yes, it’s battery powered; just too hard to get five volts all the way down to the mailbox. Once I get it working I’m going to add a solar charging circuit, though.
So, I’m using the photo-resistor analog style sensor, so that may be part of my problem. Reducing the sleep time was helpful in the response, but I’m not sure a 1000ms sleep will be good for battery life. I only need to transmit when a bloom of light invades the box.
I’ll try the digital output style and see if that addresses the wakeup problem better. The good news is that I don’t struggle with range and at this house it is nearly 175ft from the gateway and through a few walls.
By the way, I do notice that my motion sensors struggle waking up with motion from time to time. Anyone else have that issue?
Thanks for the help.
“175 ft and a few walls” Doing well with that! Can you let us know what TX/RX PCBs you are using and what antennas; if any and with links to the bits in use?
I’m interested in hearing what sort of range people, get with what hardware. The ranges I experience are more in line with this guy’s:
The 2 GHz stuff is more tricky than the 900 MHz stuff. Repositioning a device or antenna orientation, just a little, can make a big difference to reliability/consistency in operation.
Whoops - sorry to hijack the thread - maybe Hek could move this post to a “What’s your radio range” topic?
a-lurker,
My gateway and my mailbox sensor have this radio/antenna. I didn’t really research it, just a shot in the dark. It may or may not be the one that is on Hek’s website, I cannot recall.
The mailbox is the only device that I’m using this external type antenna right now. Though on the 2nd floor, I tried one of these transceivers (which I bought in the pack of 10) for our master and it doesn’t work. It is on the list to update now that I finally received the externals. Not to impugn them however, they are working fine in the rest of the house. I find (to your point about adjusting the antenna) that every house/room/closet has its peccadilloes when it comes to radio TX/RX.
Also, I find that the capacitors improve the radio network’s stability and reliability. Actually, I’m pretty impressed with the MySensors thing.