I have recently upgraded my EmonPi to the latest SD image and I’ve purchased a Huawei E3231 GSM dongle. Can anyone point me in the right direction on setting this up to communicate with my home network to enable me to access the EmonPi via Emoncms?
Since your running the latest sd card image 03May16 HiLink gsm dongle should work out the box, assuming the dongle has a SIM card and is topped up with credit.
User guide: 1. Connect - Guide | OpenEnergyMonitor
Technical information: GitHub - openenergymonitor/huawei-hilink-status: Query Huawei HiLink modems for status information.
Thanks Glyn.
I hve been having some trouble setting up the unlocked 3G dongle I have bought. I have fitted a prepay Vodafone SIM and topped up the credit. When I boot up the Pi the network status message says “disconnected”. This may be due to a lack of Vodafone signal at my site which I will have ro investigate. However I have realised upon looking through your links again today that my Pi probably doesn’t have WiFi built in (it was purchased in June 2015). Am I correct in thinking I will need a WiFi dongle for it?
Thanks,
Andrew
The emonpi / emonBase pre-built sd card only supports gsm dongles which present themselves as a USB ethernet device e.g HiLink dongle.
You need a Pi 3 to have onboard wifi. You should be able to tell by physically looking at the board. There is a commandline to produce it’s serial number which can tell us. I can’t remember off the top of my head, a quick Google should reveal. All emonpis with a Pi 3 have an acrylic fascia (to let the wifi out!).
Thanks Glyn,
The GSM Dongle I am using is the correct type. My emonpi doesn’t have an acrylic fascia.
Just as an experiment I tried plugging a wifi router / range extender / access point into the ethernet port at home today after turning off my home wifi network to see if it could pick up the internet signal from the HiLink as I thought this might be a way around it. Although the emonpi then said it was connected to the network and I was able to log on using my laptop on the same wifi network there was no internet connection so this arrangement obviously wouldn’t be any use for my remote site, and I guess a USB wifi dongle would also not work.
In my ignorance of such matters and in the absence of clear information on the need for onboard wifi I had initially thought the emonpi could connect directly to the internet via the USB connector on the HiLink. Then I thought it could pick up the HiLink wifi signal via a USB wifi dongle or a wifi router attached to the ethernet port.
Now I’ve realised that what this boils down to is that the HiLink needs a Pi 3 to work as it needs to have onboard wifi. Is that right? It’s a shame I missed this crucial piece of information when I started down the route of my plan to use my emonpi for remote monitoring via GSM. It looks like I am goinjg to have to buy a newer Emonpi for this to work.
Andrew
No, the Hi-link does not require a Pi3 to work. You do need to be running the latest sd card image emonSD-03May16 for GSM Hi-link support.
What emonSD are you running? You should be able to view on the emonPi LCD by pressing the front push button several times to scroll through the modes.