This is a very cool project!
I also use sensors in an outdoor environment and am new to the Particle platform so, it will be gaining outdoor experience in the coming months. I took my Electron on a road trip from Raleigh to Washington DC to test it under changing (albeit horizontally) conditions and this approach seems to be working.
Happy to share the hardware and software with you and the community if it is helpful.
I have seen the same situation you are referring to where my board thinks it is sending data but nothing is being received by the back end serial data streaming database server. This is my approach which is working so far but requires additional validation:
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I have an external watchdog timer on my carrier board. You can set the interval for resets by selecting the value of a resistor, for me it is 2 hours but you may want a shorter interval.
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When my device sends data, it subscribes to a response handler which listens to the response code from my serial data streaming service (Ubidots).
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If it receives the code that indicates the successful logging of a data point, it “pets” the watchdog resetting the timer. If it does not receive the code or gets a code which indicates a new data point was not logged, it does not “pet” the watchdog. It also keeps that data for the next successful connection - my application is relatively simple and I am OK if it takes 2 tries to transmit.
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If the external watchdog is not reset in the allotted time, it will reset the Electron using a pin reset. The next revision of the carrier board will also be able to do a “hard reset” by cycling the power.
If you are interested in the hardware component, you can follow this thread. I can also share the software if it would be helpful.
Good luck with your very interesting project.
Chip