Online Sensor plugin

[Professor Falken]

Any idea why a speedtest through the plugin would give a vastly faster download speed that one run in a browser (Chrome) window? I noticed a few days go that my 4x/day download speeds had literally crept off the IndigoPlotD chart. Finding that a bit hard to believe I just now ran a speedtest in Chrome and got 52 mps (which is actually a bit slow for us historically) but when I triggered one in the plugin, I get 264 mps (!). The upload speeds match well.

I obviously don't think Comcast is suddenly giving me extra bandwidth.

I was running 1 release back of the plugin. Just upgraded and getting the same results.

Any thoughts?

[Professor Falken]

Well, duh, I think I figured out part of this. I was testing the plugin speedtest vs a browser one run on wifi connected laptop. When I ran it instead from a browser on the Indigo mac mini, it jumped up more to the 150 range (vs around 270 mps reported by the plugin). But the results page said that for speeds >100mps you are supposed to use their desktop app instead of a browser for greater accuracy. I didn't do that, but maybe a browser test alone (even when run on a ethernet connected machine) may introduce measured slowing.

Still don't understand why I'd suddenly be getting much more bandwidth though.

[kmarkley]

Sorry I've been awol.

This is one of my favorite plugins.

Thanks! It means a lot that folks find this useful.

Still don't understand why I'd suddenly be getting much more bandwidth though.

I'm afraid I don't have an explanation for this. The plugin utilizes code from speedtest-cli, which I haven't dug into nor fully understand. The plugin just invokes the speedtest and reports the results.

[Colorado4Wheeler]

The more I use the plugin the more useful I find it. I have incorporated it into my presence detection by pinging my watches, phones and tablets and making smart decisions based on the state of those. Not perfect because those devices drop and raise their network so often.

I have a feature request along these lines that I think would be useful - but something I'm easily able to tend to via triggers and actions so it's not critical. It would be nice to have a checkbox to enable an option that says "if this sensor goes off then change the ping frequency to X". For instance, my watch drops and then I ping every 10 seconds instead of 60 until it comes up again. Like I said, easy to do with a clever use of a trigger + a schedule to refresh status, but if it were built in that would be pretty cool.

Another approach (or an additional one) could be to have an action that lets you change the frequency so a trigger could change the frequency and another set it back again - a more cumbersome method but could still be useful.

Again, thanks for a really excellent example of a "simple" plugin that is invaluable.

[kmarkley]

That should be possible and seems useful for more than just local devices. Probably won't get to it for a few days, at least.

FWIW, the local ping device was a bit of an afterthought as the main thrust of the plugin is about internet connectivity (as the name implies). Fingscan is an excellent alternative for local network detection. I had literally 2 local devices I wanted to ping and running another plugin seemed like overkill. But if you have a bunch of them, fingscan is fast and has less overhead. (Because fing is well optimized and runs on a single thread. My plugin will start a new thread for every device.)

[Colorado4Wheeler]

I'm a multi-tool kind of guy, if one plugin does two things then it's better for my needs generally. I've thought about Fing a number of times but didn't realize how much I was relying on local pings until I got yours for online status. I'll take another look at it, but I don't want to add a device for each IP because I quite literally run 150+ IP's in my house alone.

[howartp]

How many??!

I’ve about 30, maybe 40, and I’m an IT manager!


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[Colorado4Wheeler]

Indeed, yes, I have that many. I own 5 tech companies and have quite a network in the house. It's not too difficult when you consider that besides the normal stuff (watches, phones, tablets, computers) there are 16 cameras, televisions, streaming devices, cloud devices (Nest, many Echo's, HomePods, etc), virtual computers that run on my Mac Pro's, switches, etc. I have close to 20 virtual computers - not all running at once, but they use an address, so I am using close to 100 devices right there in the blink of an eye without really going into detail.

The reason I know this is because I only allocate about 50 addresses for DHCP non-static devices, everything else is static DHCP and I keep having to shrink the DHCP pool to accommodate more devices .

[durosity]

About 80 in mine.

5 companies? Ouch.. I found running just one horribly stressful! That said I was only 20 at the time..

[Colorado4Wheeler]

Just Apple products alone:

• Apple Watch x 3
• Mac Mini x 4
• Mac Pro x 3
• iPad x 5
• iPhone x 4
• HomePod x 4
• Apple TV x 5
• MacBook Pro x 3

And a partridge in a pear tree .

[Colorado4Wheeler]

About 80 in mine.

5 companies? Ouch.. I found running just one horribly stressful! That said I was only 20 at the time..

I'm in the process of selling two, I want to venture into a different area of tech manufacturing now.

[durosity]

I’ll give you five dollah!

Manufacturing.. you’re a glutten for punishment aren’t you?

What’s the new plan.. manufacturing boxes for the new Indigo Pi?

[howartp]

Just Apple products alone:

And a partridge in a pear tree .

Is that a current Apple product?


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[Colorado4Wheeler]

Is that a current Apple product?

Ok, so technically it's the "iPartridgeInAPearTree" version 3.5

What’s the new plan.. manufacturing boxes for the new Indigo Pi?

Actually it's going to be a specialized line of Z-wave home automation devices.

[durosity]

Interesting. Good luck. Don’t let it distract you from your most important job.. free indigo plugins.


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