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Getting it to work - a report

General
#1

i received the Kickstarter edition and I had some trouble to get it to work on a mac. Here is some attempt to document what I did to get it working.

  • As some here I tried to follow the setup steps using the Chrome browser, but I ran immediately into some issues:
  1. I had an old Java version installed on my computer
    –> upgraded to the latest
  2. I was using Chrome but the drop down for the USB ports was empty. Same for Safari browser.
    –> Use FIrefox for initial setup
    –> click ‘continue’ on unresponsive script dialog popping up
  3. The initial setup was succeeding but the sensor only posted one initial value to the platform. Then the sensor was marked offline and seemingly stuck, although the battery was charging via USB and reading env data.
    –> I retried to initialize the sensor multiple times with no success.
    –> installed Arduino 1.0.5 and looked into the serial console (selecting the LilyPad USB board)
    –> The sensor was certainly active and was writing updates into the serial console
    –> I tried the cmd mode (type $$$ without CR) and saw that the sensor was connecting to WiFi fine
    –> the ‘#data’ command was not working
    –> the ‘get number updates’ was not working either. received ‘?CMD’ errors
  4. I finally decided to update the Firmware after trying multiple times to re-setup via the Java applet.
    –> download the latest firmware
    –> uploaded it via CMD-U (double checking the LilyPad-USB board selection!)
    –> re-setup and re-registered the sensor
  5. At this point the board is seemingly working:
    –> it is posting sensor data to the web
    –> the sensor is marked online
    –> I can view historical data in the line-chart
    –> (*) On the global map however, the sensor summary says that ‘No data received yet’
  6. Next Steps for me is to check out the solar panel I received.

(*) this issue resolved by itself a couple of hours later as I expected

#2

Hello Reimer,

we are really sorry for the long time it took you to setup the kit on-line. We hope you understand this issues as an early adopter, we are really working hard on improving the setup process to make it seamless for future users.

Thank you so much for all the detailed report. We are really happy that your kit is finally on-line and publishing.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for any further issues.

Thanks,

Guillem.

#3

Hi Guillem,

no problem, I fully understand the issues around being an early adopter. I hope my report will help others bringing their sensor kits online.

Cheers
Reimer