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Breakout board only high/low?

Katsu TandaKatsu Tanda
edited December 2012 in Feature requests Vote Up0Vote Down
Is the breakout board only for measuring high and low? According to the description "Connect the Twine breakout board to your Twine's external sensor port and instantly get the ability to measure anything with your own analog or digital input"

Essentially I want to be able to monitor two doors and be able to identify which door is being opened (by using different resistances when the circuit is closed) and only use one Twine

Answers

  • 19 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • Bill SpencerBill Spencer
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    A resistance bridge is a great way to expand the usefulness of the breakout board. The developers say they are working on a firmware update that will support analog measurements, which should make your scheme possible. Any day now?
  • Gerry MuellerGerry Mueller
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Certainly the original descriptions (of more than a year ago) of what the Twine would do fairly clearly stated that analog measurements would be possible via the external plug. It is not clear if in the final implementation the external plug's present ability to sense only "on" or "off" is a hardware constraint, or a firmware limitation. If the former, it is what it is, if the latter, removing the firmware limitation is presumably on the "to do" list at Supermechanical. I suspect that we will eventually get analog inputs from a firmware upgrade, much as the vibration sensor, that in the original description would sense someone knocking on a door to which the Twine was fastened has been reduced to a six-value orientation sensor, but we are promised a frimware upgrade to make it fully functioning.
    A little clarity from Supermechanical on the functionality of the external sensor input (restricted to binary only, or will be upgraded to analog) would be welcome. the only other way to get this information would be to do a strip-down and reverse engineering of whatever the plug is connected to, and that I am not prepared to do, yet.
  • Katsu TandaKatsu Tanda
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Yeah a little roadmap would be nice. Along with a changelog of the firmware updates
  • hash halimhash halim
    edited December 2012 Vote Up0Vote Down
    Twine is not going to be a truly viable device until it is able to send and receive bluetooth telemetry. With five sensors you need five twines. With Bluetooth sensors only one twine would be needed to connect all sensors since each one has a unique id.
  • Katsu TandaKatsu Tanda
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    I guess still no update on the Breakout board in v1.3. Would really like to be able to set up a resistive bridge so I can monitor two doors
  • Doug SecristDoug Secrist
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Bumping this thread.  Anyone aware of any feature updates in the 2.0 firmware that are meant to support more than just on/off readings from the breakout board?  I know there wasn't any mention of it in the update announcement, but a man can always hope....

    I've personally just upgraded my Twine to
    firmware: 2.0.0
    radio: May 24 2013
    but I'm unfortunately not seeing any new options for the breakout board event triggers.

    I am putting together an infrared distance sensor to keep an eye on the amount of salt left in my water softener brine tank. In order to be really useful, I need my Twine to be able to trigger rules based on the actual analog voltage values reported by the sensor.  As it currently stands, I'm afraid I'll have to back-end this sensor with an Arduino (or similar) to handle the distance sensor's analog voltage values & dumb that down to a basic on/off output which can be fed into the Twine breakout board.  A very backward type of hack indeed, and one that wouldn't even be necessary once the Twine can read these analog voltages directly.
  • Sean McPhersonSean McPherson
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Bump as well as one reason I originally wanted the unit was for analog value measurement. I can build the circuits I need, but if the unit is never going to give them to me, it doesn't help :)
  • Cora AlbrechtCora Albrecht
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Bump. This is a must.
  • Sean McPhersonSean McPherson
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Any chance we can get a comment on this from the admins? :)
  • Sean McPhersonSean McPherson
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Bump
  • Katsu TandaKatsu Tanda
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Going to bump this again. Really the sole reason I backed this project.
  • Sean McPhersonSean McPherson
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Ding, same here. Many of us were some of your most ardent supporters and paid up front on faith. Any chance we can even get a reply?
  • Daniel SpeekDaniel Speek
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    i would like to attach a thermometer to the breakout board (for the fridge, freezer, or even oven). is this possible?
  • Joel FinkleJoel Finkle
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Daniel,
    The breakout board currently (eternally?) only supports 'binary' conditions as output.  So you wouldn't be able to use the breakout board to post the temperature, but a circuit that triggers at a threshold temp would be possible (left as exercise for reader)
  • Sean McPhersonSean McPherson
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    They have no intentions of ever making analog support. I've been told this repeatedly now by the twine folks, who unapologetically say 'too bad' when told that it was in the original kickstarter definition *and* in their store's description for the product, years later.
  • Sean McPhersonSean McPherson
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    They built a whole new product and instead of honoring their promises for the use cases of the original one, they are protecting sales of their new product by keeping the original unit crippled.
  • Sean McPhersonSean McPherson
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    "We aren't going to be adding analog support for Twine. We'd love to do
    so, but we’re a small team with limited time and resources so we have to
    pick and choose what to develop."
  • Sean McPhersonSean McPherson
    edited October 2014 Vote Up0Vote Down
    Interestingly they *still* show "external Temperature" as a sensor for twine on their website...


    http://supermechanical.com/twine/features.html

    ***

    Plug in additional external sensors and they pop up on the web app, ready to use.

    External temperature buy

    Measure the temperature where your Twine can't go. Make sure your
    freezer or refrigerator is working properly, your grain silo isn't too
    hot, or that the weather outside is nice.

    ***

    But when you follow the link, it takes you to the plugin sensor page, with no temperature sensor listed, except the range, which doesn't integrate with Twine! Still deceptive, and not accidental, as this has happened with every store/feature/text update.
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