I have a marine aquarium controlled by an arduino mega, Wi-Fi esp8266, smartphone android, Blynk remote server.
I would like to use Blynk on my smartphone, mainly to display different value, and status of different water levels and relays. See prototype on picture.
For the blynk app I am looking for something very basic, that I do not find in the widget catalog, maybe I am wrong…
What I wish: something like “styled button” for the display, which is very flexible in term of display forms, and color/label management via the arduino sketch for normal-green/critical-red operation. So working with BLYNK_READ(Vx) and so on, with inside Blynk.virtualWrite(Vx, Data…)
Blynk.setProperty(Vx…).
However, I do not want to work in push mode, only when the apps on my smartphone is opened, pull every “x” second data from my arduino to the smartphone app. as we do with “gauge” or “value display” widget.
Can someone have an idea, which widget to use, or this stuff does not exist yet?
The “gauge” can work in push mode, let say every 5 sec request data from my arduino with Blynk-read, and setting inside the routine the necessary to send back the data, and the color and label properties, of course depending of the status of and object, let say water level, relay status… This is perfect because I only open the app, once every day or every week, no need that arduino send always data to the remote blynk server through internet unnecessarily.
The widget “Styled button” is very flexible in term of customization, but do not have the push mode, so request every “x” second Virtual pin data, when the app is opened.
Not sure why the data matters but, there is a setting on the app to notify the device when the app is connected. You could check this on your device before sending information.
As far as the different colors for the buttons are you asking or stating it is possible? You can also send the temperature to the button to display as text.
But why not just send the data from the Arduino to the Blynk server every 5 seconds anyway?
The Arduino talks to the server every time Blynk.run is executed, which will be several hundred times per second with your hardware, so tagging on a bit of sensor data every 5 seconds is no hardship.
Besides, you can then chart the data using SuperChart if you wish.
It makes the process much more complex if you start building-in BLYNK_APP_CONNECTED and DISCONNECTED tests before pushing the data to the server.
Thank you for the proposal. I shall try to do something with the APP_CONNECTED and DISCONNECTED. If it not work, I think that I will search another solution with another product… Too bad, because it seemed pretty basic to me what I wanted. “Styled button” push mode option!
I did’nt know that each time Blynk.run runs, it also talk to the remote server… That’s really not what I want. Maybe I shall investigate in local blynk server.
