FloBLE Plus continuous operation

Tagged: Flomio SDK, Sleep mode, USB power

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)

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February 26, 2017 at 8:07 pm #58861

Malik
Participant

Hi Richard,

Hope you’re doing well. I’ve noticed a strange behaviour with the NFC devices in terms of sleep timeout and I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on the matter.
Since updating the SDK to V2.2, the readers have been working great in terms of sleep timeout. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that the readers have started to go on sleep timeout again but I am unable to define a time period. Sometimes it can take 2, 3 or even up to 4 days while sometimes it’s just a matter of a few hours.
Is the sleep timeout disabled altogether in SDK v2.2, or is it set to a huge number?
Since you have the device ID’s stored in your server, do you have enough information to establish a pattern?

Kindly let me know if you need more information on the matter and as always, thanks for your help.

Cheers

February 27, 2017 at 2:55 pm #58875

Richard
Keymaster

Hi Malik, the sleep timeout is disabled in SDK v2.2 by default and should not be exhibiting the behavior you’re describing. How are you setting up the readers?? Are they plugged into power and if so what charger adapter are you using? Normal USB wall adapters output 500mA but you will need something that puts out 4 times that to prevent the reader from ultimately running out of battery and resetting (at which point the sleep timer will be enabled).

This is a tough issue to resolve because the app may not detect that the reader has gone offline. Try using a 2A power adapter and see if the symptoms improve. We’ll start doing some experiments on our side as well. We had this happen with the FloJack MSR’s in the field and reported on it in this blog post.

Best,
Richard

February 27, 2017 at 7:45 pm #58877

Malik
Participant

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the prompt response. It is plugged into a wall adapter. I’m not sure about the output yet, but I’ll find out as it could, quite possibly, be the reason. If so, then as you mentioned, the device resets and enables the sleep timer. In that case, how do I roll it back, do I flash the firmware again or is there another procedure?

February 28, 2017 at 7:20 pm #58890

Richard
Keymaster

Hi Malik, the sleep timer is reset by the Flomio SDK upon initialization. You can use the start/stop/sleep methods from the SDK to manage the reader sleep state. More details in our documentation here (in progress).

Let me know if run into issues.

best,
Richard

March 31, 2017 at 7:37 am #59109

Tyson
Participant

Hey guys,

While we can ensure our test devices here in the office are plugged into 2A USB ports, it’s very hard to enforce this constraint on our clients.

Are you sure the continuous operation power requirements of this device is greater than the 2.5W that USB provides? That seems excessive, even for running the NFC and bluetooth.

Is there no way to modulate the NFC field during periods of low activity (ie. it will increase delays on the first scan, but then go back to high power mode for the next hour or so).

Do you have any other device recommendations if there is nothing that can be done about the BLE? We really need a continuous scanning NFC device for our application.

Cheers.
Tyson.

April 4, 2017 at 2:27 am #59166

Tyson
Participant

bump?

April 4, 2017 at 1:56 pm #59191

Richard
Keymaster

Hey Tyson, sorry for delay. We ran through a detailed study of the FloBLE Plus (ACR1255U-J1) and it seems the issues related to continuous operation of the reader are not related to power. Whether you’re using a USB port on a PC (500mA) or a high power wall charger, the reader has more than enough current to stay full charged and operate indefinitely.

So now we need to figure out what is causing the connection drop out and potentially fix the issue in firmware/software. Can you provide details on how we can reproduce the issue in our lab in order to troubleshoot?

best,
Richard

April 5, 2017 at 12:42 am #59206

Tyson
Participant

Thanks Richard, I will get Malik to investigate producing a repro sample.

It’s going to be a nasty one though – here in the office it usually only happens overnight, after being on for many hours. And it is very intermittent, occurring probably once every 3 days (across 2 test devices we have running all the time in the office).

As a start, can we have the most up to date firmware and SDK versions? Or at least the same versions you ran your studies on mentioned above, so we are all working against the same assumptions.

Cheers.
Tyson.

April 5, 2017 at 8:37 am #59207

Richard
Keymaster

Hi Tyson, our tests were all conducted with the latest Flomio SDK release v2.2 available for download from here. The latest firmware version is v1.16.03, which is what your units shipped with.

What are the elements of your setup? What host devices are you using? What is there OS version and HW version? Which app are you using? Are there many BLE devices in the range of your testing or deploy environments?

Based on your answers we’ll setup a test rig in our lab and run some long term tests to troubleshoot the issue.

best,
Richard

April 5, 2017 at 8:52 am #59208

Tyson
Participant

Just an iPad and FloBLE. Each at separate ends of our office. No other devices nearby, apart from maybe wifi APs (about 10m away). And maybe other people’s phones (even then both setups at least 5m from anyone’s desk).

I’ll get Malik to provide details of iPad HW and OS versions tomorrow.

April 10, 2017 at 2:04 am #59247

Malik
Participant

Hi Richard,
We are using an iPad mini running iOS 9.3.5 and an iPad Air 2 running iOS 10.2.1 (about to be updated to 10.3.1).
Let me know if there is any other information that you require.

April 19, 2017 at 8:57 am #59479

Richard
Keymaster

Hey Malik and Tyson, we completed a full continuous operation assessment of the FloBLE Plus/ACR1255U-J1 and published it on our blog here. The TL;DR is that the FloBLE Plus is performing as expected, with plenty of power available from any USB port whether form a wall charger or PC.

Are you still experiencing the disconnects? At this point the only thing that it can be is Bluetooth interference or the app being interrupted somehow. Are you able to reproduce the issue with the Flomio Test app??

best,
Richard

April 25, 2017 at 9:52 pm #59614

Malik
Participant

Hi Richard,
Thanks for your help. I’ll see if I can reproduce the issue with the Test App and get back to you.

April 26, 2017 at 1:48 am #59617

Malik
Participant

Hi Richard,
I have found an issue which happens on the test app as well. If you were to turn on your reader, then open the test app and connect to the reader, sometimes it won’t connect. At times when it does connect, try closing the app (while the reader is still on), then restart the app and try connecting to the reader and it won’t connect. It seems like with the current configuration, the app needs to be in “lookout” mode before turning on the device. Can you look into that please?
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