Electron with Blynk - High Data Usage

Firmware
1

Hello,

I’m using a Particle Electron with Blynk. Both are pretty amazing!

My problem is with the high cellular data usage. I’m burning through 1 MB of data per day!

Yesterday I modified my Electron code so that no data is being pushed to Blynk. I added a pushbutton in Blynk, when pressed, signals my Electron to send data to Blynk one time - on demand.

It appears this did very little. After 9 hours and 45 minute I’m still at 0.5 MB and there were no requests for data from the Blynk app during this time.

I do not see any way of modifying Blynk.config.h in the Particle IDE to change the HEARTBEAT so I added the following lines to my Electron code.

#define PARTICLE_KEEPALIVE 600
#define BLYNK_HEARTBEAT 600

This had little or no effect on the high cellular data usage.

In yet another attempt to reduce cellular data usage, I would like to compile the Electron code locally from the command line (CL).

What Blynk files do I need to include if I compile my code locally?

I’m hopeful that if I make changes to HEARTBEAT in Blynk.config.h and compile it locally the results may be better.

I’ve searched the Blynk community and this appears to be a common problem with the Electron.

Thanks,

Paul

2

You can use the particle library copy blynk command to copy the library sources to your project.

But first make sure you create a project to copy the library to via particle project create

3

Thanks ScruffR for your help! It’s truly appreciated.

This is my second particle project. The first with the Electron.

I’m truly impressed with the platform and the support community.

Best regards,

Paul

1 Like
4

Sorry! I’ll compile the firmware locally and change HEARTBEAT in Blynk.config.h to see if this helps.

I’ll follow up in a day or two in case there are other Electron / Blynk users experiencing the same high cellular data usage.

Finally have a day above freezing so it’s time to get the road salt off the cars!

BR

2 Likes
5

I love Blynk but it might be worth your time to look at Ubidots. I understand Ubidots now has an Android app but I've yet to look into it.

6

If you just want a dashboard to view the sensor data you send over then www.Losant.com is also a good platform to check out.

I don’t use phone apps to view data, just load the dashboard webpage and you can view your data the same as on your computer browser.