The prospect is very interesting, I like the idea of a cheaper apex for sure. Freshwater application just seems less valuable that saltwater use. Push style notifications would be a must imo.
FW aquarium controller
- Thread starter CarpCharacin
- Start date
I do water changes every one or two weeks. You are the who needs dosing pumps and I want to know how you plan on implementing them. I think that PWM is a must.
Push style notifications? You do not understand how extremley complicated and expensive that would be. This is going to be an open source aquarium controller that you can build yourself. The plan is for the interface to accessible by your home network, similar to a router configuration panel. The plan for the interface may change at any time, because I am still researching interface options. To have push notifications, we would have to either develop an app, or set up web push notifications and to do either, we would have to have the controller connected to our server and that isn't going to happen because it would be very complicated to set up and the controller design is going to be free & open source. It isn't going to be a service.
Its difficult yes to code yourself from scratch, yes, but expensive, propbably not too bad if you open source it... although im sure if you were keen enough, you could possibly find some code online to teach you to implement push notifications yourself...
In my setup, I'll have two pumps. I plan on dosing ferts weekly along with stability. Each pump can be set for a certain time and amount of liquid.
If you plan on dosing certain chemicals once a certain water parameter reaches a set point, that is also possible. For example, it could be programmed to dose Prime after nitrates reach 40 (for those people who are too lazy to do water changes
Interesting, i guess it could work well for those too lazy to dose ferts themselves, personally, my fert schedlue is not constant, so if i were to use it, it would need to be able to detect it...
I could, but that does not mean it would be practical to implement. I would need a developer account on apple or google or whatever device/OS maker I would be sending the push notifications too. Web push notifications aren't possible to send to IOS. To send notifications to IOS, i would need an app and that wouldn't be practical for this application. Web push notifications aren't possible either for several applications. The push notifications would have to be sent from a server with HTTPS. That means that a raspberry pi would have to be set up as a web server and most ISPs disallow home servers and it also opens up your network to security threats. Another option would be to send the push notifications from my server, but I would be stuck with paying for the developer accounts. I have an unmanaged VPS. This controller is going to be a DIY open source controller. If I started another site dedicated to the aquarium controller, I could give premium members the option to get push notifications from my VPS, but they would be web push notifications. It is a long shot. There is already an add-on for web push notifications from XenForo, but it isn't open source https://marketplace.digitalpoint.com/digital-point-push-notifications.2099/item. I would have to write another add-on for xenforo allowing the pi to connect to my site to receive notifications and writing an add-on for XF would be hard. See how complicated that would be?
I don't know the details behind creating a controller, nor how to develop apps for Android but I assumed you would be using or creating one. If the controller is only available on the lan and has no ability for notifications or emails then I wouldn't have a use for it. I'm looking more for a monitor to give me some peace of mind when I am away from my tanks, not another way to control them from a different floor.
All good, i was just throwing in my 2 cents, since i used to work with an App Development company, so i know its possible, just a question if you wanted to go that far...
I don't want this controller to rely on external services.
I know it is possible too, just not necessarily the most practical thing to do
Would it be a good idea to create a site dedicated to the controller and then try to make notifications available to premium members?
But wouldn't I need to add that functionality at the beginning? If you want access to the pi from outside of the network, can't you just SSH in? Sheesh
^ True... i mean its your product, so your call... maybe start with the basics as you said, and if you get good feedback, expand on it...
