Topic: Mobile Phones - A potential portable Data logger?

[paul.ucd]

Hi All,

My name is Paul, I'm a Ph.D student of Climatology and Climate Change in University College Dublin - Ireland.

I came to this forum with a simple question, and hope to leave with a not so simple answer.

As part of my undergrad career, I was given the opportunity to purchase and set up a Davis Vantage Pro 2 with all the trimmings (datalogger, Weatherlink) station on campus and write a paper on the process and results. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity... for the first few weeks after I set up the station, I was having issues with the Data logger - ok, I get now it sits in the console which (if in range and angled properly - its a tempermental little...) recieves data from the station and the logger well... logs the data and allows it to be downloaded to a laptop/PC/Mac if it has the weather link software.

So I began wondering... if all the data logger does is store data... can we make it ultra portable?

I bought myself a Cect i9 touch screen phone (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1550563920821223458) which is basically an Iclone (i.e. knock off iphone) I don't want to go into details, but basically, its a java phone, which means, java programs can be run off the phone.

Right so after all that rambling... here is the question I was wondering... can we turn a java phone into a portable data logger? Can we have a weather station that sends data via SMS or MMS or RSS to our phone?

Because in my view, if we can get the data from the station to the phone, this essentially makes an almost global data logger, because a java script can be easily written (for phone or computer) that sorts the recieved data into graphs, trends, etc. Which seems to me to be an exciting prospect?

I'm not too keen on getting a live feed between station and phone, I believe that could be achieved by having traditional data loggers streaming data to a wap website which allows phones to log on to, but making a phone a data logger... good idea no? Can it be done? Has it been done.

/discuss & Thanks for reading 

[Bushman]

How about a simple email-to-SMS gateway?    DSPPro has a Davis setyup for SMS.  You can try it (well, if you are in the UK anyway) at:

Try one of our weather stations (the one in the picture):
Dial +39-348-2566355 and you will listen to a voice reading real time data
To receive and SMS with meteo data, send an SMS with the text #PWD123456#GTM? to our station GSM number (+39-348-2566355, same number as above) and you will receive an SMS with a text similar to the one below:


LAST 10 min.
WIND:N (10) SD:12
Km/h: 2 (0/12)
TEMP:20 C (Today:10/22)
RH:78% DP:3.2 C
RAIN:0.0 mm (24h 0.6)
POW:B (12.5V)
IC=6
TCS-AWS01-1234

Please note that some operators across different countries may not have SMS agreements between them so it could happen that you send it but the station never receives it. This happens expecially if you are outside Europe. Calling will always work.

[wxkpt]

I would have to say This could be done with the proper software. Weather Display does have this feature to send text messages to a phone as well as a file.

The problem I see is the conversion on the part of the phone when it receives the message. to convert it to the proper java. Memory could be an issue as well as text messages are limited to only so much data that can be received. although this can be hacked on almost any phone.

Good question....

I'm sure others in here will be sure to look in to this as well

(Another post came before mine)

[SLOweather]

I've done extensive research and development along these lines.

It's certainly possible. The hardware Weatherlink needs to be queried by another device to send its data. That device then parses the data and does whatever with it.

I currently have a hardware device in development (not a cell phone) that acts as the interface between the WeatherLink and a web server. Three are 3 units up and running in the field now, sending weather data to my server.

Two are on wired networks. One is on cellular via ICS through a laptop and a Verizon AirCard, because that's how the customer wanted to do it. I can also easily make units wireless by replacing the wired EtherNet connection with a cellular router like the BlueTree Wireless BT-6000 series.

I'd be interested to know of a phone available in the US that would replace the expensive router. To connect directly to the WeatherLink, it would need a serial interface, or a way of hacking the USB drivers. Another connection method might be a serial-Bluetooth adapter for the WeatherLink, and then Bluetooth to the phone.

Still, the phone needs to be able run an application that can access all that hardware, parse the data, and then send it out via whatever mode you prefer.

The Davis Serial Communications Protocol is available here:
http://www.davisnet.com/support/weather/download/serialref.exe

 

[Bushman]

Nokia makes a whack of them:  3310, 3315, 8850, 8890 etc.  Have you looked at Gammu SW?

[Bushman]

If this can be done, so can a weather cell phone.  http://hackingroomba.com/projects/roombactrl-cell-phone/ 

[paul.ucd]

interesting stuff and thanks for the replies.

So if I'm understanding this correctly, as it stands, there is no station capable of making direct communication with a cell phone via sms, but it can be done with a router?

So to try and sort my thoughts out, this is what I had in mind:


And this is all that is currently capable?


I'll continue research into this, thanks for the thoughts folks, at least I have a starting point now 

[Bushman]

Your second pic is correct.  Easily done.  And you actually don't even need a PC.

[emr]

I'll revive this older thread for my question.

I have a Nokia E90 (S60 5th ed) that I could use for my project. What I'd like to do is connect the phone with USB to my Oregon Scientific WMR200 console and then transmit data from the weather station console via the cell phone using my home WLAN either straight to a web site or another computer in the same WLAN. Any idea if this is possible and what kind of software I could use for it?

Thanks.

[MesquiteWx]

I don't think there is any phone that will directly received data straight from the PWS. It will have to be parsed and sent in another format. wap, sms, email, etc. I also think what you are wanting to do is also store all this info on the phone. Now I know with these new smart phones that have like 4-8GB some maybe more to store data, but it will fill up fast so you will eventually need to dump this in a file on your PC to keep from overwriting old data if you wanted to save it. I am sure their could be a program made to do this and maybe even connect to a wireless VP station via WiFi from a phone. It is definitely and interesting concept, But that would be a waste of a phone since it would have to be need the PWS to receive the data. Maybe I just missed this all together what you were asking.

[Bushman]

8 gb will last for a decade or so.

[emr]

Thanks. The mentioned phone has one display failing while otherwise it seems to be OK. It's out of warranty and repairing it is so expensive that it makes so sense, so I figured that I could try to find some use for it.

My Oregon Scientific WMR200 console is downstairs where I can check the temperature etc. easily. Currently it is not connected to any computer and where it's placed, there's really no room for one - except perhaps for one of the small wonders like fit-PC. Or a smart cell phone! So I thought that perhaps there could be a Symbian S60 (or Java?) software that could relay the data to for example my upstairs computer or a laptop on my home WLAN.

But unfortunately there probably is no such thing available.

[MesquiteWx]

8 gb will last for a decade or so.

Maybe in the stone age....

They have thumb drives now that can hold 1 TB. To put things into perspective, the human brain holds 3 TB. Did you ever think you would see the day where that kind of device would be possible that fits in your pocket? Now you wanna talk about 8GB? Which can only hold up to 2000 songs, or 25000 pictures, or 25 hours of video?  My daughter can go through 8 GB easy on her 8 GB on her iPod, which is why she is asking for a bigger one....

[Bushman]

Ever assess the space requirements of weather data on an 8 gb stick?  I didn't think so.  Davis uses one 52-byte record per archive interval.  Divide that into 8 gb.    BTW, a 1/4 TB (256 gb) costs ~$1000 USD.