The Hydrosys4 SW is by definition ready for internet connectivity, in fact it is based on a web user interface which can be reached by a webbrowser. The web interface is also responsive so it can adapt to PC screen and smartphone tiny displays.
Once the system is connected to the Home wifi network or LAN, it is immediately reachable, but what about connecting to the system when outside home?
First of all you have to enable the forwarding on your home router, there are tons of examples on google on how to configure it, so I'll not dig on this point.
Assuming your router is correclty configured, things are not done yet, now when you are out from home you will require to know your home IP address but you do not know it. Yes right, in most of the cases you do not know it.
Well 99.99% of the systems that can be domotics, IP cameras, and whatever network connected device do not use direct connection between the user and the device but the following connection path:
The end user (you) connect to a server which is normally run by the same company of the device, this server maintains the user credentials, passwords, and the address of the device. From security and privacy point of view this should be a little concerning but not many people knows this issues.
But the internet protocol was definitely meant to connect everybody with everybody directly (or better everything with everything), so there clearly is the possibility for an user to connect directly to a device without passing through a Server, anyway due to unfortunate circumstances the number of IP addresses IPv4 have been all used already some years ago and now the IP service providers use some NAT dynamic addressing to manage this shortage as consequence your home connection does not have a fix (static) IP address anymore.
It is like if your Home address (I mean the real address: street name, number, post code) is changes time to time and the postman cannot deliver any message to you unless he knows when and how the address has been changed.
To manage the issue the service providers can offer you a static IP address or a DDNS service, and clearly you have to pay an extra for it ...
So to recap, service providers get extra Money, company of the devices can get your data, profile you and even sell you data, the end user have just to pay.
The good news is that the workarounds to this situation exist, the hydrosys4 SW do not use external servers and can act as a DDNS without making you paying a cent. The funny part is that this is a very easy implementation.
If the email is setup, hydrosys4 will send you an email at startup providing its IP address so you can reach the system directly. Around every 15 minutes the system check for its IP address and if it detects that the address has been changes it sends to you an email with the updated address so that it is always reachable. (it has to be notes that the IP address do not change very frequently so the 15 minutes update is more than enough).
As you can see, this is Easy and Convenient :).
Below an example of email sent by the system, where you can see the link for the remote access:
Hello,
to access the system from outside your local network it is required that your router is set to route the packets to the local IP address and port of your hydrosys4 system.
If you have already done it, then another problem might be the ISP (Internet service provider) blocking some ports.
I suggest you to check this post:
https://hydrosys4.wixsite.com/hydrosys4forum/forum/general-discussions/remote-access-issue
hello Angello, great project you have developed. I am having some issues connecting with the link to remote connection. I get the email with correct data, but when i click the remote connection it try to connect, but the server is not found. Can you help me please.
For sure in the setting there should be the address of the system (in this case 192.168.1.172) and the port. Then each router has different setting, if you have a manual better to have a look at it.
Hi Angelo,
Question, how can I connect to the address 192.168.1.172:5172 when I am not at home?
I have tried to set up a port fowarding but I am not sure how to do it.. any help? It's a TIM modem.. Thank you!
Yes, this is not an issue of the software but an IP address configuration issue. By default each of the systems will try to get two IP addresses from the router. One IP address is given from DHCP and one is a fixed address that is 192.168.1.172 this will create conflicts if there is more than one system in the same network. The good news is that you can configure one of the system to get a different fix address let's say 192.168.1.162 by going to network page push the advanced button and setting it! No need to provide fixed rules on the router side. Hope this was clear, I recognize there is no documentation about this case of multiple systems in one network
Hi, In the latest releases I have modified the watering schema page which might result in a little slower page loading of this specific page. Regarding slow loading in general there are several factors influencing it, here I list the main: 1) weak WiFi signal or increased WiFi interference, mostly when RPI is not so close to router. 2) web-browser caching, first time you read a page is normally slower. 3) RPI type (RPI zero is quite slower than RPI 3) When using direct connection normally you have better WiFi connection and this result in faster page loading. In case you have more than one system in your network, this may also influence performances, but I suppose this is not the case.
Hi, since I upgraded to version 1.05a after I setup to connect via home wifi response time gets extremely slow, 10-20 sec to load any page. Tried with 2 routers, same. When I connect to the raspberry pi directly after reboot, or making forget the home wifi SSID, it works normally. Older firmware works well with home wifi. Any ideas to check?
Same with 1.05d as well.
Ok sir. I tried it all but no results. I think ports are blocked by provider. Any comments regarding remote.it like services?
Hi, The port forwarding is required so that when your router receives a packet with a certain port, then it knows at which device IP address it has to route the packet. For the standard setting you router should forward any incoming packets with the port 5172 to the address 192.168.1.172 port 5172.
Of course the router should have the sub-net 192.168.1.xxx, please ensure that the system is connected to the router by going to the menu-> Network page and check if there is a green dot beside your home network (see snapshot below). Every time the system is switched ON, it does not directly connect to your home network but it waits for 3 minutes before connecting.
Below I put my router configuration, in case it might help:
Another problem might be due to the service provider that block some specific range of ports.
Sir thanks for focusing on each and every things.. I am having issue with port forwarding. Is there any option to get internet connectivity from router itself.. Can we use services like remote.it.if yes please suggest me how? Or any other option than port forwarding. Hoping for valuable reply.. Thanks in advance.