NA for North America (3 kits)
    • SDAWIR03-AMZ01- GB for other locations (3 kits)

 

Additional Information

Datasheet

Important Dates

Enrollment Begin: Mar 4 2019

Enrollment Ends: Apr 5 2019

RoadTesters Selected: Apr 12 2019

Product Shipped: Apr 15 2019

RoadTesting Begins: Apr 22 2019

Reminder/Update Email: May 22 2019*

Submit Reviews By: June 22 2019*

*The element14 RoadTest Staff will send this reminder/update email.

**If a RoadTester is unable to meet the deadline, please notify the RoadTest Program Lead, , as soon as possible before the deadline.

RoadTesters

Terms and Conditions

RoadTest

Wireless Flow Rate, Humidity & Temp Sensing Kit

Terms and Conditions

These are the terms and conditions which govern the Wireless Flow Rate, Humidity & Temp Sensing Kit Kit contest. This Contest requires participants to submit an application indicating their previous experience with this type of equipment/component, information on what they would do to test the equipment/component, and the applicant’s desire to post a thorough review of their experience with images, photos, or other supplemental materials. Participants will be required to meet the Conditions for Participation.  The winners of this RoadTest will receive the item(s) listed below. RoadTest Reviews are due no later than 60 days after the receipt of the item(s). No other prizes are offered.

The Principal terms of the Competition:

The following words and phrases are used in these terms and conditions and have the meanings given to them below.

(RoadTest or Contest)

Key dates:

Applications Close: midnight (GMT) on Apr 5 2019

Announcement of Winner (estimated): Apr 12 2019

Prize: Wireless Flow Rate, Humidity & Temp Sensing Kit

 

Competition Site: https://www.element14.com/community/groups/roadtest?ICID=menubar_resources_roadtest

Site or element14 Community: www.element14.com/community

Judges: members of the element14 community team chosen at the Organiser’s discretion.

Judging Criteria, All of the following which will have equal weighting:

· Demonstrated competence with the technologies including links or descriptions of past projects

· Qualifications as indicated by current job role and/or schooling/vocational training;

· A thorough description of how the prize would be tested;

· Likelihood that the Applicant will blog about the prize and provide a review on element14.com;

· Originality;

· Innovation.

Organiser: Premier Farnell plc (registered in England and Wales under company number 876412) whose registered office is at Farnell House, Forge Lane, Leeds, UK

Conditions for Qualification: in addition to meeting the requirements of these terms, all persons applying to take part in the Contest (each one an Applicant) must:

· Provide a RoadTest application describing what he/she would do if awarded the Prize including similar previous projects, product experience and qualifications

Terms: these terms and conditions which govern the Competition and to which the Organiser reserves the right to make changes from time to time and the latest version of these Terms from time to time will be posted to the Site.

  1. Eligibility
  2. Applications:
  3. Selecting Winners:
  4. Liability:
  5. General:

1.1 Save as set out in these Terms, the Contest is open to any natural or legal person, firm or company or group of natural persons or unincorporated body.

1.2 All Applicants must be aged at least 18 at the time of their application.

1.3 Applicants must not enter the RoadTest if doing so or taking part may:

1.3.1 cause the Organiser and/or themselves to be in breach of any agreement (including but not limited to any contract of employment) to which they are a party or in breach of any law, regulation or rule having the force of law to which the Organiser or the Applicant may be subject or any policy of the Organiser or the Sponsor;

1.3.2 Require the Organiser to obtain any licence, authorisation or permission to deal with the Applicant; or

1.3.3 Be in breach of any policy or practice of their employer. Some employers prohibit or restrict their employees from taking part in competitions such as these or receiving prizes under them and the Organiser respects those policies and practices.

The Organiser reserves the right to disqualify any Application made in breach of these Terms and to reject any Application which it reasonably believes may be or become in breach. The Organiser reserves the right to require evidence in such form as the Organiser may reasonably require of any Applicant’s compliance with any of these Terms and to disqualify any Applicant or Participant who cannot provide such evidence reasonably promptly.

