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Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service

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On 02/04/22 07:34, pozz wrote:
> Il 04/02/2022 00:57, chris ha scritto:
>> On 02/03/22 02:38, Chris wrote:
>>> I'm setting up a household water-tank level sensor that I'd like to
>>> be able to monitor from (practically) anywhere to a mobile device or
>>> remote PCusing the above-mentioned ESP8266-based setup. The device is
>>> sampling at 5min intervals, each sample is a single integer range 0 -
>>> 230 (cm of water height). Also toggling a 'heartbeat' boolean
>>> variable to indicate it's still alive.
>>>
>>> Just getting stated with the ESP8266 and Arduino IoT Cloud via WiFi
>>> which was easy&  convenient as it only took a few hours to get a
>>> solution up&  running...
>>>
>>> However, the free Arduino IoT cloud is limited to 1 day of historical
>>> data (I'd like months to a year). It also hides the bulk of the cloud
>>> API (which is convenient) though I'm not sure yet how to handle
>>> recovering from WiFi outages etc.
>>>
>>> Internet searches uncover a ton of options many of which are far to
>>> up-market for my purpose.
>>>
>>> It also appears there's another route using a local server (eg RPi)
>>> that receives the data (via NodeRed or similar) but then to access
>>> outside the local WiFi network means exposing a web server or similar
>>> - sounds like an extra tier or development and complication/maintenance.
>>>
>>> Any advice would be helpful...
>>>
>>> --
>>> Cheers,
>>> Chris.
>>
>>
>> How about one of the 3G or 4G mobile data modules. Just call into it
>> to get the results, which can come from an rpi or similar board with a
>> serial or network interface. Only downside is the need for a sim card
>> but not expensive for low usage or bandwidth.
>
> What do you mean with "just call into it"?

I bought a Netgear 4G router for evaluation and also to use as a backup
for the isp. That provides standard internet access just by fitting a
sim card. Really cheap for low bandwidth applications and it's always
on. Haven't tried it, but assume external access would be possible by
opening an incoming port to the local network. IP address is dynamic,
so you would need dynamic dns.org, whatever, but it should possible.
On the local subnet, a couple of pages of C on an rpi, to open a file
on the sd card and log tank values as needed. Login via ssh or run a
web server to access the stored data. Advantage is that it's a self
contained solution dependent only on a mobile account.

Solutions like cloud etc really are overthinking what should be a simple
problem to solve...

Chris

>
>> Or, a 3 or 4G router with network at one side could be made to work as
>> well, where you could just access an internal host directly via the
>> mobile network. Easy to secure as well...
>
> In my experience, it's not always possible to connect to a server that
> is connected to a mobile 3G/4G network. Many mobile operators give
> connectivity that is guaranteed to work for "standard web browsing".
> Dynamic IP addresses, private IP addresses, firewall, NAT and similar
> "filters" are enemis of servers.
>
> This is the one of the reasons why IoT devices aren't server, but they
> usually run a client (HTTP, MQTT or others similar) that connects to a
> Cloud system.

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Thread

Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service Chris <chris.hoffmann@gmail.com> - 2022-02-02 18:38 -0800
  Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service pozz <pozzugno@gmail.com> - 2022-02-03 08:52 +0100
  Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service Stef <me@this.is.invalid> - 2022-02-03 09:55 +0100
  Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2022-02-03 11:32 +0000
  Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service chris <chris-nospam@tridac.net> - 2022-02-03 23:57 +0000
    Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service Chris <chris.hoffmann@gmail.com> - 2022-02-03 20:03 -0800
      Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2022-02-04 16:45 +0000
        Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service Chris <chris.hoffmann@gmail.com> - 2022-02-06 14:35 -0800
          Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service Chris <chris.hoffmann@gmail.com> - 2022-02-09 14:24 -0800
    Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service pozz <pozzugno@gmail.com> - 2022-02-04 08:34 +0100
      Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service chris <chris-nospam@tridac.net> - 2022-02-04 11:19 +0000
        Re: Recommendation: Cheap (free!) IoT cloud service pozz <pozzugno@gmail.com> - 2022-02-04 12:53 +0100

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