Tips and Troubleshooting - Twine community

how do you know your twine is working?

Paul Moorhead — Wed, 27 May 2015 06:08:27 +0000

A couple of times I've asked if a rule could be added allowing the twine to send an alert based on time of day or similar. I've got a polite "not on the roadmap" response each time. But I'm baffled. I want to rely on the twine to monitor "stuff" (in my case a data center in my garage - temp, water, power, door open on server cabinet). But unless I know that the twine is working, I can't be sure that I'm protected.

I can of course poll the twine.cc page but that's a pain in the ass - what I want is a daily alert at noon saying "all is well" (or even hourly)

Recently I discovered that the twine had been off for some time - psu failure. doh!

I thought my requested feature was pretty fundamental but clearly not so how is anyone else dealing with this limitation?

My current plan is to take a Raspberry Pi and create my own twine equivalent but that seems such a waste of time when it's so close to be useful.

Bought a used Twine at an auction and now it tells me that it is claimed already.

s s — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 14:55:35 +0000

Hi.

There was a small auction at a local place and I manage to get my hands on a Twine. Awesome!

Now I went through the setup and created an account. Then it showed a page telling me: "I've already been claimed

This Twine is connected to another account. If you own that account, you can sign in now to finish the setup process."

Is there any way to just factory reset it or something so I can claim the Twine?

Cheers!

Another Product that Works with Twine

m sweaton — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 11:12:36 +0000

As an early user of Twine for a project that I was developing, I'm
offering those that have Twines a free upgrade for your Twine. My
product is a HVAC filter monitor which you can read more about on our
website (www.airflow1.com). The CFM-GM Clogged Filter Monitor has an
option to connect directly to the breakout board for Twine, you then set
rules to send yourself a text message when the switch closes to check
your air filter.

I've had this running now for over a year and it works great!

Sorry
for informing everyone about it here and on other discussion channels
but hope you take the time to at least see what else the Twine can do!

Not reading Temp. correctly

James Boutin — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 11:58:15 +0000

I setup my Twine this morning and it seem to be working correctly. When I moved it to another location, approx. 100yrds away into another building on another wireless network it is not now reading temp. correctly as displayed on my dashboard. Does Twine need to be configured for that network and if so how do I accomplish it?

How can I make Twine work together with my Pebble watch?

Chris Tan — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 05:21:16 +0000

I read in a blog that was dated two years ago supermechanical.tumblr.com/post/22786227275/string-and-stone that Twine can be made to integrate with Pebble. What's become of the development?

Can't Get Passed - 80 Seconds Looking for Twine

Michael Kenney — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 06:47:05 +0000

I get all the way thru the setup and through the 80 seconds screen but I can't seem to get the unit recognized. It's a brand new unit and batteries. Any ideas are appreciated

Twine, a gadget for monitoring, not action.

Tyler Ludlow — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:35:16 +0000

So I received my breakout board after more than a year of not being able to thing of anything to be used with Twine. I think my stumbling block is that this toy is for the 'monitoring' side of home automation, not the actual doing part.

Has anything had any luck with working within IFTT?

Has anyone found any sensor scripts that actually do something for them in a meaningful way?

Im trying to think of something more practical than sending myself a message when my home is too dry, etc. I really have no need for break in monitoring, flood insurance, or anything of the things Supermechanical has posted. I got the Twine as a gift, and was welcome to return it, but now I just feel guilty not doing anything real with it, and Supermechanical isnt really doing anything at all to grow this community.

Twine is on USB power, but dashboard reports its on battery

Tom Isenbarger — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:12:36 +0000

I have two Twines both plugged into the wall. One reports that it is on external power. The other reports that it is on battery power. Is this a known issue with some Twines? Can I fix it?

Transfer a Twine?

Andrew Boutin — Sat, 27 Dec 2014 10:12:37 +0000

i want to give a Twine to a friend, but set it up and tested on my system first. When give it to them, do I need to transfer the unit off my dashboard or will they just be able to set it up new? Can I then delete it from my dashboard?

Problem with Temperature Monitoring

Javier Rapoport — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 12:19:41 +0000

Is it me or the last change in twine pretty much broke the de-facto temperature monitoring logic?

The logic used to read like this:

TWINE RULE:

WHEN temperature rises above 0...

Trigger after 0 seconds...

