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Looking for an SMS gizmo. 7

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itsmoked

itsmoked

Electrical
Feb 18, 2005
19,114
Hi all,

I'm looking for a handful of small battery powered devices that when a contact is closed or a button is pushed, submits a couple of text messages to a some mail server via WiFi so several people receive them on their phones.

I'd need to be able to MAC them thru the filter white-list of a local wireless router to get them onto the web, and point them onto a mail server for submitting, and pile-in the 4 or so send-to addresses.

Looking for any of these you folks know of and what the heck these might be called so I can search effectively for them.





I can hear the Arduino hacks cracking their knuckles already.





Keith Cress
kcress -
 
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Right you hear, Smoked!

AOT but somewhat related:
I have one of these. Nothing spectacular about it. But for a lazy person that needs to experiment with different combinations of code chunks and hardware for measurement, communication, control or whatever - it is a handy little board. Order it with some extra radio devices and "Be Ready!"

Once you have a working solution, either use it as-is or roll your own board. I have already wowed one customer in the shortest time.

Gunnar Englund
--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.
 
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Why does the devide need to send the message. To my mind, it would suffice that it sends "something" and the mail server generates the message.

Benta.
 
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Thanks Gunnar. My browser hangs every time I try to move about that site. I need to reboot before I try again. Of course I have two development systems running hooked to other hardware and don't want to yet. LOL

Hi benta, I don't quite follow you. The mail server is going to be one owned by Yahoo, or Google, or ?? I won't have any way to get it to produce a message.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
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The "SMS gizmo" title is a bit of a red herring. It's not directly anything to do with SMS.

If it's "via WiFi", then it seems you'd need a CPU with Wifi.

The rest is 'just' (LOL!!) software.

It'll need quite a bit of software, I wonder if it'd need to something further up the food chain than an Arduino. Then your battery gets bigger.

To make the battery last, you might need either a circuit to power up the device (assuming low duty cycle), or a CPU with a deep sleep wake-up input.

I'll try searching with wifi and active tags, or similar. In case somebody has already invented a button cell powered thingy.



 
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Here's a slightly different architecture. The tags are trivial and wireless. The networking is separated, and powered from AC. It seems to be a more practical approach than trying to embed the wifi in the tiny battery powered gizmo.


edit: search terms = wifi tag contact input
 
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Quite a few hits coming up under the search term: IoT

Internet of Things

edit: Problem is, the 'things' are complicated and they do not run for weeks on a small battery.

Being 'connected' and a small battery is the tricky requirement.

 
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The "SMS gizmo" title is a bit of a red herring.
Click to expand...

What? I need it to generate a text message (SMS). Well that or an email message to addresses that get converted to text messages forwarded to phones.

Thanks for the links! And suggested search terms. Those are some interesting products too.

This gizmo does not need to be "connected". It should last years on a set of batteries because they're one-way and need only be powered when they need to send their message. In other words, they can be completely OFF until needed where the act of pushing the button or closing the contact boots the thing, it attaches to the local wifi, and then sends a couple of messages and can turn back OFF when done.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
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Is this not it? Just misdirected.
URL]


ice_screenshot_20160822-204656_pqq901.png


Here's the description:

AMAZON said:
[Amazon Dash Button is a Wi-Fi connected device that reorders your favorite product with the press of a button. Each Dash Button is paired with a product of your choice, which is selected through the Amazon App on your Android or iOS smartphone during the set-up process.]
Click to expand...

Maybe I should get one and dissect it.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
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edited: I misread that. It is wifi of course.

--

"SMS gizmos" exist, but they're connected via the cell phone network. Implies a monthly fee, and batteries lasting days or maybe a week.

 
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If you're programming it yourself, then perhaps it should connect to the wifi periodically for a status check. As you know, wifi can be unreliable. Problem is, if it fails to connect, then it can't itself report the failure due to the lack of connection. You might need a monitoring server to babysit the system.

It should also report its battery status. But too much self monitoring would consume battery. Trade off.

Hopefully this isn't for a safety critical system. Wifi might not be the optimum wireless link for critical systems.
 
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The ultimate solution for "Safe Sexting"?
Fore-play. What you do until the Amazon delivery arrives.?
Sorry. The Devil made me do it! grin

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
 
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Along those lines that mcgyvr suggested, there's which does not have a separate processor from the ESP8266, and it costs $6.95, which is a bit more than that the purpose-built Amazon Dashes. The ESP8266 datasheet says it has a 32-bit micro internally, although it's oddly silent about the amount of RAM/ROM

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529
 
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Take a look at a SCADAPack 50 for a pre-made option, if for no other reason that to see how they do it.

You can also use Google to look for "low power scada sms" and get a ton of hits, some are overkill, but it gives you a cross section of what's out there.


"You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you had to overcome to reach your goals" -- Booker T. Washington
 
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