i always go this route... cloud based stuff is useless... i create a dynamic webpage with javascript that is served from the ESP... any device on my network can connect to it...not screwing around with specialised libraries or smartphone apps
I have been learning how to do this the last day or so. My goal is to publish/broadcast (via Wifi, not BT) sensor data from a smartphone (no ESP involved) to any interested device on my home network. Probably using HTTP. I have both Android phones and iPhones to play with. Any advice?
Thanks for making the video. Exploring new technologies is always daunting. If one doesn't have the comfort of somebody nearby who's already done it, then a video like this is the next best thing.
Wow! Great tip and tutorial, Andreas! This will really speed up development of different ideas, because of how easy it becomes, to "play around" with sensors to figure out how the behave (and test them if you think they're broken), and also a handy way to create a remote control for (almost) anything in your smartphone! I will definitely check it. Keep up the great tutorials, you're an inspiration!
One of Blynk authors - Volodymyr Shymanskiy - suffered from russian war. His house was destroyed by russians in Irpin. Using Blynk you also help him to repair his house.
Perfect! I can't say how often I've contemplated an iPhone interface to my esp world. This afternoon.... finally a garage opener remote on my phone! Tomorrow.... everything!
I have always wanted to make "apps" on my smartphone for arduino projects but never have fallen through with it. Thanks so much for your helpful vids andreas!
I love ESP32 RemoteXY projects. One project was to make a remote loadcell calibration test meter located in a hazard room. Then display the 0 to 25,000lbs readings on a smart-phone at the operator station to compare the HMI touch-screen readings for accuracy. Omega DPS20-HV-RTU 6 digit panel meter with Modbus RTU output was used. The esp32 read the Modbus values and transmitted the Bluetooth results to the free RemoteXY smart-phone app. It worked very well. The project price was much cheaper than other professional wireless systems. After working it seemed simple with a learning curve. 😎 Thank you so much for this very interesting video. I am still learning.
I will share what I'm using in my homelab for iot: - zigbee2mqtt - mosquitto - grafana - prometheus - wireguard - custom go app (event handler) - telegram bot (push notifications) all running as containers, everything together with OS (Ubuntu) consumes around 500MB RAM and runs on headless and fanless low powered small pc. Thanks for your videos you're doing great job.
a long while ago, before the esp8266 days i used a hc05 bluetooth serial module on the arduino site and a android app made in app inventor (its free and doesnt have limits like remotexy), its a like lego building blocks, visual programming, no code needed and can be debugged in realtime on the phone. worked quite well.
I heard of app inventor a few years ago. But recently no more. Is it still up-to-date? I liked that the BLE stuff on the ESP32 is properly handled by this app because I found it not easy to program.
its still working, my old projects (2015) are even still there and seem to work. just logged in, they seem to have added quite a bit more blocks by now. not sure if it can do BLE, ive used normal bluetooth serial for this. but only the sending part, havent tried the receiving end. but Appinventor fails at very complex things, like i tried to build an app that loads an image, scales it down and converts its pixels to bytes and sends it over bluetooth to a esp32 that saves it on a sdcard to display later. couldnt figure out how to do this with the available blocks.
At this point, I'd like to mention that Android has an Arduino IDE with which you can flash your ESPs and arduinos over USB. Serial monitor works as well.
An Excellent presentation, as always! I am using a very similar product called GUI-O, which appears at first glance to work in a similar way. My project involves collecting data from ground-based magnetometers and GNSS devices to capture Ionospheric disturbances and shifts in total electron content (TEC) due to solar emissions. Using this product allows me to configure and collect data from my instruments either locally or using MQTT communications relayed by a simple broker running on my own Virtual Private Server (VPS - Akamai/Linode) running in the cloud. The pricing model is slightly different but modest. It requires very little in the way of development/startup cost. This approach allows me to expand the user base at little more than $10/user (paid by the user) and allows almost unlimited expansion.
You have a cool project! I hardly understand what your project does. But it seems to be a perfect fit for a local project where you want to influence the ESP with a Smartphone. I will have a look at GUI-O. Thanks for the hint.
Waw, this is really an awesome video and what a great product/project. I immediately made an account, downloaded and will start tinkering. We truly live in an amazing era.
