Best app to use with iSpindel

[kelper]

BrewSpy does something clever with data to smooth the graphs but it does not clearly show daily fluctuations in SG.
Ubidots seems to make it hard to create graphs - I'm going to ditch BS and go back to Ubidots.
Any recommendations from users who have tried a few different apps? I'm not going to pay for a subscription.

 

[Petrolhead]

I’m happy with Ubidots.

My iSpindel stopped recording towards the end of my last brew which I bottled before going away for a week. I thought the battery had gone flat and just left it on the bench in my shed.

For some reason it started up again, probably a wifi issue, so I‘m now on holiday happily checking the temperature of the shed.

I quite like my iSpindel.

 

[The Cat]

Hi

I have started setting up my iSpindel. It seems to be all working and I have managed to complete the configuration page and saved it.

My problems start with ubidots. I have registered and signed into it and get to the dashboard page but from there I am lost.

I can access the ispindel device and click add variable but from there can anyone tell me how to proceed? I can't find it anywhere.

I only really want to use it for gravity, temperature and battery.

Thanks for any help.

 

[The Cat]

Problem solved I was entering my API key not the token code it generates.

 

[kelper]

Problem solved I was entering my API key not the token code it generates.

I did the same!

If you play with the synthetic variables, remember only the arithmetic operators can be used without subscription.

 

[The Cat]

I did the same!

If you play with the synthetic variables, remember only the arithmetic operators can be used without subscription.

I think I've got all I need on the basic homepage - only really want temperature, battery and gravity to show when fermentation is done. Will be good to keep a record of what's gone on though I winged my first go and can't remember any of the details.

 

[Newerbrewer]

I like ubidots. Took me a little bit of time to work it out but once I cracked how to display variables I really like it.

 

[Andrew Taylor]

Try brewspy on the Google play store, quite a nifty little app and the developer is active in keeping the app updated. I asked him if he could build an offset feature for temp measurements as the temp in my ispindel was reading high, he replied and in the next release the feature had been added.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I have muddled through with Ubidots for the past few brews, but this latest brew I am struggling due to excess 'usage' and I don't understand how or why it is exceeding the dot limit. It shows dots in at around 600 per day, but dots out at a little over 50,000 per day, which is higher than the limit. I don't have it on autorefresh, yet it has stopped displaying my graphs soon after checking and a manual refresh each day of my present brew. It then allows me to see the graphs once again, briefly the next day for maybe two or three manual refreshes, before it stops yet again.

I have looked at Brewspy, but use an Iphone. I have looked at running Brewspy on my PC, via the Bluestacks android emulator, but that is a bit of a heavyweight and brings my laptop to its knees. My need for using iSpindel is not regular, so not worth subscribing to a site to see the data, or running my own server for data logging, so I would welcome suggestions.

 

[kelper]

What are you logging and how often? How many graphs are you plotting?

 

[uDicko]

Old thread for your answers. But I use brewfather attached to each batch with the spindel. Logs every 15mins

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

What are you logging and how often? How many graphs are you plotting?

Every 15 minutes for - SG, tilt, temperature, wifi signal and battery. It worked fine at that for previous brews, providing I didn't refresh the graphs too often, but suddenly it only allows one or two refreshes and locks me out becuase of a silly number of dots downloaded. It says in excess of 50,000 dots per day, as a result of refreshing a couple of times, yet only around 600 pre day uploaded, with it uploading every 15 minutes.

 

[kelper]

My iSpindel is not in use now but last brew it was using 550 dots in and about 6,000 out. It logged six variables every 15 minutes and I had two graphs. One for SG and Temp, one for battery and RSI (signal).

I'd be tempted to delete your device, all widgets and dashboards and start from scratch. It took me ages to get mine working flawlessly.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I was about to ask why more dots out than in, until I realised...

It only feeds the latest set of data point in every 15 minutes, one dot per graph - but grabs all the data points when coming back out.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Ubidots was supplying its graph data again this morning, it seems to reset the data count at around midnight. This morning I refreshed it to grab the latest graphs just three times and my profile> Usage suggests I have already exceeded the daily download limit. I don't think three graph checks in one day is excessive, near the end of the fermentation.

Its such a shame that every time it downloads the entire number of dots, it would be much less likely to exceed the usage data limit, if it stored what you had already downloaded locally and just sent you the updates to the data.

 

[kelper]

Well, reduce the timescale so it only downloads a day or two!

I looked at all of September twice yesterday and that was only 3,800 dots.

 

[The Cat]

My reading has packed up again! My wifi extender has now arrived though so will use that next batch.

Been taking manual readings though as this FV has a spigot so it's easy - it dropped from 1.014 the last two days to 1.012 today so even though there is nothing I've seen from the airlock it's still going.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

The numbers still don't add up as I would expect....

UP - 24hours x 4 readings per hour x 5 data items = 480 dots - that agrees with Unibots usage.

DOWN 7 Days worth of dots x 24 x 4 x 5 = 3360 dots - not the 50,000 which Ubidots suggests in usage.

Call it 4000 dots per refresh of the data, 50000/4000 = 12.5 times I should be able to refresh my graphs each day, before exceeding the limit. What am I overlooking?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I am presently testing Brewspy out, on my Win10 64bit laptop, using an Android emulator called Bluestacks.

Bluestacks brings my laptop almost to its knees, but Brewspy does seem to be working, getting data, and showing it on screen. Looks quite good, more informative than Ubidots, I just wish they would prt it to ios for the iphone, or directly usuable for Win10.

 

[The Cat]

I received my second iSpindel today - it came charged so I installed Bluestacks and got it connected to Brewspy - seems to work fine at the moment. Need to play around with it to see what it can do. Have one each now on Ubidots and Brewspy to compare and decide what to keep.