**BETA Release!** Demo ReefAngel Client suite

For some reason, I can't ever read these words without it being in the professor's voice anymore.

 

It's been a little while since I posted any updates about the Client, so I thought I would give just checkin and let you guys know whats been going on.

I took a little break from working on the Client after releasing the first beta about a month or so ago. Partly from just getting burned out from working on it, but mostly because I was having a pretty hard time getting the feature I wanted most to work - actually working. That is, to setup true two way communication between the suite running on the computer and the controller itself. I wanted to send on-demand commands to the controller and have it toggle relays based off user input. In other words, let you turn your equipment on and off from the computer at will. After trying a couple different things and banging my head into the wall for a couple days, I figured I would come back to it later, turned out to be much later.

Well, after talking with Roberto the other day, I was informed that what I was trying to do was already supported in the controller just by enabling WiFi. And the send command was super simple.. Awesome!

With that said, I'm happy to announce the Client is no longer just a listener displaying data. It now supports remote relay toggling as well. WOO!
I just turned on and off a desk lamp from my computer for the first time and only strained my pointer finger on my mouse button

Here's how the interface now looks:


Take note of the blue border around 3 of the 8 relays at the bottom. This is to indicate that the relay has a "Mask" applied to in the displayed state (ON or OFF) What this means is that this outlet will remain in its current state regardless of the program running on the controller. Right clicking brings up a context menu that lets you toggle the individual outlets on or off or put them back in auto mode to the let the ReefAngel control.

This definitely opens up the door to a lot of possibilities now. I've got quite a few ideas I think will be very cool and best of all, useful.

 

Fantastic!
Remote toggling is a big deal.
If you push out a big update please start a new thread and send me a PM so I can highlight it on the homepage.
It's been a while crank - I wondered what happened to you... Glad to see you are still in the game.

matt

 

Thankss Matt, I'll be sure to do that. I've only received a couple feature and enhancement requests so far but they have definitely been good ones I'll be sure to include.

Other than the remote toggles and some nifty ideas I have surrounding them, the next release should also include:

- Data Chart enhancements
- Auto Detect Installer (Scans availiable com ports for the ReefAngel) and also auto-starts services.
- Analog gauges for temperatures that. See below.
- Low Temperature settings and notifications.


Here's what I've been working on surrounding the analog gauge display for temperatures. Not sure how I really feel about it yet. The gauge face colors correspond to the data chart series color noted in the legend. I was thinking of having a user setting somewhere that allows users to switch from "Classic" to "Analog" temp displays.

What do you guys think?

 

Well considering my whole stereo is analog with VU meters - I love it. I also love the auto-installer idea. CooL!

 

i have no idea what youve youve done but it seems pretty cool is this achievable for us meer mortals or do i need to be like minded

 

Rest assured everything is designed to be easy to use. I realize I might have gotten kind of technical in a few of my posts. I hope it doesn't put people off or make it seem the software is complicated to use. This isn't my intention at all. I only include some the technical details to help others should they decide to try something similar, as well as to provoke some critical thinking. The way I've done this is certainly one of many ways it could have possibly been done. By exposing the details along the way, it's my hope that I get called out when an idea can be handled a better way, or a feature should behave in a different way etc..

But with that said, it should be quite easy to get up an running. There's been a lot of great work done with automating the steps it takes to modify the controller behavior. Everything is pretty much step-by-step wizard based now from getting the correct environment setup - to choosing controller firmware features and uploading - to setting up this client and receiving notifications. It's all pretty much handled in an intuitive user interface now.

 

And development continues once again. I've had off from work lately for the Holidays so I was able to get some cool features implemented over the past couple days.

I was lucky enough to receive a very cool and generous gift from girlfriend this Christmas. I don't think she realized what it would lead to, though. Which of course is endless tinkering with my tank and software



Now that I have a WiFi module I can mess around with, it will be much easier to fully support WiFi with the software.

Some cool new features I implemented are:

User changeable displays for temperatures and pH. You can pick from "Analog", "Digital" and "Normal":


I also finished up "Relay Profiles". This lets you group any of the 8 relays together, name them and with 1 click, toggle them how you like:

Heres the setup screen:


You basically pick what you want each relay to do when you apply the profile. Here I named one "Staggered On" which masks relays 1,4,5 and 8 on and leaves the rest in "Auto" Mode. Here's what that looks like when applied.



Here's another called "Staggered Off" Which masks relays 2,3,6 and 7 to OFF and returns the others into "Auto" mode to be controlled by the ReefAngel:


I have to say it was pretty rewarding to hear the rapid succession of all 8 relays switching them selves on and off when I first got this working.


I also implemented another cool feature today which allows us to pass all the parameters to Roberto's ReefAngel.com site with a unique ID. What this means is when the Client is running and displaying the live parameters on your computer, it is also updating a nice little webpage just for the user on reefangel.com at the same time. We can now browse to a webpage and view our live parameters from anywhere in the world and see how our tank is doing.

**CHECK IT OUT!**

It might be time to become a 3Reef supporter so I can embed my parameters in my signature and everyone can see how hot my runs, even in the winter! At least I think thats how it's done, not sure...

Updated screenshot:

 

I'm not happy.. I was going to order my RA with the expansion box and this is what it states on both "Back-order (3 week lead-time)" GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!

 

Bummer Man! I know you've been waiting for the expansion box for awhile now, hopefully you can hold out another couple weeks

On the plus side, I just read there's relay expansion support now in the standard libraries as well as Curt's upgraded development libraries. In fact, I just spoke with Curt and he's actively working on including customizing the expansion relays in his sketch generator with customizable timers for relay assignment. Cool