I have been using the MIT application inventor to add my phone to a project for a while. There are good examples out there to connect your phone to your project. I like that I can maximize my phone features into my project It also has the best price, Free. You can make some pretty cool projects with it. So far I see no limitations.
I'd use that for letting my kids get something up and running fast, to get them interested in playing with microcontrollers, but for anything else I am not sure it is better than MicroPython because of all that stitching together you have to do anyway. I guess it depends on how happy you are to build the GUI using HTML, SVG, and Javascript.
A really simple solution is to use a usb-c to usb-a adapter and you can use your phone as a serial monitor (I think android has an app, I am not sure about Apple), I have used that in the past and it worked quite amazingly although its a bit cumbersome. Its not the same as remote controlling the Arduino obviously, however it can be useful for quickly testing something outside without requiring a battery.
Thanks again, I have been mulling over such an architecture to allow embedded device (with no external comms in normal operation) to be set up on initial installation. They have done the hardwork already. Now just need time to do that project (but need to finish another project first).
This is a nice tool. I have a project where I was thinking about using the smartphone as a data logger over bluetooth. I would not need the screen, just the BLE connection and save the data into a CSV or something.
I have used RemoteXY for a couple of projects with excellent results. I use one ESP32 Dev board with onboard relays to interface with the 3 button door opener on my large farm shop door. It can also toggle the lights. The second project is to use another ESP32 with a separate relay board to interface with two 3 button door openers on another farm building. Both have external antennas for greater range. Each is setup as a Soft Access Point so internet is not needed.. The doors/lights can be controlled by my iPhone, iPad or Android tablet. Since the shed uses 6 items, I must subscribe to the Pro Version. I wish I could post pictures of the phone/tablet screens.
Caught this video today and it explained the problem I was having getting the "gauge" to indicate a reading. On another project I edited the values in the screen setup array and found by trial & error which values affected what on the phone screen. This allowed me to edit the values to get my input "buttons" aligned and spaced evenly. I tried adding a screenshot of my phone to this reply but was unsuccessful. TED@@AndreasSpiess
Have been using something similar called *Virtuino* for about 4 or 5 years, It probably needs a little more coding on the Arduino side, but the android side is extremely flexible and configurable.
@@AndreasSpiess I almost didn't want to comment because I wasn't sure if you may be sponsored by remoteXY. I seldom pay for android apps, but this one i even made a little extra payment to the author after he helped me with some bug fixes.
Recently I've tried to use HA or OpenHab for my home automation, but getting them build for my openwrt router architecture wasn't fun. So right now, I'm using tasmota (ESP endpoints) node-red, zigbee2mqtt (on the router) and MqttDashboard (android app) for a lightweight solution. It works well right now, but I'm a little worried about the dashboard app (closed source, no custom widgets) limitations for the future.
Great app and video. I've always been looking for an app that makes controlling an ESP32 as easy as demonstrated in this video. This would really improve my teaching at school since the daunting task of programming a web server is no longer necessary. The only real downside is the 5 item limit and the pricing. In public education it is always a great advantage to be able to use an app without any incentive to buy additional features, especially since the students in my case are minors. If there is a similarly easy-to-use free alternative, I would be very grateful for any recommendation...
Thank you! Interessting for mobile and portable devices without access to my Wifi/LAN. Usage e.g. for hiking, biking etc. Otherwise I have my ioBroker running as a server in my home.
Same here. BLE and Smartphones are a good combination because they extremely easily connect. For all "infrastructure based" things, I also prefer WiFi.
It is also possible to write great applications for Android and control a set of microcontrollers with the MIT app inventory. Of course, you need to have a significantly larger amount of programming knowledge and there are no restrictions on the number of elements used in the application.
An interesting and pragmatic tool. I now need to experiment with this, as seems easy and convent to get started and end up with a working project. It might be interesting to snoop at what is sent across bluetooth, or wifi, as it could be possible to have a non-supported device emulate messages of a supported device. (depending how simple/complicated the protocol) While seems geared towards simpler project needs, the subscription model is very reasonable (
Great project. I have many old cell phones with dead batteries. I can use them as thermostat for example. Is there anyway to boot the cellphone using a PS and load this app with its default settings after boot completed without users interaction?
