I set up the following new location
But no ROI image has come through. Signal strength seems fine, but the device reports offline fairly often.
How long should I expect the first ROI image will come through?
And: are firmware updates automatic? I checked the FAQ but see only the topic covered for the V1 device.
Check position in window. I Think the metal edge of double glazing can be quite disruptive. I have a slow connection but it is stable and continuous after reposition farther away from edge.
I moved it outdoors under an overhang. After 12 hours no change.
How long should I expect the first image will take?
Hi @bryce2
It is possible that when you are first setting up the device, it has other details to up/download so the limited bandwidth might be restricted. I have just tested the device and I can get an image, but it is still very dark … so I just get a black square. Can you try setting the ROI again and see if it works?
I can see that the logs show your signal is quite weak. As @iain pointed out, moving this away from items that can cause interference (particularly metal objects) could help with that.
Lastly, you mention that this is outside. Is it protected in some way? As it is designed to go on a window, can you tell me how you’ve managed to do this?
The ROI image was apparently taken at 4am
Is there a way to know which cellular carrier the MQTT Anywhere SIM will latch onto? I can then index to maps at https://www.cellmapper.net/
The device is up under an eave, held in with tape. Our region has 6-8 months with no rain and little dew, so it’s safe for the moment, even without a case.
Is there a way to force it to take a daytime photo?
Temporary securement:
There’s a window below, but the angle to the street is wrong.
I think it sounds like you are doing the right thing. On your dashboard, select “Camera images” and then click on the “Set Region of Interest (ROI)” button.
It can take some time for the image to load, but usually only a few minutes, not longer. The delay would be if it was just timing out because of signal issues.
I’ve managed to refresh the image a couple of times, but in my morning, your night (hence the dark image). I will try again later this afternoon.
As for the network, your device is connecting to the AT&T network I see from our logs
The first daytime thumbnail appeared.
The street is brightly light at night, so black should never have been an option.
The “wide area image” load is greater than 15 minutes (it has never completed for me, despite a half dozen tries).
The camera appears to be biased to the left.
Nearby AT&T towers shown, the two close ones having 5G overlays to LTE.
Is it possible to switch the device to exclude ATT or prefer the other two (Verizon or T-Mobile are the only other towers).
The Telraam S2 does not use the 5G towers or LTE, it actually uses LTE-M which is a separate network dedicated for low-power IoT devices
I believe only AT&T, and maybe US Cellular and T-Mobile USA have active LTE-M networks, but I’m not sure about their coverage in each state. In any case, we do not determine this, it is done by the signal strength I believe (as the device is effectively ‘roaming’).
I don’t think your cellmapper offers LTE-M, but we are testing a separate tool for checking and it does seem like there is a bit of an issue in this area, sadly (I checked for both AT&T and T-mobile):
I am able to generate an image from the device, but I too have not been able to get the ROI setting as this is even higher bandwidth requirement. We are looking at streamlining this process but when the signal is weak, there is currently not much we can do.
Having looked at the image that was generated, I am concerned that the device seems quite far from the street, and there are several obstacles (bushes) in the way. I am not sure it will be giving you a reliable count, even with a different ROI setting.
Yes, the camera images do tend to bias to the left, so being close to that beam that protrudes is also not helping.
Maybe you can hassle AT&T to improve their local signal strength? I imagine this would be a prime area for IoT devices.
In a past life I had direct AT&T cell tower contacts, not now. No idea which towers may be LTE-M (or NB-IoT and EC-GSM-IoT) enabled.
This study area has 20 foot setback zoning. Without a true water shedding unit with different mounting and security options, this is about as good as it will get.
If the Telraam AI depends on a top down view, that’s going to be hard to get in many setback zoning areas. If there were a way to set a WIDE Regional Of Interest (the full width of the sensor, but cropped top and bottom) that would give the AI the most juice to go by.
I did, finally, get an ROI setting image.
Is an LTE tower ID eNB provided by the LTE-M device, and can that be accessed?
No, we do not get cell tower details in our reports, only the network and an indication of signal strength (which is how I spotted your signal was weak).
We are working on an outdoor unit which will also be energy independent (with a small solar panel) which should work better in some circumstances you describe.
Glad to hear you managed to get the ROI setting to load. The sensor, on its own uses the whole view (or as much as is possible with our set up) and will automatically adjust this to select a “good” ROI. The manual setting is simply to override this with a human eye.
I do hope the solar version will include a weatherproof means to supply PoE or 5V power where available.
I adjusted the camera mount again:
The device has settled in for whatever reason and data has been reliable since the prior move (which was under a meter on the same wooden wall).
