Overview
Things
Story

Setup Your Development Environment
Using Windows 7
Connect to the Board
Get Device Name
Linux and Mac OS X
Windows
Setup Your Project
Add required Libraries
Publish A Location
GPS Signal Strength
If you get "Uploading project (main folder)..." Error

Published May 8, 2018 © MIT

Publish a Location Event to Wia Using Your Pysense

Learn how to obtain location data and post to Wia with the Pysense extension board.

BeginnerFull instructions provided1 hour814

Publish a Location Event to Wia Using Your Pysense

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Pycom Pysense

Pycom LoPy4

Can be any board that supports connection via Wifi

USB-A to Micro-USB Cable

Software apps and online services

Wia

Story

Setup Your Development Environment

We'll be using Atom as our development environment.You can download the latest version from here.

Once you've got it setup, install the Pymakr plugin. Follow the steps in this tutorial to get it setup.

Using Windows 7?

Pytrack and Pysense will work out of the box for Windows 8/10/+, Mac OS as well as Linux. If using Windows 7, drivers to support the boards will need to be installed. You can find them here.

Connect to the Board

Before connecting your module to the Pysense board, you should update the firmware on thePysense. Instructions on how to do this can be found here

Look for the reset button on the module (located at a corner of the board, next to the LED)

Locate the USB connector on the Pysense

Insert the module on the Pysense with the reset button pointing towards the USB connector. It should firmly click into place and the pins should now no longer be visible

Connect the USB port on Pysense board to the USB port on the computer

Pysense/Pytrack

Get Device Name

Once you've got it connected to your computer, get the name of your device using one of the following steps:

Linux and Mac OS X

Download and install the FTDI drivers from here. Select the appropriate version for your operating system and architecture

Open a terminal window and run the command ls /dev/tty*

Look for a device with the name that begins with /dev/tty e.g. /dev/tty.usbmodemPy343431 on MAC or /dev/ttyUSB0/dev/ttyACM0 on Linux.

*For Linux, you may need to run the two commands below. Once you've completed that, reboot your computer. This will add permissions that will allow you to upload a sketch to the board.

sudo usermod -a -G tty ${USER}
sudo usermod -a -G dialout ${USER}

Windows

Download and install the FTDI drivers from here. Select the appropriate version for your operating system and architecture

Open the Windows start menu and search for 'Device Manager'

The COM port for the Pycom device will be listed as 'USB Serial Device' or something similar

Keep note of the COM port (e.g. COM4)

Setup Your Project

Create a new folder for your project. I'm going to call mine pycom-pysense

In Atom, go to File > New Window to open a new window

Add your newly created folder by clicking File > Add Project Folder and navigating to it

If the Pymakr plugin is not open at the bottom of your Atom window, click on the arrow on the right hand side to open it

Select Settings > Project Settings. In the address field replace the value with the device name from the step above e.g. /dev/tty.usbmodemPy343431 (Mac OS X), COM3(Windows), /dev/ttyACM0 (Linux) then save the file

Add required Libraries

Right click on the folder name in Atom and click Add Folder. Enter lib as the folder name

Right click on the lib folder and click New File. Enter urequests.py as the file name

Click on the file then copy and paste the code from here into that file then save it

For Pysense, additional libraries must also be added to the lib folder, these can be found here

Publish A Location

In Atom, right click on your project and click New File. Enter boot.py as the filename

Copy and paste the code below labeled boot.py into the file

Right click on your project and click New File. Enter main.py as the filename

Copy and paste the code below labeled main.py into the file

Replace the following values of the following variables:

WIFI_SSID with your WiFi network name

WIFI_KEY with your WiFi network password

DEVICE_SECRET_KEY with your device secret key from earlier (the one that begins with d_sk)

Your folder structure should now look like this:

lib

urequests.py

LIS2HH12.py

LTR329ALS01.py

MPL3115A2.py

SI7006A20.py

pysense.py

boot.py

main.py

File Structure

Click Upload in the Pymakr plugin at the bottom of your window in Atom and send the code to your Pycom board. Now go to the Wia dashboard and you should see it appearing in your device overview.

Publish a location to Wia

GPS Signal Strength

You may need to take your Pytrack outdoors to get a reading for latitude/longitude.

If you get "Uploading project (main folder)..." Error

Try updating the firmware. For the development board click here.

For additional firmware for the Pysense/Pytrack board click here.

Now go to your device in the Wia dashboard and you should see the data appearing in the debugger.

Wia Device Debugger

Code

from network import WLAN
from pysense import Pysense
from SI7006A20 import SI7006A20
import urequests as requests
import socket
import time

py = Pysense()
si = SI7006A20(py)

# Your WiFi network credentials
WIFI_SSID = 'your-wifi-ssid'
WIFI_KEY = 'your-wifi-password'

# Get this from the Wia dashboard
DEVICE_SECRET_KEY = 'your-wifi-ssid'

url = "https://api.wia.io/v1/events"
headers = { "Authorization": "Bearer " + DEVICE_SECRET_KEY, "Content-Type": "application/json" }

wlan = WLAN(mode=WLAN.STA)
nets = wlan.scan()

# Connect to the WiFi network
for net in nets:
    if net.ssid == WIFI_SSID:
        print('Network found!')
        wlan.connect(net.ssid, auth=(net.sec, WIFI_KEY), timeout=5000)
        print('Connecting...')
        while not wlan.isconnected():
             machine.idle() # save power while waiting
        print('WLAN connection succeeded!')
        break


# Post an Event to the Wia cloud
def post_event(name, data):
    try:
        json_data = { "name": name, "data": data }
        print str(json_data)
        if json_data is not None:
            req = requests.post(url=url, headers=headers, json=json_data)
            return req.json()
        else:
            pass
    except:
        pass

# main loop
while True:
    # Takes the temperature from the Pysense expansion board
    post_event("temperature", si.temperature())
    time.sleep(10)

Credits

Spivey

82 projects • 59 followers

Tourist in a Tutu || US Born || Melbourne/Mexico/California Raised || New Yorker at ❤️ || SF to Dublin to be COO of Wia the best IoT startup

Publish a Location Event to Wia Using Your Pysense