Pretty neat. Hopefully the revenue from those subscriptions will make it possible for them to add additional support for boards. I've never been part of the Espressif ecosystem -- went straight from the ATmega328 to the RP2040. Would love the latter to be supported.
@@AndreasSpiess You're probably right, but I'm not writing off the Pi Foundation just yet. We'll see what happens when they release other versions of the RP2040.
Project suggestion 😉 A MLX90640BAB thermal camera connected to an ESP32 or similar, that sends live video to an app like WiFi Viewer on the mobile phone. And lightweight enough to be used from a 250 gram drone like DJI Mini 3 Pro. Preferably taking power from the USB-C connector on the drone if possible. Would of course not be usable to find anything from high up, but maybe could be used for roof inspections if flying really low. I have searched but not found a project like that.
I am not sure if Wi-Fi and BLE work together on a single ESP32. It has to be tried. With Wi-Fi, it should work. If you add a BLE module to the ESP32 it should work, too (as a work around)
@@AndreasSpiess I am now using RemoteXY over WiFi. I also need OTA programming ability. I don't see that feature on their website so I am wondering how to do OTA. Any idea of OTA packages that might work with RemoteXY? I have asked them the same question, but no response as yet.
@@AndreasSpiess Up to some point it is. I was hoping to get some information about how to get Arduino communications working, and eventually even with the ESP 8266 module, but without reprogramming the ESP. I am still satisfied because I learned about a new app to explore.
It is not bad, however I am not a big fan of these product types. I prefer the open-source solution/extension api where it is possible to extend the components and the devices/connection types. For a home gamer this doesn't matter much, however nobody who builds a bigger scale project will use this tool.
@@AndreasSpiess it depends, as someone who works now as android developer, hiring someone to build custom apps is equivalent to burning a hole into your pocket, mostly because these development ecosystems are unnecessary complex and slow to develop in, if I were to choose I would go with custom development only if there is no alternative.
Great video Andreas! Many thanks for posting this. I am going to try this but I wish there was a way to connect the ESP 32 to the home WIFI network by way of configurable provisioning for the app to interface out of the box instead of needing to connect to ESP 32 AP.
This is video helped a lot with my project. Since I am new to using arduino's and esp32's this was really helpful with unlocking the Bluetooth potential with my esp32. I tried using the remotexy app and it worked really easily with controlling led lights but I also included a circular bar and I can't figure out how to make it so that the bar updates its value based on RSSI readings from the phone to create a bar that can show me how far away my esp32 is. Could you help me with this? Thanks so much.
Very cool tool/app, which I'm looking at for use in a class project (or at least something in the toolbelt)! The bluetooth connection with my cheap esp32 board is quite flaky, but as I've only used these boards for wled through wifi in the past, I'm inclined to blame the board. One unfortunate thing about the lib is servo support. While the site has projects that show use of servos, the code provided isn't clear to me how to integrate. For anything non-servo, this is amazing out of the box!
I assume you have to write the integration, which seems to be simple to me. A servo only needs a number passed from the app to the servo function. I am sure you will find it out.
Hi Andreas, sorry if I go off topic. Will you do a seminar/tutorial about CO/CO2/COV/gas/PM2.5/PM10 monitoring sensors? I’m sure a lot of people are interested. Thank you very much, as usual!
Here is what I learned from fellow Reddit people. BLE 5.2 standard introduces BLE Audio as a successor for Bluetooth Classic Audio. ESP32S3 implements BLE 5.0. Hoping that some future Espressif processor will include BLE 5.2. -Frank
wow, this is great! I never commented but congratulations on your work, very good indeed! I wonder though, to make an mobile app that uses BLE but stores the information so the user can check the evolution through time, what would the best options?
this is EXCELNT!, as a novice i pounded out my first project.... i do have 1 problem, my inputs are analog (0-5v) pressures, by the esp32s3 is 0-3.3v... resistor divider? what about the limits .5v and 4.5v does that scale too?
