Understanding movement and Hub in continuous mode

1

Hi,

I live in an area with particularly spotty cell reception, and my office is pretty bad. However, as soon as I go out, signal is OK.

I’ve been testing my application with the Notecard in continuous mode, GPS periodic tracking to 1h and motion stop:true. While sitting still, inside and with bad reception, I get consistent deliveries:

Screenshot 2025-11-25 at 10.59.14 AM
Screenshot 2025-11-25 at 10.59.14 AM1406×2106 430 KB

However, as soon as I start moving I get what seems to be pretty bad connection issues:

Screenshot 2025-11-25 at 11.01.36 AM
Screenshot 2025-11-25 at 11.01.36 AM1580×1792 336 KB

At first the most obvious idea was checking the cell signal, but it was the same or better (2 bars on the street vs. 1 bar indoors). Then I thought it could be the battery, using a 10000mAh 5V 3A battery pack to power a Raspberry Pi 2 W - which will then power the GPS and the Notecarrier Pi + Notecard. But the voltage reading is constant, ~4.85V, no variations. I tested the battery inside, the same as the A/C power, and the results are good.

I’m using the 698-4000MHz Molex antenna on the Notecard.

Anyone would could provide some insights on how to troubleshoot the connection? Right now I lose the connection so many times that renders the application useless. It aggressively collects GPS points, but only syncs a new note every 20s, so it’s not too connection intensive.

                                     5V 3A
Notecarrier Pi + Notecard <---> Raspberry Pi 2 W    <-->    Adafruit GPS
                           I2C                   UART Serial

Thanks,
H. Cabral

1 Like
3

Hi @hcabral

Thanks for the detailed explanation, one quick question that may help narrow this down: are you using the request below to get the Notecard to use external GPS over AUX?

{"req":"card.aux.serial", "mode":"gps"}

The reason I ask is that what you are seeing suggests that the Notecard may be exiting continuous mode when motion begins. That is the expected behaviour when the internal GPS is active, as the Notecard temporarily disables the cellular functionality to operate the internal GPS. If an external GPS is used instead, the behaviour would be different, and the Notecard shouldn’t be exiting continuous mode.

A simple test that may help confirm this:

  1. Disable GPS via {"req":"card.location.mode", "mode":"off"}.
  2. Move the device again.
  3. Check whether the connection remains stable.

If the connection stays continuous with location turned off, then this strongly suggests that the internal GPS was taking control and causing the session to end once motion began.

Let us know what you find, we can go deeper into configuration next.

Thanks
Youssif

4

Hi @Youssif,

Thanks for your reply. My setup now is:

{ "req": "card.aux.serial", "mode": "req" }
{"req": "card.motion.mode", "stop": "true" }
{ "req": "card.location.track", "stop": "true" }
{ "req": "card.location.mode", "mode": "periodic", "seconds": 3600 }

I moved my GPS to connect directly to the Raspberry Pi 2 W, so right now I don’t really need the location of the Notecard. The difference here from what you said is changing the location.mode to OFF.

I will test again with this change and see if it makes any difference.

Cheers,
H. Cabral

5

Hi H. Cabral

Apologies, I completely missed that your external GPS is now connected directly to the Raspberry Pi, even though it was clear in the setup diagram. Thanks for clarifying.

Yes, please do let us know if changing location.mode to “off” makes any difference. That would help confirm whether the internal GPS is playing a role in ending the continuous session.

Thanks
Youssif

6

Hi @Youssif,

Happy to report that it did the trick! I thought at first that the periodic set to 1 hour would be OK, but with your suggestion I was actually able to reliably send messages during a 15 minute car drive even in slightly bad areas. Thanks for the support and attention!

Regards,
H. Cabral

1 Like