Reset 900 seconds after this has been triggered... (900 seconds is 15 minutes, adjust as required.)

The instructions in the webpage support this logic:

How rules work

A rule triggers only at the point when a value is crossed — for example, at the moment that the temperature goes from below 80ºF to above 80ºF.

The "trigger after X seconds" is the amount of time that the condition has to be met (the temperature must stay above 80ºF for X seconds) before it runs the actions.

The "reset" value is the minimum amount of time to wait after the rule has been triggered before it's checked again (remember, it won't trigger until the value is crossed again). It's useful for avoiding multiple notifications within a short amount of time (for example, when you're opening a door a lot).

But...

Now, with the change from "reset" to "untrigger", I tried it and I only got the first report... The problem seems to be with the "untriggering" logic... Since the temperature never falls below 0, it never untriggers so, of course, it never re-triggers either...

So...

Is there a potential workaround for this? I would really like to have an easy way to get an hourly-report of temperature, not just when it goes through a threshold...

Twines aren't communicating

Michael Driscoll — Sat, 18 Oct 2014 18:42:48 +0000

I can't get the computer Windows 7 pro wireless to see the twines. They had been working on a different WiFi network and now I can't see them to change the network settings.

I have Twines in Two locations. All are listed in the dashboard as "Hasn't been heard from."

Steven Deutsch — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 19:39:23 +0000

Is anyone else having problems with Twines updating the Twine Dashboard?

Because my Twines are at two very separate locations, I tend to think it is a server issue on Supermechanical's side. But if other people are up and running, I will have to come up with another theory.

[Edit] Based on the discussion below on "Twine won't connect or go into setup mode," it looks like I am not alone. I went ahead and sent a Tweet and created a support case.

Twine isn't updating dashboard & won't go into setup mode

Byron Bowerman — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 03:15:57 +0000

My twine "Hasn't been heard from.", but will not go into the setup mode. I have removed the batteries for >10 seconds; I have tried USB power instead of batteries. The LED pulses a few times, then goes out. Flipping the twine over causes the LED to flash once (on then off) and then nothing.

Clicking the network setup button in my account page just causes a 500 error in my javascript console.

What do I do now?

Is there anyway to increase WiFi Range

Erik Sobel — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 10:07:07 +0000

It seems like development and improvements on the Twine product have stopped. Is it dead in the water?

Is there anyway to increase it's effective WiFi range?

Power

Sabrina LeBlanc — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 10:53:41 +0000

My twine was working great under battery power. Then I plugged it in using a micro USB leftover from an old cell phone. The white light comes on when I plug it in (for a second) but the twine is no longer communicating with the router and the dashboard says it hasn't heard from it. Any tips?

Twine.CC SSL Certificate Expired

Sean McPherson — Fri, 30 May 2014 06:50:22 +0000

The cert expired at (5/30/2014 5:19:17 AM GMT). I can't get a response to any tweets, emails, or support cases about my other issues, so I'm doubtful we'll see a resolution to this unless the Twine folks just get annoyed about having to put the cert into their own certificate store.

Notify on lost Wifi

Brent Forrest — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 01:04:40 +0000

I want to preface by saying I searched the forums before posting this, as I was sure I'm not the only one...

I'm getting false positives on my magswitch and they're coinciding with the regular wifi interruptions we get with our Bell wireless internet. I was just wondering how to go about a setup where I receive notification like this:

Power outage for (15) seconds - restored at 12:34:00 PM
Lost WIFI for (n) seconds - restored at 12:34:00 PM

Cheers

BF

twine account

mohamed elmehdi khalil — Sat, 24 May 2014 09:04:14 +0000

i have delete my rules from my account and when i want to reconnet the twine on my account it said that :

I've already been claimed

This Twine is connected to another account. If you own that account, you can sign in now to finish the setup process.

Server down?

Barry Levine — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:00:28 +0000

For the past 24 hours i have been unable to receive any email trigger notifications. Is the twine server down?

Why won't my Twine work?

Sean Clark — Fri, 09 May 2014 09:04:10 +0000

It only worked for a day and now I can't do anything with it. When I flip it over the light either flashes once or stays on for a maximum of 4 seconds and isn't detectable as a wifi network. Is this easy to sort or just a crap item?