Yes, you need a voltage divider (in: 5 volts, out 3.3volts. And you can create one that creates output voltages up to 4.5V. The ESP will not love this one ;-) I do not think it is easy to create one that starts at 0.5 because of ground reference.
i figured out the scaling (bidirectional level shifter boards.. has 4 channels of resistors ).. note, i had to use 12v supply so the regulated 5v is correct (not 4.8v using usb) can't figure out how to pass data from my iphone (accelerometer, and gps data) to the ESP32... any hints?
Hi Andreas, do you know if RemoteXY can do a one-to-many (one ESP32 to a mix of Android(s) and iPhone(s) devices). We have a long driveway and I'm setting up a motion detection system PIR sensors. I would like to notify each phones from my ESP32 app. Thanks, Jim.
Hallo Andreas, dieser Ansatz mit RemoteXY fand ich höchst interessant. Mich würde interessieren, ob es mit RemoteXY möglich ist, einen ESP8266 in das lokale WLAN einzubinden. Hast Du diese Variante auch schon mal ausprobiert? - Ansonsten vielen Dank für die vielen lehrreichen und fundierten Videos!
There is other platform that offers same capabilities but supports much more platforms - Blynk. One of it's authors is my friend, he lived in Irpin (near Bucha), and now his house is destroyed by russians. So if you decide to use Blynk, you will help him in rebuilding his destroyed home.
Interesting and educational, as always. It's probably me being thick (no change there) but how is the compass related to RemoteXY. I understand the operation of the button and temperature sensor, but surely you would just use gps test plus if you wanted a compass.
A great and inspiring video of a great tool. Thanks to this video I have found new intrest in ESP and related. I even bought the PRO version (about €15 and done) just to support the project. I've had, since I saw your video, a lot of fun testing and dreaming about possible applications. BUT Do you, or anyone for that matter, happen to know if RemoteXY is still maintained and still will exist in the future? The community is not that thriving as I had hoped.
Any chance to get some sensors connected to esp32 and be able to use android apps to read these sensors? For example Raspberry Pi 4 Android 14 has no sensors, but I need GPS and 9dof and BME680, is it possible to use remotexy to connect to other android apps? If so, how?
@@AndreasSpiess I can use C or C++, but there are no drivers for android to run sensors, I was wondering if I could create like esp32 sensor box and connected it to raspberry and provide streaming of sensor data to applications on raspberry pi
Wow, that is just *crazy* easy! (Maybe even easy enough for me) I have an ancient iPhone in a box somewhere in my Lab: I wonder if the app will run on whatever the latest version of iOS is that that old phone will support? I also have two equally-ancient Android mini-tablets, same question for them. (Android updates are so finicky though, I suspect those old tablets won’t even connect to the Play store anymore :-/) Thanks so much for this vid, it’s one of the most inspiring to date, because it seems like I can finally connect my phone to my little projects. Thanks again!
hi, android 5 latest remotexy app trying to connect with usb i get this error: "USB device not opened : usb interface detection failed '' what can i do? thank you
Hi, thanks for the interesting video. Did you have a look to Virtuino? I use it for some years now to connect Arduinos or ESPxx to the Android smartphone. It is very simple and works great, also in the free version. A minor shortcoming is that the documentation is not as great as the project itself.
Thanks for the great intro to RemoteXY. It looks like if you use WiFi that the MCU has to host it's own WiFi network that you then have to connect to with your smart phone. Is there a way for this to work if the MCU and your smart phone are both connected to your existing local WiFi network?
I have been trying to use RemoteXY in my code, as I want to control a Servo Motor and want to show any object detected in an ultrasound sensor. Please help on this matter
Great to see another video and one about something i already know!! hahah... I am trying to get RemoteXY setup so i can congifure the wifi settings on my esp32 via bluetooth.. having some issues, are you able to help with that??
@@AndreasSpiess thanks for the recommendation.. after a few day of searching it seems the esp32 doesnt like having wifi and ble on at the same time. I have found a method of using one at a time by turning the other one off first.. this kind of works but i was hoping to use a text field entry on the RemoteXY app to store the wifi credentials on the ESP32 in variables and then switch to wifi but the variables are not getting the right info for the credentials..
