My asset tracker project was working perfectly last year. I used the link to google maps
supplied by another maker: http://www.havocstudios.com/assettracker/ It worked well and was very accurate.
Now, when I go to that link, I no longer see a pin drop or a map anywhere close to where the asset tracker is located. It seems to be near Wollongong. I’m located near Seattle, WA.
Looking at Logs, it is publishing the correct GPS coordinates at this time. The first publish was the Electron coming on line (“device came online”) followed with four instances of publishing the GPS coordinates so far. This leads me to believe the asset tracker is still working properly.
I opened 2 different browsers (Win IE and Chrome) I haven’t used before thus forcing a login. After logging in and selecting my device, I see a blank map with an Oops! Something went wrong message. Below the blank map, I see my published coordinates and battery voltage as before. Both browser are the same. Browsers I have used before, this Win10 computer and my iPad show nothing, the “Wollongong” map and no published coordinates and battery voltage.
So, is the owner of havocstudios.com no longer supporting this functionality? If the answer is yes, then I am faced with setting this up myself - a little over my head, I’m afraid. If not, what am I doing wrong?
That's probably something you should be asking the owner rather than us (I haven't heard of them before). The homepage does seem empty which isn't too promising.
That said, there are other map projects out there made by community members, which shouldn't be too hard to adopt
Problem solved. The website belongs to community member Hypnopompia. A year ago he did a great job setting up Google maps to display the published GPS coordinates. On GitHub, he distributed the HTML file and some instructions on how to get your own working. Now that his website is taken down, its time to get into HTML. I obtained my own Google API key and edited the HTML file. It works great now. I don’t have a web server so I’m running it on my laptop as a file:/// and it is showing markers (or pin drops) on the map and coordinates. No battery voltages have been published yet. Using Google Maps Satellite View, I see the pin drops a few feet from the picnic table in the Google photo of my back yard. The Asset Tracker is sitting on that table!
At this point, I need to decide on web hosting alternatives. The Asset Tracker is really, really accurate. The value of this project to me is immense. I’ve learned lots and ended up with something that works very well.
I am replying to my reply 30 days ago. I have since come up with a great solution to my problem caused by Hypnopompia’s website no longer functioning. As I mentioned above, he posted an HTML file on Github: https://github.com/Hypnopompia/electron-assettracker-webmap
All you have to do is get your Google API key and do some editing of the HTML file. The next problem, of course, it to find a website to host your HTML. My solution was to set up a Raspberry Pi running Apache2 and create my own web hosting computer. I used No-IP for getting a domain and now have my own website to run this HTML file. I can see my Assettracker’s marker on a Google map using any web browser. Mainly I use my iPhone and iPad. To make it all work better, I added a power switch and external antenna connector. I bought the mag mount external antenna from Adafruit.
No need to fear the javascript in the HTML file. Check the Google tutorials at: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/adding-a-google-map
I’ve learned lots from this project!
I made only two changes: replaced the API key with my own in the script at the end and changed the initial Lat/Lon coordinates to my neighborhood in function initMap().
Yes, the Google Maps integrations would have made things easier but I didn’t know about them until your post. I’m going to check this out. Thanks for the info. I have another Asset Tracker kit that I haven’t built yet. I’ll give the integrations a try.
@MakeStuff If you are interested, I’ve also built an app that I’ve been using for awhile now. I’ve allowed other people to use it as well and I’m in the process of opening it up to the public. Currently working on a mobile app for it as well.
yan, I missed this. Yes, I’m interested. This makes more use of the Asset Tracker than I’m doing. Since my post, I have it working very well. I used a Raspberry Pi to make my own web server to display the Google map markers. Also, I’m getting unusual accuracy with a consistent 2 meters or less. I would like to try your setup.
Well Google Maps integration on Particle cloud is meant for getting an approximate location of the device in case there is no GPS sensor attached to electron or photon. @MakeStuff already has an asset tracker with built in GPS he does not need that integration. In the Google maps integration tutorial doc on Particle website there is however one sample application Location visulaizer that you have to deploy on Google Cloud to visualize the location data but remember this has got nothing to do with Google Maps Integration. You can use that sample visualization app with asset tracker without using the google maps integration. What this app does is give you an endpoint to call and send your location coords. It will then use these coords to draw a pin on map.
CORRECTION
Just went through the visualizer sample code. You do not need to send coords to its url from your device. The sample when run logs in to your particle account and gets event stream published by your device using the GoogleMapsDeviceLocator firmware library. So when using asset tracker just publish your location that you get from GPS. Make sure that you use same event name as used by the visualizer sample app to subscribe to your device’s events stream.
New guy to the asset tracker world here, but I’ve been working with Arduino’s and their descendants for about 4 years now.
I’m still looking to find the right map integration for the asset tracker (with route history). Most of the threads here are now pretty old, so it looks like everyone else’s figured this out and moved on just as I’m trying to get up to speed.
What I’ve found:
MySignal.io Is pretty cool. Hopefully it gets to be a real product with a real phone app sometime! Yan is a cool guy.
I also played around with this. https://github.com/Hypnopompia/electron-assettracker-webmap. I have the webpage up on running on a local server. Unfortunately, it looks like the website behind the development is no longer active, and it seems to have taken the Particle (Spark) credential authentication down with it, so a bit of a dead end there (in case anybody is interested).
If anyone else knows of a solution that’s fairly easy for the average guy to implement, I’d sure welcome and thank you profusely for pointing me that way. Yes, I’ve done all of the asset tracker searches here, and gone through the various threads, on this website and elsewhere, to the best of my ability. I am definitely late in joining the game, it seems!
If your map integration needs you to authenticate with your Particle credentials (such as the Hypnopompia HTML example), you will have to turn off Particle’s 2-factor authentication, assuming you have it on. Otherwise, you won’t be able to log in and have it listen for published location data. It seems that 2-factor authentication came to Particle as a recommended login option after some of the map integrations were developed.
1_GPS_Features.ino, the official Asset Tracker example on Particle, will often not expose the variables as-is. Solution: Move the Particle.Function() statements to the top of the setup(). Seems, (at least for me) that they were timing out to the cloud as a result of waiting for the GPS to come on line.