1.4 Multiple applications are not permitted.

1.5 Applications may not be submitted by an agent whether acting on behalf of an undisclosed principal or otherwise.

1.6 The Contest is NOT open to:

1.6.1 Any person or entity who is a resident or national of any country which is subject to sanctions, embargoes or national trade restrictions of the United States of America, the European Union or the United Kingdom;

1.6.2 Any employee, director, member, shareholder (as appropriate) or any of their direct families (parents, siblings, spouse, partner, children) (“Direct Families”) of the Organiser and Sponsors; or

2.1 Each Applicant must fully complete and submit a RoadTest Application by the Application Close.

2.2 By submitting a Registration Form, each Applicant:

2.2.1 Authorises the Organiser to use his or her personal data (as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998) for the purposes of running and promoting the RoadTest;

2.2.2 Authorises the Organizer to copy, reproduce and publish their application should they be accepted as a Participant;

2.2.3 Will be deemed to have read, accepted and agree to be bound by these Terms. Applicants are advised to print and keep safe these Terms;

2.2.4 Authorises the Organiser to copy, reproduce and use the Application and/or Review for the purposes of the RoadTest and as otherwise contemplated by these Terms. The Organiser will not be responsible for any inaccuracy, error or omission contained in any reproduction or use of the Project Blogs.

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2.2.7 Agrees to participate positively in all publicity surrounding the Contest;

2.2.8 Agrees to be responsible for all expenses and costs incurred by him or her in preparing for, entering and participating in the Contest (save for any expenses expressly agreed by the Organiser to be borne by it in these Terms);

2.2.9 Confirms that he or she owns all IP used in his or her application or Project or Blogs and indemnifies the Organiser from any claim by a third party that use of any material provided by an Applicant to the Organiser infringes the intellectual property rights of any third party;

2.2.10 Agrees not to act in any way or fail to act in any way or be associated with any cause or group which would have a negative impact on the reputation of the Organiser and/or the RoadTest.

2.3 All applications submitted to this RoadTest must meet the following criteria:

2.3.1 Applicants must be the author, creator and owner of the proposed review idea. Applicants must not submit someone else’s idea;

2.3.2 The proposed application must be reasonably achievable by the within the time constraints of the Contest;

2.3.3 Applications must not include or propose any of the following, the inclusion of which shall render any proposed application ineligible:

(a) Applications which relate to socially taboo topics, such as illicit drug use or sexual gratification;

(b) Applications that are or could reasonably be considered to be illegal, immoral, discriminatory or offensive as determined by the Organiser;

(c) Applications in relation to them which if accepted would infringe or breach any of the policies or terms of access or use of the Site.

2.4 No Application may contain any of the hazardous substances identified by Article 4 of Directive 2002/95/EC of the European Parliament on the Restrictions on the Use of Substances in Electronic and Electrical Equipment ("the Directive") or the use of such hazardous substances in the in any such Project must not exceed the maximum concentration values set out in the Directive.

3.1 Winners will be selected by the Organiser on the basis of the quality of his or her application and its adherence to these Terms.

3.2 The total number of Winners selected will be at least the minimum number set out above but the actual number is at the sole discretion of the Organizer and/or the Sponsor, if applicable.

3.3 The Organiser will use all reasonable efforts to announce the Winners via an update to the RoadTest page by the date listed above.

3.4 Winners agree to take part in all publicity which the Organiser or the Sponsor wishes to use to promote the RoadTest, the Products featured or other Contests with which the Organiser may be connected from time to time.

3.5 Details of the Winners may also be published in the media.

3.6 Winners are responsible for all applicable taxes, duties or other charges payable in relation to any prize.

3.7

4.1 The Organiser hereby excludes all and any Liability arising out of the Contest or the acceptance, use, quality, condition, suitability or performance of any Prize, even where that Liability may arise from the Organiser’s negligence.

4.2 Nothing in these Terms will affect any Liability of the Organiser for death or personal injury arising from its negligence, for breach of Part II of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (in the event that any entrant is entitled to claim rights under the Consumer Protection Act 1987) or for any matter in relation to which it would be illegal for the Organiser to exclude or to attempt to exclude its Liability.

4.3 Subject to 4.2, neither the Organiser, any parent company nor any subsidiary of the Organiser or such parent company or any of their directors, officers and employees (together referred to in these terms and the ‘Associates’) makes any guarantee, warranty or representation of any kind, express or implied, with respect to this Competition or the Prizes potentially available under it. Neither the Organiser nor any of its Associates shall be responsible for any Liability that may arise out of or in connection with person’s participation in this Competition, the claiming, redemption or value of any prizes under it, the use or enjoyment of such prizes or any events or circumstances arising out of or in connection with any of them. Any implied warranties of condition, merchantability or suitability or fitness for purpose of any of them are hereby expressly excluded. Wherever used in these Terms, ‘Liability’ shall mean any and all costs, expenses, claims, damages, actions, proceedings, demands, losses and other liabilities (including legal fees and costs on a full indemnity basis) arising directly or indirectly out of or in connection with the matter concerned.

