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Multimeters everywhere all at once - Viewing multiple BLE meters on desktop or mobile

shabaz

Finally having two Bluetooth (BLE) multimeters to try this, it was interesting to see if they could both be used simultaneously! This could be handy to monitor voltage and current together for instance.

Of course, I shouldn't be surprised that more than one BLE device can be used at any one time, but still, it's good to test new code to confirm its functioning. I don't know in practice how many BLE connections Windows supports simultaneously, but I'm guessing it's a reasonable amount. I was using my BLE mouse at the same time as well.

image

In the screenshot above, one multimeter is model MP730026 and the other is MP730624 (discussed here:  MP730624 Multimeter Quick Review: Surprisingly Accurate!   ), and each one is using their own app, but I see no reason why the same multimeter models could not be used.

These are the apps: MP730026 app , MP730624 app

One benefit of BLE is that new functions can be added that do not already exist on the physical device. For model '624, the app now has a Statistics view; it would be nice to extend that view further with a little histogram chart too! I don't know why handheld multimeters do not offer that:

image

I think the statistics is working OK, but it probably needs a bit more testing before I can be sure.

Incidentally, it is possible to view multiple multimeters on a mobile phone too, but it is visually messy. It ideally needs a single app. The screenshot below shows on the right what the BLE connections look like when adding a second meter to either mobile or desktop.

image

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  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    Time to steal the best ideas from each multimeter app!

    It would be awesome to have a temperature display, but the Multicomp meter doesn't support it sadly.

    For the chart view, in this mockup I've placed it in the same row as the measurement, but it can be collapsed out of the way if not required. I'm thinking to have zero configurability for it, i.e. it is fixed with 10 sec, 1 min and 5 min ranges, and the vertical range is automatic, dynamically changing, based on the widest span needed for any of the three charts.

    I was thinking of overlaying all of these three charts, but think that three separate ones are cleaner, even though vertical resolution is reduced.

    image

    For the histogram, there would be some configurability:

    image

    The Auto-Center button would center the display on the highest occurrence bucket, but if desired the user could tap in the Center box and type in a value.

    The Change Span button would toggle between seven overall spans: 100uV, 0.1mV, 10mV, 100mV, 1V, 10V, 100V , or 1uA, 10uA, 100uA, 1mA, 10mA, 100mA, 1A.

    Changing multimeter ranges would not affect the histogram. It would be up to the user to change the histogram span at any time. I think this would cause least confusion, and least amount of user configuration. The display would be simple, I might add a vertical scale if it doesn't look messy, but I don't think that is essential.

    The reset button would clear the histogram.

    Whether I can implement the above is another matter. It's all new to me.

  • in reply to shabaz

    be agile :). Make something that works well for you with minimal configuration options.
    Then publish it, and the users can decide what deserves to be flexible by contributing code

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    Agree. I will likely try to get the accordion part functioning, to get the basics of the app looking OK, and tidy up the code a little. 

    The other features can come later.I hope others contribute since the code is public.  

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