Lack of any response from Supermechanical

Alan Smith — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 15:58:13 +0000

Is it just me or are others angry because Supermechanical does not respond to support requests? At all!! I have sent in two polite requests but no response. Is there some special tag or word that needs to be used. I am very frustrated and it is difficut to get me frustrated.

Cannot Connect to New Network/Remove Existing

Christine Courty — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 22:17:50 +0000

I was having trouble connecting to my home network, so I tried connecting to a different network in another location. I was successful, and I updated my firmware. But now back at home I cannot get into setup mode. I do not get the solid light when I flip my Twine over. I tried removing the batteries and waiting, and even replaced with fresh batteries but I cannot get the light to turn on when I flip my Twine. Any suggestions on how to remove the existing network info and then start setup for the new one? Thanks!

External Temp Sensor

Joel Finkle — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 15:57:44 +0000

Saw the Kickstarter update, and it occurs to me that this is the first external sensor with more than just 1/0 values.

Does this mean we may see other sensors with ranges of values, such as "how moist"?

Also, can we have a rule that compares the internal and external temp values? e.g.

IF temp.internal > temp.external+20 then

EMAIL "Wear a sweater, stupid!"

Any new "actions" being planned?

Everett Peacock — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:42:50 +0000

I know some may ask, "what more do you need?" but before I commit my meager resources I would like to know if there are any new "actions" other than LED, email, Twitter, text message, phone call (very cool by the way) and HTTP request ?

thank you very much

Everett

factory reset twine?

Benjamin Khoo — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 06:54:54 +0000

how do i factory reset my twine?

i have lent a friend my twine to use for a while and have now gotten it back. however, i am now unable to detect my twine or put it back to a state where i can set it up.

how can i do this?

thanks

How long do rules "live" in Twine's memory?

Todd Andrews — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 23:19:25 +0000

Is there anything that can clear out the rules? For example, going through the twinesetup.com process? What about removing the batteries (or dead batteries) for an extended period?

How do I tell if there are rules saved in the Twine's memory?

I'm trying to figure out if the reason rules aren't sending me email notifications is because the Twine's memory got wiped. For now I guess the only thing I can do is to keep re-saving the rules to my Twine.

Source IP address?

Charlie Catlett — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 20:44:57 +0000

My twine is behind a typical NAT router. Sometimes dynamic DNS seems not to work, so I don't know the IP address of the router (which is 2h away from me).

Is there a way to query the twine server and find out what is the source IP address of my twine? (since the mother ship is getting posts from twine, it has access to the source IP address and thus the address of my NAT router)

Using Google Analytics with Twine HTTP get/post

Stephen Cudd — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 10:31:02 +0000

Hi, I have just taken delivery of my first Twines (and love the simplicity of setup!)

One of the things I am attempting is event recording. As an example, if I attach a Twine to a door I can use the vibration sensor to detect each time the door is opened. I want to record and subsequently visualise that data showing current and historical activity (ie: how many times was the door opened last week). I could create a web page and database that will handle all of this but it occurred to me that Google Analytics has all of this already covered. By simply issuing a GET request to a web page that I have control of I would then like to see that event appear in my Google Analytics. I tried it out but I am guessing that Google doesn't record or display the event as it regards the request from the Twine device to be a spider/bot.

Does anybody have any suggestions on whether it is possible to change this?

not sending get request

Lukasz Wieczorek — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 14:35:01 +0000

For some reason my get requests aren't sending. I added a rule to light the LED up when it is on its side to make sure the rules were uploaded to it, and it seems to be getting it. I can also manually hit "test URL" and it adds to hit counter, but when I trigger it on the twine by putting it on its side, it doesn't seem to trigger

here are my settings:https://www.dropbox.com/s/iwv9fhp64et5mek/Screenshot 2014-01-10 14.28.38.png

also, I can see it changing positions in the dashboard, so its definitely communicating.

ideas?

How do I attach an external wifi antenna?

Arthur Gleckler — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 23:34:35 +0000

I'm trying to use my TWINE in my garage, but my wifi signal is too weak there, so I'd like to attach an external wifi antenna. (Attaching a USB cable, as some people have done, didn't help.) I see that the circuit board has what appears to be an attachment point for an antenna, but I'm not sure where to get a compatible antenna cable and connector.

Has anyone succeeded in installing an external antenna, and if so, did it help, and where did you get the cable?

Thanks.