5.1 The RoadTest is organised and sponsored by the Organiser. The Organiser reserves the right to delegate all or any of its powers, rights and obligations arising in relation to the RoadTest to any Associate and certain such rights and powers are assumed by the Organiser on behalf of itself and each Associate. Reference to “Organiser” shall be deemed to include reference to each Associate.

5.2 The RoadTest may be terminated at any time if there are, in the sole opinion of the Organiser, an insufficient number of entries, or if the Applications are not of an appropriate standard for a competition of this nature. The Organiser has the right to cancel or suspend the RoadTest at any time due to circumstances outside its reasonable control.

5.3 The Organiser shall have the sole discretion to disqualify (without correspondence or right of appeal) any Applicant it considers to be adversely affecting the process or the operation of the RoadTest or to be in breach of these Terms or to be acting in a disruptive manner or with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any other Applicant or Participant.

5.4 The Organiser has the right to amend or add to these Terms from time to time. Revised Terms and Conditions will be posted on the Contest Site and it is a condition of entry to the RoadTest that Applicants agree to comply with these Terms and, if appropriate, such Terms as amended from time to time.

5.5 Headings are for convenience only and do not affect the interpretation or construction of these Terms and Conditions.

5.6 These Terms and the operation of the Contest shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law and any claim or matter arising under these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Comment List
Anonymous
  • Hi Kas,

     

    Thanks for the headsup.

    I deleted the Service & Account completely.

    And waiting for the AWS billing cycle to confirm that I no longer exist in AWS Cloud with that account.
    :-)

  • Hello ,

     

    I would recommend keeping an eye on that bill. Its from my experience it was from using the Elasticsearch and it will keep increasing until you delete that service. I was eventualy able to relove the issue with Amazon. I no longer have any services running and thankfully they canceled my bill.

     

    Kas

     

  • Hi Kas,
    I managed to setup everything, including the AWS cloud & everything working good as expected.

    However, i also received a charge bill from AWS for approx $8.x, which was an unexpected expense (thought will be covered in the AWS free tier).
    This is obviously due to use of ElasticSearch service, which is not free.
    But overall a good Roadtest.).

  • Hello ,

     

    I did reference in my original post asking for help. I'm still hoping he will point me to someone in IDT that had enough interest to try turn this into a positive experience. Only time and IDT's response will tell. As of now however I am still stuck trying to resolve this issue (stop the elasticsearch from running and reflashing the Pi Zero so that its a fresh start). I have not yet plugged a screen and mouse into the Zero, this is my next step but I need to first work on killing anything running on AWS so my charges dont go crazy.

     

    Just when I thought I thought I had seen some really bad demo kits, this wonderful experience has come along. Thank you IDT for showing me a new low.

     

    Kas

  • ,

     

    So this has been a lot of fun... I sent an email to Amazon for help. They removed any charges from before Friday. I have just logged in and I see another charge. I did ask for help removing this service as I can't seem to find any information to help with this and most certainly nothing from IDT. I have unplugged the kit and still accruing charges. This is a most amazing experience with a demo kit that is supposed to make you want to buy a product. All I can say at the moment is I can't put this kit and AWS service behind be fast enough.

     

    Terrible user guide, no support and no information how to undo what they instructed you to do for testing. there is also no firmware image to reflash the SD card so that you can go back to factory settings on teh kit. I can 100% see why Rensas would buy this company, they are so very alike its incredible.

     

    Kas

  • Dear

     

    I have been working through a number of issues with the IDT kit and poor documentation is definitely one of them, along with some questionable security practices and problems with their code. Regardless, I explicitly chose not to evaluate AWS in my proposal on the account that someone else who may be more experienced is willing to try - instead, I am doing local logging.

     

    A brief description of specific issues I have contacted IDT about (via ) include:

    • Temperature resolution steps are about 0.5C when the sensor should be capable of 0.015C (14-bit)
    • Use of default pi/raspberry password on SSH, unencrypted ISG-Demo network persists after joining an existing Wi-Fi network which can result in network-relay via SSH tunnel if credentials are not changed - suggest you modify hostapd.conf to add encryption to the demo network and change the password for user 'pi' immediately.
    • Manual suggests that yanking power to the Raspberry Pi is appropriate - I don't think so. Best to login via SSH and sudo shutdown -h now. Perhaps they could add a button on the web interface or a physical one and use the gpio-shutdown dtoverlay.
    • No place to download a new image in case you make modifications that damage the system - I hope you imaged the card when it arrived, as I did.
    • Range of the sensor seems a little disappointing - higher energy saving modes (longer sleep intervals) can cause de-registration of cube from hub.
    • No schematics appear to be available, all of the software appears to be undocumented.

