Troubleshooting Q&A

R- What do I do if my sensor stops communicating?

1. Check the battery

If your sensors are communicating with PrivateEyePi, you can check the battery status on the dashboard by hovering over the battery indicator. You will see the last time the battery voltage was recorded as well as the last known voltage. If the value is below 2.2V, then a new battery is required.

2. Check the distance between the sensor and the receiver

Reduce the distance between the sensor and the receiver to see if that resolves the issue. Do not place the sensor within 5 feet of the receiver, as this will cause messages to be lost. 

3. Do a communication check

The best way to perform a communications check is to use the serial monitor (serial_mon.py). Open up a terminal window on your Raspberry Pi and go to the rf_tools directory you created during the IoT Gateway install:

cd ~
cd rf_tools
sudo wget www.privateeyepi.com/downloads/serial_mon.py
python serial_mon.py 9600

Move the problematic sensor within line of sight of the base station and either wait for a transmission to occur or force a transmission by opening and closing the switch (for RF switch) or removing and re-inserting the battery (see "Why doesn't my sensor restart when I remove and re-insert the battery" below, too).

When the sensor starts up, you should see:
aXXSTARTED

And then, depending on the type of the sensor, you will see sensor data being transmitted (e.g., aXXTMPA23.40 or aXXBUTTONON, aXXAWAKE, aXXSLEEPING)

Now move the sensor farther away and repeat this test.

- What if I am seeing a flood of "STARTED" messages in serial_mon?


1. The most likely cause of this is a low battery in one of your sensors. When the battery runs low, the device restarts continuously because it cannot maintain a charge.

 

- What do I do if I have lost contact with my IOT Gateway


1. This is most frequently caused by a configuration sent to the Gateway (e.g., CHDEVID, which changes the device ID). You can fix this by resetting your IoT Gateway back to factory settings using the RESET command:

python rf_config.py RESET -V

 

- Why doesn't my sensor restart when I remove and re-insert the battery?

1. The sensors have a capacitor that can retain a charge that keeps the sensor alive. Removing the battery does not discharge the capacitor. You can safely discharge the capacitor by removing the battery, then short the 3V and GND pads. Alternatively, you can remove the battery and wait a few minutes for the capacitor to discharge naturally.

- My IoT Gateway does not appear to be working

  1. Run serial_mon.py and power up a sensor (making sure the sensor is more than 3 feet away from the Gateway). If you see STARTED messages, then the Gateway is likely working. 
  2. Make sure you have configured the serial port correctly.
  3. Check if multiple applications are using the serial port. Only one application can use the serial port at a time. Do a "ps ax" and look for other programs like rfsensor.py or serial_mon.py using the serial port. You can kill background processes using the "sudo kill [pid]" command. If you have a cron job configured to autostart rfsensor.py, then turn off the cron job (sudo service cron stop). 
  4. Check that the serial port is installed (dir /dev) and look for the ttyAMA0 port. If it is not installed, then revert to the serial port configuration in point 1 above. 
  5. Run a loopback test to verify the port is working.

- Does the Monitoring Service allow a user to be in multiple accounts?

Yes, a user can be a member of multiple accounts. This feature expands the administration of various sites and other users, with access limited to their own site.

- When does the Annual renewal start?

The annual renewal is based on when you started your paid subscription and renews on the same day each year.

- Can I use a PrivateEyePi Token on Monitoring.Jemrf.com?

Yes, you can. When you set up your monitoring account, under account settings, there is an Edit Token option. Open Edit Token and paste your PrivateEyePi Token and press verify. That will validate the token, then press Save. Now, when you point WiFi Sensors or your RF Gateway to pep.jemrf.com, your devices will start showing.