Wifi - logging brief connection

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

A battery powered gadget, wakes up every 15 minutes, logs into my router just long enough to send a batch of data to a website and then goes back to sleep. The gadget in operation, is inaccessible, but flashes an LED on the gadget when it transmits. Waiting 15 minutes for a flash of a few milliseconds isn't an easy solution anyway.

My router, which it connects to, only shows it in its list of attached devices if I happen to log into my router at just the right instant. To add to the problem of confirming it is working, the website is sometimes just not available.

Is there any way I can confirm the gadget is actually working and sending the data batches?

[spuorgelgoog]

Can you attach a latching circuit to the LED to provide a hold on for about 10 mins?

The hold-on circuit and its LED could be separately powered and connected to the gadget electrically or optically, over a twin cable to a visible/accessible place.

That woudln't confirm transmittal of data, but would at least confirm wake-ups.

Owain

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

[e-mail] used his keyboard to write :

No, the battery would not have the capacity to support it.

The gadget is inside a sealed container. It is actually an electronic hydrometer for my homebrew.

[Andy Burns]

It's not that simple to "sniff" wifi traffic, you're looking at e.g. linux with a wifi dongle in monitor mode, unless you can "rig" an extra access point to force the device through ethernet and sniff it there on a switch with mirror port, in short if you knew how to force it to do any of those you wouldn't be asking here ...

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Andy Burns has brought this to us :

Yes, I thought it might not be that easy, just asking if I might be missing a simple way to more quickly confirm it was running.

[Paul]

My router has an entry called "Syslog server" and I have it pointed to a non-existent (at the moment) IP address.

192.168.5.100

Whatever the router is doing, gets logged there.

Then what you need, is a syslog thingy on the receiving end. I don't remember what I used for that.

Paul

[Andy Burns]

Mikrotik and Solarwinds make free syslog servers.

[Dave Liquorice]

IPTraf and filter on the gadgets IP address, needs to be run on a linux machine that is seeing traffic from that IP adress though.

Wireshark on a machine connected into an ethernet tap somewhere between the WiFi AP and the router to the ineternet. Might be tricky if the AP is part of the the router.

[Joshua Snow]

"Harry Bloomfield"; "Esq." wrote in message news:revmj6$vb6$ [e-mail]...

Many routers will show data volume stats by ip so you can see what it succeeds in doing.

[John Rumm]

As do Draytek:

[John Rumm]

Wireshark will do it, although it takes bit more work to get it setup to sniff wifi.

[The Natural Philosopher]

see if you can turn on logging on the router and record the event there.

[Andy Burns]

I suspect close to zero 'home' routers support that level of logging, here (running openwrt firmware) I can just use tcpdump ...

[Brian Gaff]

Is there no log of events in the router somewhere? It was how I saw some attempts to log in to mine from one supposes somebody parked outside. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Sounds like a bit of dodgy design then. I mean I suppose you would need some kind of receiver for its frequency, but all you would be able to deduce as that it was doing something. Cannot the web site use diagnostics to tell you if its being received? Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

most support basic logging. It may not need more than that.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Andy Burns brought next idea :

Your are correct, it doesn't support it.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Gaff laid this down on his screen :

It's a free data logging site (Ubidots). Repeated requests to view data simply lock you out until the end of the period, as happened to me yesterday...

I was busy setting a wine batch up, put in the electronic hydrometer, then needed some confirmation that it was working, before sealing the ferment vessel lid in place. So I was repeatedly refreshing the web site and locked myself out, until the end of the period. It accepts and stores the data on the site, you just cannot view it until the new period begins.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

The gadget connects to my downstairs WNDR3400v2 router, which is just an extra access point for wireless and wired. That connects to my main router in the loft, which is an ex-BT running OPENwrt firmware and making the connection to the LAN. Its log is much more comprehensive, but I have yet to see any indication of the gadget's connection being logged..

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

It is obviously working now, here is the graph it produces...