Two of the devices show an RSSI of 2, and one of those has been showing a couple of missed connections in the past. One device primarily has an RSSI of 3. The remaining three have RSSI 4.
I increased the connection time from 60 to 90 seconds. So far this has shown a slight improvement of connection reliability, although it’s a little bit premature to say (?) since they only connected max. 2-3 times last night.One of the devices with RSSI 4 missed a connection last night however.
I do think perhaps the antenna needs to be upgraded(?). Is it normal for people with similar projects that they will need several minutes to get a connection up? It’s going to be a big strain on the battery lifespan this way
EDIT: Looked through the data some more, the devices that have the most issues actually all have an RSSI of 4. Increasing the connection timer from 60 to 90 seconds has only led to a marginal improvement in connectivity, from 80 to about 85% of the expected connections being made.
Another day passed, and the reliability of the devices connecting is still around 80%. Although all devices sometimes miss a connection, it seems especially the case for 2 devices. One of those shows an RSSI of 1-2, the other one is a consistent 4. There’s another devices that also show an RSSI of 1-2, but don’t suffer from connectivity issues to the same degree
Either way, I ordered a bigger antenna from Taoglas (similar to the PC-104 antenna Particle sells) which I really hope alleviates the issue a little bit…also considering upping the connection time from 90 seconds to something like 3 minutes. I’ll just get really worried about power usage at that point as the peak draws from the modem for such a long time is really going to drain the battery
Give the link to the larger antenna you ordered, I want to see what it looks like and it’s size.
I would up the connection times to 3 or even 5 mins just for testing right now and see if it helps your connection percentages. I’m sure it will, I gave my devices up to 10 mins and it worked about 95% of the time but since I had solar recharging I didn’t really worry about battery usage.
It basically appears to be a bigger version of the PC-104 that Particle sells. According to the graphs the gain at 850/1900 MHz should be considerably higher (from about 1.6dbi at 1900 with the PC-104, to about 2.5dbi with the FXUB66). It is a huge antenna really, but should narrowly fit inside my enclosure.
Even 5 minutes would be unacceptable to me…if I’m assuming it will draw 500mA for that full duration, I’m looking at pretty much quartering the total lifespan compared to a connection time of just 1 minute. For sure there’s better ways of doing this; similar technology is around and I know for a fact these devices actually can connect consistently within 30 seconds.
Is there any kind of other technology around for these cases? Anything that would amplify the cellular signal, or anything?
It arrived today. I tested it, and it seems to work fine, but I will install it on an actual waste container later today and have it connect every couple minutes and see if it misses any connections. Will do the same with the Particle Taoglas so I can compare.
I’m pretty sure Particle also uses Rogers (afaik Rogers has a lot of these deals going on with IOT companies) but I’m not 100% sure. Where I live Rogers definitely has the best coverage; Bell and Telus also are decent but the differences are going to be minimal so I wouldn’t blame the cellular provider for my connection times.
EDIT: Placed them in two similar waste containers. They will wake up every 10 minutes, and I added in a timer to measure how long it takes for them to boot up modem + connect to the Particle Cloud, so in a couple of hours I should have some nice comparison data
So far they’re both showing up very consistent, each taking 22-26 seconds to boot up the modem and connect to the Particle Cloud. I suppose the other area where I have 6 sensors simply has bad reception (although for one of my two sensors here it shows an RSSI of 1-2 and still connects just fine)
I’m not really sure how to proceed from here; both antennas seem fine and I’m surprised at how inconsistent data reception is at the other location. I’ll have to get more of these antennas and put them on the sensors that are having issues to see if t improves anything
Swap the Electron that is connecting just fine on your desk with signal strength RSSI 1-2 with one that your having trouble with and see if the problem goes away.