Adding Different Sensors

Hi there,

Loving Cayenne so far but can you use sensors that aren’t listed on the site? I have a box full of sensors and don’t really want to have to go out and buy more so do you have to use the ones listed or can you use similar ones?

I have a temp and humidity sensor I would like to use, this is not listed on the site.

Thanks

Hey Will,

Welcome to the Cayenne community. Glad you are liking Cayenne so far. We’re working on some very cool features to make Cayenne even better.

To your point, one of the things we’re working on is the ability for you to bring on whatever sensor you’d like and display it in Cayenne. We’ll be discussing it with the community here: Online Meetup - 03/24/16 12pm - 1pm PDT - #19 by mac_ha .

Curious, what temp/humidity sensor?

-B

I have been checking reliablility and ease of use issues with some newer devices. Just to put in here two of the devices I consider tops and up to date. I have been testing and have streaming on a home brew cayene like system. These are GOOD.



AND
DSTH01

This has a nice bug proof Teflon porous mat to stop dust, spider spit deterioration etc… I think this is the way to go, a bit more up to date, easier to number crunch the virtually raw direct, factory calibrated 2x readings in T Deg C anf %Rh in 14 bit and 12 bit res

Both these devices i think are a bit more superior to older bit bashing interfacing of slightly weird protocol devices.

The top images of my ‘Cicadacom’ local mesh system that streams data in via super budget local 433MHz radio using home brew single uAmp digit idling ‘Cicada’ instruments. These typically run for 12 months + off 3xAA battery etc. I am using a novel ASK Rf uDdata packet or ‘chirrup’ of a few bytes of data + a CS. The Raspberry Pi has a RF ASK Serial device on the ttyAMA0 port and pyserial brings it into the Pi Py sort of area.

~ Andrrew

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Thanks for your reply.

That sounds amazing. Would be really great to be able to try out any sensor with the platform, I think that is super powerful.

As for the the humidity sensor, It’s a dht11 that I currently have.

Thanks

Thanks, I am looking forward to being able to pick up the cicada ‘chirrrups’ of data from all sorts of weird wired, diverse instruments and devices. I hope we can then forward the data live as ‘Generic Variables’ data within the Pi python scripts with say a function or post somehow ‘Pi >> Cayenne’ as a live Generic Variable. This would then be picked up within Cayenne and treated the same as any other sensor input.

I sure look forward to being able to plug existing Pi py projects direct into Cayenne. The way I see Cayenne heading and heard about this morning should make Cayenne pretty much the one stop shop / solution for me.

~ Andrew

Just chiming in here and resurrecting this thread – I would really like to use Cayenne for a project, but I would need a way to read from a high-resolution (7200 CPR) rotary quadrature encoder for which I think I’ll need to use an RPI 3 model B just because of the sheer volume of interrupts. I see the Arduino Cayenne library which looks like it could be used to connect some custom sensors, but I don’t see an equivalent for RPI…

Is there anything for us? Being locked to a selected handful of sensors is just not that useful for me…

Hi Peter, welcome to the Cayenne Community.

Have a look at the documentation for our MQTT API: specifically the C++ / Embedded C sections where we walk you through adding a Raspberry Pi and then custom sensors and actuators.

This is different than the ‘Raspberry Pi’ option when adding a device in Cayenne, which limits you to the preselected group of sensors.

Hi - so for the sensors that are officially supported, such as “Analog Distance Sensor / Distance Sensor”, how do we know how to purchase? What item#, etc? Thanks!

At this point you can use any sensor that you can find a library for. MQTT can send any numerical value back to the dashboard (text is not yet supported).

Hi, Am new to Cayenne and I am finding it fantastic platform to build IoT solution. When I tried to add HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor to cayenne with Raspberry pi, it was not allowing me to add. Is it, this sensor is not supported by Cayenne on Raspberry pi ? In case, if it not supported then how can I add this sensor to cayenne ? Please suggest.

why you want to use a raspberrry pi with HCSR04. a arduino will be a better choice.

I hope Pi is more stable than arduino for production implementations.

Give a try with arduino and if you face any problem we will help you out.

Sure, will try and get back to you if I come across with any issues. Thank you … Btw, is it possible to integrate Alexa with Cayenne ? If yes, could you please share the steps or any video link to achieve it.

you can have a look at this http://www.instructables.com/id/ESP8266-With-DHT11-to-AlexaPI-to-Dashboards/ and Alexa & Cayenne? Yes! (Preview)