The Telraam Team are planning to add some automated email alerts to the system that will let hosts know that their device is offline - in case something has happened but they are unaware or need help.
What do you think of this idea?
How often would you like to receive a notification to let you know that no data is being received?
Also, on the assumption that there is an issue you know about but you can’t, or do not want to, fix it, when should the reminders stop?
Note: traffic data is sent on an hourly basis, so if the device is not connected during the scheduled time for the update, that hour will not be included in the dashboard analysis. Therefore, the longer it is offline, the bigger the data gap for that device.
I think this is a good thing. Especially to see whether someone is still actively using Telraam. I think that feedback should definitely be asked for: is there a technical problem, does someone no longer wish to actively use Telraam, … How many reminders? I think 2 or 3 with an interval of e.g. 2 weeks.
This topic also leads me to the following question: in Mechelen, for example, I see that the Telraam on the Frans Halsvest probably gives data relating to the R12 (Cityring) on the other side of the Dijle instead of the street itself. Can such info - once known - also be passed on to hosts?
Thanks for your input, that’s really useful @koenbaele
When you say, can we let hosts know, do you mean that it should be possible for friendly neighbours to be aware and get in touch with the hosts? Or have I misunderstood?
Either such information could be conveyed indirectly to other hosts through Telraam; or indeed the possibility could be created for hosts to be contacted by friendly neighbors or other hosts to pass on such information. The latter may well lead to greater involvement between hosts and local residents.
That’s an interesting suggestion. I’d have to think how it might work, but I can definitely see the ‘community’ aspect of this
I guess that if a device is part of a formal Telraam network in a town or region then there will already be some kind of structure in place and this may include getting in touch with volunteer hosts in order to keep the cameras active.
Where it might be most useful, and most community-driven, would be to have some kind of “local” group so that individual devices might still be connected in some way so that users could support each other - not just to keep a device active, but also to troubleshoot other issues, or to share data.
It would probably have to be opt-in so hosts could choose to join or not.
As a Telraam operator I would like to know if the device is offline, or if the counts differ radically from normal (e.g. the device may be obscured). Certainly no more than one notification per day, with a shutoff.
I came to this forum today in fact, because the Telraam I operate got obscured, and counted zero, but no notification came.
I’d also like to be able to message a Telraam operator, and receive messages. I was able to reach a local Telraam operator via a friend of a friend and resolve an issue they had: but only because I had an initial guess as to who placed the device.
Another Telraam operator who’d like to be notified when my device is offline. 1 notification per outage seems appropriate, maybe with an option to turn unsubscribe from future notifications.
This does already happen. We send an email if the device has not been online for 24 hours (it might be more as it tests once per day so would be 24+ hours depending on when it went off)
We then follow up after a week, two weeks and a month. If the user has not taken action at that point, we may try other means of getting in touch or they may simply not be interested.
this is something we are working on. It should be possible to check if the data is radically different to the expected data, and therefore something may be amiss.
For privacy reasons this is not simple, but it could be something to be added to a dashboard, with a chance to send a user a message without revealing personal information. However, as you can imagine, this could easily be abused, so it may not be possible.
This is an advantage of a local network, so members can find ways to connect to each other, at least via the network manager. It is also why we created this space so that more peers can be in touch. We cannot guarantee it will be a neighbour, but this forum space could easily be used to create small private networks of connected friends.