Sorry bro, but I needed to know if I can use the Arduino for remote access, outside the house, or if it's a lot of work and I need to make several releases in the mold, how to have a fixed IP?
i will never use this because of the payment. if the app itselve didnt have an subscription,but instat offer an one time buy i would use this... but for now i stick to the simple webserver on the esp32 that provides also an good option and works witout any app... i just use an ip or name in the browser.
Interesting video, as always, thank you. I suppose the core of the library/app combination is really pretty simple and allows you to really quickly put something together in ways that would be very difficult if you weren't already into NodeRed or, as many of us are, thanks to your long line of videos, producing acceptable JS http pages from the ESP. I think you are right that it would be great for education, as proof of principle can be built really easily with the teaching emphasis being on the code logic and not all bound up in why the UI elements don't quite work. A really good idea. A long time ago now I used the MIT AppInventor to build two Android apps to control my central heating (ESP8266) and an array of 433.92MHz wireless mains switches, also ESP 'hubbed'. That handled the http aspects for me (at the phone end) with the ESP hosting a simple endpoint and that gave me the simple UI I wanted. It must be what, 5-7 years ago now and I wonder how much the AppInventor has grown since.
@Andreas Spiess I agree completely, AppInventor doesn't have any linkage whatsoever to Arduino, the delta between them is that integration, which looks very simple in the app you demonstrated.
i always go this route... cloud based stuff is useless... i create a dynamic webpage with javascript that is served from the ESP... any device on my network can connect to it...not screwing around with specialised libraries or smartphone apps
Same but with microython, microdot and mu_template for templating.
@@liquidsonly Especially that, I've found it more stable having created similar servers in the Arduino IDE and in MicroPython.
I have been learning how to do this the last day or so. My goal is to publish/broadcast (via Wifi, not BT) sensor data from a smartphone (no ESP involved) to any interested device on my home network. Probably using HTTP. I have both Android phones and iPhones to play with. Any advice?
@@KnaufL Good tip, thank you. Reading now.
@@cernejrMQTT dash can display MQTT values on smartphone in a configurable way
Thanks for making the video.
Exploring new technologies is always daunting. If one doesn't have the comfort of somebody nearby who's already done it, then a video like this is the next best thing.
I agree ( i am often also happy to have somebody showing me something I do not know)
Great work on producing these little gems!
Glad you like them! And thank you for your support!
Wow! Great tip and tutorial, Andreas! This will really speed up development of different ideas, because of how easy it becomes, to "play around" with sensors to figure out how the behave (and test them if you think they're broken), and also a handy way to create a remote control for (almost) anything in your smartphone!
I will definitely check it.
Keep up the great tutorials, you're an inspiration!
Thank you for your kind words!
Thank you for making us aware of this great project Andreas! I look forward to playing with it myself! Nice alternative to Blynk.
Hope you enjoy it!
One of Blynk authors - Volodymyr Shymanskiy - suffered from russian war. His house was destroyed by russians in Irpin. Using Blynk you also help him to repair his house.
Perfect! I can't say how often I've contemplated an iPhone interface to my esp world. This afternoon.... finally a garage opener remote on my phone! Tomorrow.... everything!
Cool!
I have always wanted to make "apps" on my smartphone for arduino projects but never have fallen through with it. Thanks so much for your helpful vids andreas!
Glad it was helpful!
I love ESP32 RemoteXY projects. One project was to make a remote loadcell calibration test meter located in a hazard room. Then display the 0 to 25,000lbs readings on a smart-phone at the operator station to compare the HMI touch-screen readings for accuracy. Omega DPS20-HV-RTU 6 digit panel meter with Modbus RTU output was used. The esp32 read the Modbus values and transmitted the Bluetooth results to the free RemoteXY smart-phone app. It worked very well. The project price was much cheaper than other professional wireless systems. After working it seemed simple with a learning curve. 😎 Thank you so much for this very interesting video. I am still learning.
Indeed a very good application of this project!
I will share what I'm using in my homelab for iot:
- zigbee2mqtt
- mosquitto
- grafana
- prometheus
- wireguard
- custom go app (event handler)
- telegram bot (push notifications)
all running as containers, everything together with OS (Ubuntu) consumes around 500MB RAM and runs on headless and fanless low powered small pc. Thanks for your videos you're doing great job.
