Schlagwort: data retention

  • Arduino Cloud widgets and data downloads get a design overhaul

    Arduino Cloud widgets and data downloads get a design overhaul

    Reading Time: 3 minutes
    Arduino Cloud Widgets and historical data downloads

    Arduino Cloud’s dashboards and widgets are some of its most popular features. It’s what turns the Cloud into your ultimate control center for all kinds of projects, from home automation to industrial monitoring.

    We’re constantly looking for ways to improve the user experience, and we’ve just rolled out some small, but very important tweaks. Combined with the new historical data download process, your Arduino Cloud experience will now be even smoother.

    Changes to Arduino Cloud Widgets

    One of the more visible changes is the padding around the widgets. It’s been reduced, particularly within the header.

    Previously, if you added a header you often needed to increase the size of the widget to accommodate the space needed for it to be displayed. This could leave a lot of empty space inside the widget itself.

    By reducing the size of the heading and removing the historical data and settings buttons, widgets can now be a lot more compact while still displaying all the data, labels and controls. You can see the padding reduction in the image below, and how it creates more space for smaller widgets.

    Arduino Cloud Widget Sizes

    But you’re not losing any functions. The redesign pops the settings button out from the side of the widget when you hover over it during layout editing. And the historical data options have been moved into the dashboard’s settings rather than the individual widget’s (more about that below).

    That same location, to the left of the header, was also previously used to notify you of any errors. Now if there’s a problem, the whole widget is disabled and the error notification appears in the center. Hovering over the error icon will give you a tooltip with more info on what’s wrong. 

    These new layouts are currently just for desktop dashboards. They aren’t visible on mobile or within the IoT Cloud Remote app yet. However, the redesign allows for smaller sizes of widgets, which will become especially valuable as we bring these changes to mobile. Watch this space.

    Historical Data Downloads

    We’ve revisited the process for downloading historical data. Previously, if you wanted to export your data, you had to do it widget-by-widget. So if you had six widgets, you’d have to go through the download process six times. 

    Now you can grab all the historical data you want in a single download. 

    There’s a new option in the dashboard’s setting menu, called “Historical Data”. Clicking that gives you a list of all variables in use. From here you can select all the ones you want to download by selecting the check boxes.

    If your dashboard is using multiple Things, you can swap between them from the dropdown at the top. Finally, you’re given the option to specify a date range for the export.

    Simply choose the variables and Things you want to export. Set the date range, and click the “Select Data Source” button. You’ll receive an email after a couple of minutes providing you with a link to download your data as individual CSV files, zipped up into a single download.

    Arduino Cloud Historical Data Download

    Remember though; if you’re using the free tier of Arduino Cloud, the date range selector won’t be available. You’ll always just download the last 24 hours worth of data, so don’t worry if the date selector isn’t visible for you.

    As always, we’re keen to get your feedback on the changes. Join us on the forums to tell us what you think.

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  • Using historical data from sensors in Arduino Cloud

    Using historical data from sensors in Arduino Cloud

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Historical data can be essential to making your electronics and Arduino project work how you want them to. Data retention is one of the features that changes depending on which level of Arduino Cloud account you have. Here’s everything you need to know, so you can choose exactly the right Arduino Cloud plan.

    Data or Variables?

    When you add variables to your Things, the Arduino Cloud automatically generates sketches that include them.

    Hang on though. Aren’t we here to talk about data retention?

    Indeed we are. When we say “variables”, this is the term used to describe the data you send to your Arduino Cloud. It sounds a bit technical, but consider the word. “Variable” actually makes more sense than “data”, which is kinda woolly.

    Variables are information that changes or, you guessed it, varies. Temperature, for example. If you have a temperature sensor sending data to the Cloud, it’s a variable. Because the value of the data (the temperature) is always changing/varying. 

    So in your sketch it’s known as a variable. The different data retention options in the Arduino Cloud plans tell you how long the Cloud will store a record of those variables for you.

    Data retention options in Arduino Cloud

    Historical Data Options

    Each Arduino Cloud plan offers a different length of time for how long you retain sensor data, depending on your needs.

    If you’re running a home automation to turn the lights on when it drops dark, your system is working with (pretty much) real-time data. So 24 hours of sensor information is perfectly adequate. It’s not like you’ll be turning a lamp on or off based on yesterday’s ambient light levels.

    A weather station might work a bit differently though. If you’re measuring the temperature or rainfall or daylight hours, you may want to build a comparison to see how the weather is changing. In this case, an Arduino Cloud Entry plan would give you 15 days of data, allowing you to monitor and record recent changes in your weather station’s variables.

    Historical data for an IoT greenhouse, or maybe an aquarium or terrarium, would be much more important. Maybe it’s even an industrial project that’s monitoring equipment for predictive maintenance needs. In these cases, being able to look back at your variables over previous weeks and months could be essential. In that case, you’d go Maker or Maker Plus, so you can build dashboards with detailed histories of your measurements.

    It’s very possible that you don’t even know how much historical data will be useful to your project at first. You start on the free tier, decide that it’d be useful to have legacy information, and go up through the Entry plan and eventually settle on Maker. The project leads the way, until it’s delivering everything you need.

    Historical data in your Arduino Cloud

    Putting Historical Data to Use in Arduino Cloud

    Arduino Cloud is really clever when it comes to the data generated by sensors and used as variables. For example, you can specify how often new data is sent to your Arduino Cloud.

    Let’s say you’re monitoring Wi-Fi signal strength at the bottom of the garden, where a project (weather station, let’s say) is installed. If this is a solar and/or battery powered device, power consumption becomes essential. By changing the data sampling interval from updating a variable on Arduino Cloud every second to updating once a minute, you can extend battery life by a huge amount. The device is only operating a fraction of the time it was before, and the information is just as useful.

    Combined with 15 days or three months of historical data, you can build a detailed picture of Wi-Fi performance that lets you keep everything running perfectly. Or, if you need to find out when and why your signal has been dropping, the story is right there in your Arduino Cloud dashboard.

    Choosing the Right Arduino Cloud Plan

    So for all these reasons, you can see why different amounts of data retention are available in the Arduino Cloud plans. It’s not that all projects benefit from as much retention as possible. As we discussed, even some complex, elaborate projects barely need any. Others, which might be simple signal strength monitoring or rainfall measurement, need to know what was happening months ago.

    You have the choice, because the different Arduino Cloud plans offer different historical data options for different needs. If in doubt for what your project needs to work as intended, start on the free plan and work up from there.

    Choose Arduino Cloud Plan

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