Essentially I am trying to use a Facet as an asset tracker (on a ship) when connected to WiFi, so that it pumps out a NMEA position over the ethernet (via TCP-IP) to a dedicated site/IP (on the internet).
The response on the ticket is that this should be available by the existing TCP Server/Client options, however I cannot get the latter to work. When configured as a ‘client’ I see no activity on the network. Doing a search for ‘Sparkfun TCP Client’ it comes up with the how to on the Vespucci app.
I installed this and configured it as ‘NMEA from TCP Client’ but get a connection refused error. I checked the Facet IP address by connecting to serial and also checked that TCP Client was enabled (by looking at the logged config file).
Has anyone managed to ‘send’ a NMEA message over TCP to an external site? I can connect to it fine when configured as TCP-Server, but that doesn’t help me in sending this out to a remote site.
IIRC, the TCP Client only works when connected to a WiFi hotspot. The phone running Vespucci needs to also act as a WiFi hotspot, the RTK connects to it and will then use TCP to push NMEA to the gateway (usually 192.168.0.1) only.
Just FYI, we have a new Reference Station product coming out around the end of the month. It has Ethernet built-in and supports TCP to an external host / server. It should meet your needs nicely.
It is connected to my WiFi with a DHCP address (so not in AP mode), though my subnet is 192.168.68.#. I forgot to mention in the above that there is no network activity whatsoever (in TCP Client mode) when checking with Wireshark, and only see something if I ping it manually…
Just re-read your message (post coffee). Ok, will do it direct with the phone WiFi hotspot and report back. Look forward to the new product, hope it is POE as that would solve a lot of issues too…
The only ‘trick’ I found with Vespucci, is that I had to press the dashed circle icon at the left of the main screen to get the updated TCP settings to kick in. Once I did that, I was able to use the Client mode successfully (with the phone configured as a WiFi HotSpot and with the RTK connected to it).
The Reference Station does indeed support PoE. Watch this space…!
Sorry that I am double posting on both! I tried this morning with my WiFi hotspot on my Google Pixel 7 Pro. Again, when trying to connect using ‘NMEA from TCP client’ when Facet is configured as TCP Client I got a connection refused error.
I tried again with Facet configured as TCP Server and I seem to connect (well I get no errors) using ‘NMEA from TCP server’. That said, when I moved around out on the lawn the position didn’t move. I don’t seem to have the dashed circle icon on Android that you are seeing.
I’m out today, but will try and dedicate some more time to this later in the week.
Good news on the POE. If it is in a housing that I can use offshore then that would be the icing on the cake!
Just checked out the RTK Reference Station, read the hookup guide, and looked at latest firmware v3.6 (on a Facet). Unless I am mistaken, this is still just using the existing TCP Client functionality and no changes have been made in the firmware?
The Reference Station has a new feature where it can connect to an external Server - via Ethernet, and can forward NMEA, UBX and RTCM via the TCP socket. The details are hidden in the Ethernet Menu documentation:
It wasn’t possible to have the Ref Stn act as a TCP Server for external Ethernet clients, due to a limitation in the Ethernet library. TDLR: the library does not support Server and Client simultaneously. We need a client connection to the NTRIP server and so can’t act as a TCP Server at the same time…
Let me know if you need anything else, or if I need to make the documentation easier to find.
Sorry for the delayed reply. This is great and yes, should work perfectly. I’m still trying to get my head around the TCP client option for the Facets and only being able to connect to a WiFi hotspot! Would be great if they too had ‘normal’ TCP Client functionality.