I’m looking for the best way to implement a remote restart option in my setup in case everything else fails. Since my system will be installed remotely, I need a reliable method to trigger a restart without excessive power consumption.
My Initial Approach
I considered using the *card.restart* request along with an environment variable acting as a flag that I could trigger remotely. However, this would require a high inbound rate, leading to increased LiPo battery drain.
Questions
1. Is there a more power-efficient alternative to implementing a remote restart? 2. Given my setup, is my current data sync method the most efficient, or would switching to periodic mode be better?
Repeat
Currently in minimum mode, syncing during those 10 minutes. The data is split into 10 notes (requiring 10 *hub.sync* calls, which doesn’t seem efective but it is what is working as of now)
Alternative Consideration:
Switching to periodic mode, syncing inbound & outbound every 30 minutes
This would allow the environment variable to work for triggering a restart
I hope this explanation clarifies my setup rather than making it more confusing. Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you for your help!
P.S.: Regarding the Notecard-NBGL-500 vs. WBEX-500, which one would be better for coastal regions in Europe?
Can you provide more information about what you are trying to restart remotely? Is it the Notecard or your application specifically?
If it’s the Notecard, there shouldn’t be any need to restart it, are you noticing something unusual? If you do still wish to restart the Notecard, you can simply change the value of the _restart env var to something different and non-zero and it will force the Notecard to restart.
If it’s your application (your host esp32 v2), you could configure your system to use ODFU, this will allow you to both restart your host’s firmware as well as remotely update it. We provide information about how to do this in the docs.
Regarding periodic versus minimum mode, if you are explicitly syncing 10 notes in 10 minutes, you may find it more power efficient to sync with periodic mode as fewer network sessions will need to be opened, which is generally an energy expensive operation for a modem. This way you’ll only have 1 session opened as opposed to 10.
Re-Narrowband versus Wideband, you’ll more likely have better coverage with Wideband, but you should check with the network operators in your region. It’s also worth considering power consumption as Narrowband will be more efficient.
There isn’t anything unusual happening at the moment, but since the setup will be installed far away from me, I’d like to have a first line of defense in case I notice something off—ideally, a way to remotely restart the system. Even better would be a method to restart both the Notecard and the host without needing to physically visit the location.
With the _restart environment variable, I’d still need a certain inbound interval to check for updates, correct?
Regarding the rest, I’ll take a closer look at the documentation and definitely work on optimizing the firmware for better energy efficiency.
The Notecard will check for inbound and outbound events unless you specify otherwise. Updating an environment variable is considered an inbound event and will sync the environment variables from notehub.
