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softypit / esp32_mqtt_eq3

esp32-based mqtt node to control EQ-3 BLE TRVs
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Feature Request: RSSI (signal strength indication) for MAC addresses to blacklist/whitelist #5

Closed ul-gh closed 5 years ago

ul-gh commented 5 years ago

Hi,

let me first thank you already for this code which is just what I was looking for to use the Equiva eQ-3 thermostats in conjunction with a soon-to-be roll-your-own centralised Node Red based control.

In my installation, the Bluetooth LE range of these thermostats is very poor and I need multiple of these ESP32 boards for full coverage.

In this situation with overlapping reach of the ESP32 MQTT EQ3 bridge modules, thermostats are discovered multiple times by the bridge modules. I am not sure if this is a battery drain issue for the thermostats, but anyways this would be a nice-to-have feature in order to choose the optimum one from different ESP32-MQTT-BLE bridge modules:

That way, the user can choose the ESP module providing the most reliable connection for any given installation location.

Regards, Ulrich

softypit commented 5 years ago

Hi Ulrich,

I just had a look and it seems pretty simple to add rssi indication to the list of discovered devices. My preference would be to make the 'devlist' report in json i.e. {"devices":[{"rssi":-90,"bleaddr":"00:00:00:00:00:00"},{"rssi":-85,"bleaddr":"01:01:01:01:01:01"}]}. That should make it easier to process the responses from multiple ESPs and match up the reported devices to see which ESP has the best signal strength for each device. Let me know if you have a better suggestion.

Multiple ESP32s in range of a single trv should not cause a problem for battery life. The blescan is passive and simply looks for the beacons that each valve will be broadcasting at all times. I have 8 EQ3 BLE valves in my house with 2 ESP32s running esp32_mqtt_eq3 and a raspberry pi running eq3-mqtt-rpi. Some of the valves are visible from more than one eq3-mqtt bridge and I have to guess (trial and error) which bridge to use for best reliability. Currently I have had these running for over a year and not replaced any batteries yet.

Regards.

Paul.

ul-gh commented 5 years ago

Hi Paul,

thank you for your reply! Regarding the RSSI, The JSON format seems like a good Idea and this is consistent with the device status messages. So yes, this would be nice to have! If you do not have the time, I could look into this on the next weekends. I normally do not do any C programming, however this could be an occasion then to get starting. Of course, I can do some testing!

softypit commented 5 years ago

Hi Ulrich, hopefully the code I just committed will be useful to you. Please let me know if it works as you expected. I have only run it on my development esp so far but will load it on to my valve controllers tomorrow. Regards. Paul.

ul-gh commented 5 years ago

Thanks - that was quick!

I did a quick test and the RSSI indication via MQTT seems to be working as intended. I tested with two TRVs, but will do some more testing next week.