     

    I have received some answers to some queries:

    • Use of channels fixed to two - it is a battery optimisation issue and hard coded into the cube firmware. Channel choice not appropriate for AU - they might look into changing.
    • Expansion to other I2C sensors as mentioned - needs new firmware built - sources available on request, so I'm hoping to at least look into it.
    • Extra code for LCD display found - used in another demo, not for this use case.

     

    From my exploration - the crux of the code is in /usr/local/bin/isg. For local logging, I suggest you modify sensor-capture (a Python program) by adding lines to JSONGenerateData function to perhaps throw the output via TCP/UDP to another machine which can log it. If you modify to use TCP or UDP, I think NodeRED will accept it just fine as it will be a JSON formatted data like so:

    {"msgType": "data", "timestamp": 1556792772.3721468, "batSupplied": 128, "hopsToHub": 0, "voltage": 5.050000000000001, "values": [80.71781921386719, 23.812488555908203], "rssiToHub": -87, "address": "fe80::211:7d00:30:f86", "hopsToSensor": 0, "rssiToSensor": -87}

     

    Then it only takes some quick Python code to flatten and work the JSON into CSV for plotting/analysis if you want to do it offline. After modifying the program, you will need to sudo service sensor-capture restart for it to take effect, but make backups of everything as there is no easy way of going back in case you do break something (!!!). If you like to see the debug, then you could just run the sensor-capture program at the prompt directly.

     

    Without the documentation, it takes a lot of roaming about the system to try and understand how everything works. The display seems to be driven by autobahn-python as a WebSockets server which is co-ordinated with the sensor-capture program with the zwir-tap handling the interface (zwir0) which relies on serial, the webserver itself seems to be Apache, it relies on a bunch of Python scripts in /usr/lib/cgi-bin to get some checks done (which fail if I tinker with the channel which is stored in /etc/default/zwir-conf-ch). That's only the brink of the "code spaghetti" supplied. At this stage, I am not clear, but it seems this kit is not particularly great for development purposes and is more intended for evaluation of the ZWIR modules and IDT sensors and the integration with AWS, but even then, it doesn't do a great job of allowing easy access to relevant signals for measurement or for configuration changes to prove flexibility. I think this is best done with the ZWIR Development Kit.

     

    I have been impressed by the operation lifetime on a pair of CR2032 cells - roughly a week with a message every two-seconds and the temperature sensor only. But because my Wi-Fi router failed during the first test, I'm retrying the experiment now. The board has a pair of very bright LEDs to indicate I2C bus and 6LoWPAN status, and I think these are really increasing the power draw, so that was pretty impressive to see even with the LEDs, it managed to have that much autonomy.

     

    Anyhow, best of luck with the rest of the RoadTest - I do suggest you contact IDT via Randall to see what they have to say about your experience.

     

    - Gough

  •  

    Thank you for this information, would have been ice if IDT would have put this in there user guide... Definitely not a product I would recommend at this point for someone looking to do a quick test. Documentation is sloppy and incomplete.

     

    Kas

  • Did you subscribe to AWS’ free tier? I’m using that for a few years and have never been charged.

    Elastisearch is free if you comply with the free tier restrictions.

    For elastisearch, you have to select a specific service, use less than 750 hours per month and stay under a storage size limit.

    image

    I've flagged the Free Tier Usage alert - but haven't reached limits yet.

     

    image

  • Has anyone here tried to work through the full documentation and demo usage?

     

    I tried to work through the AWS setup, but without enough clear instruction I decided to delete everything I had done, or so I thought. I just received a bill from Amazon for $8.76. This is for what I thought was using the service for less than an hour (30 minutes max, but realistically 10 minutes). Looking closer it's because Elasticsearch has been running for 5 days (120 hours).

     

    There is no warning that you will get charged to run this demo, there is no information how to remove this service that you get charged for. When I received this product and saw it was AWS only with no direct MQTT interface I was already second guessing this product. Now without complete instructions to both setup AWS as well as remove the service you set up fully my impression has fallen even lower.

     

    If there is someone (maybe can point me to someone in IDT) that can help with these issues. Both to remove all services that were created by working through the setup instructions as well as how to setup a direct MQTT connection (IDT to Node-Red or other MQTT connection point).

     

    I have currently disconnected my unit and will conduct no further testing until I am assured I will no longer be charged by Amazon and can reset the unit to factory settings. I would also appreciate some information so that I can instead use FREE logging service.

     

    Kas

  • Thanks for the prompt dispatch and @danzima - the IDT 6LoWPAN Wireless Flow Rate/Humidity sensor kit arrived safely today and I will begin my concurrent review process as soon as possible!

     

    - Gough