December 02, 2023

1.4 beta 2 is now out with support for ESP32 S3 mini and a change to async webserver that will improve the responsiveness of the web ui.

I've also added a new experimental way to send a json document over a BLE transmission, the ambition is to improve the batterylife even more. But more testing is needed, the downside is that a custom receiver software will be needed.

October 02, 2023

It has been a while since I did any updates but there has not been any good ideas for new features popping up. I've spent some time to make the code easier to manage and test over the summer and there are two new features that are added.

• Option to set wifi settings from the Web UI, this is a basic feature and does not include scanning of available AP.
• Migration from iSpindle configuration so that formula and gyro calibration can be moved over. The goal is to ensure that the switch would be as easy as possible. So this first step that I need help to validate.

March 21, 2023

Finally the v1.3.0 is released. No changes from the beta 3 only the version it reports.

March 1, 2023

Third beta and final beta for the v1.3-b3 is published with the following updates:

• Refactored double reset in order to enter WIFI config mode to work better on ESP32 boards
• Fixed WIFI connection delay when creating access point for wifi config on ESP32c3 and s2
• Wrong pin config for the newer esp32 c3 boards (v2+)
• Reverted to older stable arduino version

February 12, 2023

The first beta for the v1.3-beta1 release has been published with the following changes:

• Battery saving; When the battery drops below 20% the device will automatically change the sleep interval to 1 hour in order to extend the battery life.
• Battery level, Tilt/Angle, Gravity(Plato) and Temperature has got more decimals for increased accuracy
• Added battery level (in percentage) as new option for format templates
• Updated arduino and dependant libraries to latest versions
• Updated hardware documentation with voltage measurement for Floaty
• Updated documentation for service integration with home assistant and updated format templates

February 4, 2023

A user reported a bug that caused the last part of a format template to be omitted. This has now been fixed in the v1.2.1 release with some minor updates to the documentation pages. Once I have some more long term testing done, I will push this as the default option in brewflasher.

December 7, 2022

Finally time to release v1.2 with support for several ESP32 mini boards as described in the previous post. The battery life from my tests are really good. These are some realistic scenarios based on my long term battery tests. The runtime is very much connected to the run-time (how long the device is awake):

• ESP32 wifi, 12000 reads -> 5 min interval = 43 days
• ESP8266 wiif, 26000 reads -> 5 min interval = 90 days
• ESP32 ble, 56000 reads -> 5 min interval = 196 days

There are not that many new features compared to the previous version, since I have not had any more ideas on what features to add. I have focused on supporting new hardware options and adding automated tests to simplify the release cycle. Since there are many board options, I dont really have time to test all boards. Focused is on ESP8266 mini and ESP32c3 mini.

November 19, 2022

Time to release the next beta version v1.2.0-beta2. This version now supports the Floaty hardware using the ESP32 lite. There are not many new features in this release. It has mainly been focuses on supporting more boards.

ESP32 options

4 different ESP32 boards are now supported, ESP32 c3, ESP32 s2, ESP32 d1 and ESP32 lite.

Floaty Hardware

This is a clone of the iSpindel which is really simple. Just an ESP32 lite and Gyro. It lacks for instance a way to measure battery voltage but most other features work.

Serial debug via TX/RX pins

To enable debugging when running on battery power, I've added an option to have the serial console on the TX/RX pins. Just connect a USB to TTL converter with TX, RX and GND. You need to compile the source to have this option enabled.

Calculate voltage factor

A new feature makes it easy to calculate the voltage factor, just measure the voltage over the battery and input that value.

November 6, 2022

I managed to launch the first version of a home page for gravitymon, my iSpindle replacement software. The software has almost 500 downloads and 33 stars on Github which I think is fantastic and gives me energy to continue and develop my beer related projects. Over the last few months I have spent most of my time on other projects but now that the esp32/arduino platform is more stable it opens up for more features. These are a few of the things I will probably add going forward:

OTA support via www.gravitymon.com

To simplify upgrades, I plan to add an option to check for newer versions and download updates direct from gravitymon.com (OTA)

Support for the Floaty variant

There are a few iSpindle spinoffs where Floaty is one of these that I'm considering adding support for. I have all of the needed features installed so it should not be a huge effort.

SSL Certs & Validation

With more RAM on the ESP32 it's easier to add real SSL validation and the possibility to upload custom certificates without the need to recompile the software.