Our senior in-home activity monitoring device uses the MBNAN Notecard, uploading a data packet once an hour, on the hour, around the clock. We use wall-charger power, no batteries, so we just use the continuous connection mode. With over 150 devices deployed, we’ve had excellent reliability overall; but a handful of locations have been challenging for cellular connectivity. The Notecard may connect initially but lose connection intermittently, and we want our front-panel LED to glow red during those situations.
We’re looking for the most reliable way to get a “go / no-go” signal indicating cellular connectivity is intact. I am thinking of using the Notecard “file.changes” API, looking for a value of 0 for the “total” field. We could check this some time (15 mins?) after each hourly data upload request. Will this work? Is there a better way? Thanks for a great product that is helping older people feel safe living alone!
For this scenario I would highly recommend you look at what you can do via standard LEDs, an RGB LED, or Neopixels attached to the Notecard’s AUX pins to monitor Notecard status automatically (here is a sample app I wrote up a while back that gives a decent high level overview).
re: for a simple way to add a neopixel and use it as a status indicator adafruit sells some standalone neopixel boards, a lot easier than all the breadboard, wires, resistors, and only a single digital pin needed, etc
I appreciate the suggestions, but my PCB is already in production and the host processor (ESP32) isn’t connected to the Aux pins; it only communicates over the serial interface. Driving an LED isn’t the issue, that’s done by the ESP32 already. I should have clarified the context more.
I will try the “file.changes” API and post back here if it works.