Thank you for sharing! Very similar to mine (I use IOTstack to make installation and backup simple)
I have to question the wisdom of a level of home automation that requires an IT department to keep the house up and running... ;-) JK
a long while ago, before the esp8266 days i used a hc05 bluetooth serial module on the arduino site and a android app made in app inventor (its free and doesnt have limits like remotexy), its a like lego building blocks, visual programming, no code needed and can be debugged in realtime on the phone. worked quite well.
I heard of app inventor a few years ago. But recently no more. Is it still up-to-date? I liked that the BLE stuff on the ESP32 is properly handled by this app because I found it not easy to program.
its still working, my old projects (2015) are even still there and seem to work. just logged in, they seem to have added quite a bit more blocks by now. not sure if it can do BLE, ive used normal bluetooth serial for this. but only the sending part, havent tried the receiving end.
but Appinventor fails at very complex things, like i tried to build an app that loads an image, scales it down and converts its pixels to bytes and sends it over bluetooth to a esp32 that saves it on a sdcard to display later. couldnt figure out how to do this with the available blocks.
@@AndreasSpiess MIT app inv works great on Android but sucks on IOS, the team struggles to get BLE working on IOS...they claim to get it ready soon.
At this point, I'd like to mention that Android has an Arduino IDE with which you can flash your ESPs and arduinos over USB. Serial monitor works as well.
That's interesting, I will look into that...
Thank you for the info. I did not know.
Are you referring to the Arduino Cloud and OTA updating? Otherwise, you have to build the sketch.
An Excellent presentation, as always!
I am using a very similar product called GUI-O, which appears at first glance to work in a similar way. My project involves collecting data from ground-based magnetometers and GNSS devices to capture Ionospheric disturbances and shifts in total electron content (TEC) due to solar emissions. Using this product allows me to configure and collect data from my instruments either locally or using MQTT communications relayed by a simple broker running on my own Virtual Private Server (VPS - Akamai/Linode) running in the cloud. The pricing model is slightly different but modest. It requires very little in the way of development/startup cost. This approach allows me to expand the user base at little more than $10/user (paid by the user) and allows almost unlimited expansion.
You have a cool project! I hardly understand what your project does. But it seems to be a perfect fit for a local project where you want to influence the ESP with a Smartphone.
I will have a look at GUI-O. Thanks for the hint.
I think ESPeasy and tasmota are way more flexible and easy to use for this scenario. They have Webinterface and app support too. Even as Widgets.
I was not aware of such an app. Do they also have instruments to display values and curves or only buttons to remotely control relays etc?
@@AndreasSpiesstasmota send mqtt to node red wich has all the buttons and gauge You want
@@danzup I made the same smart home system but it needs a server. Node-red has web UI support too to create UIs for anything.
Waw, this is really an awesome video and what a great product/project. I immediately made an account, downloaded and will start tinkering. We truly live in an amazing era.
You should be able to upload one of my projects on your ESP and it should work immediately ;-)
Happy to see a video about IOT that one can catch up for simple projects (without fancy Graphana, Mosquito, node-red usw.) Thanks :)
I agree. On the other side, I find all the components you mention very useful for other applications.
I have been using the MIT application inventor to add my phone to a project for a while. There are good examples out there to connect your phone to your project. I like that I can maximize my phone features into my project It also has the best price, Free. You can make some pretty cool projects with it. So far I see no limitations.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I never tried Application Inventor.
Excellent video. I also appreciate no embedded advertising... thumbs up
Thank you!
I'd use that for letting my kids get something up and running fast, to get them interested in playing with microcontrollers, but for anything else I am not sure it is better than MicroPython because of all that stitching together you have to do anyway. I guess it depends on how happy you are to build the GUI using HTML, SVG, and Javascript.
Exactly, sometimes you need proof of concept before digging in deep.
There are many other possibilities to solve a problem, I agree.
A really simple solution is to use a usb-c to usb-a adapter and you can use your phone as a serial monitor (I think android has an app, I am not sure about Apple), I have used that in the past and it worked quite amazingly although its a bit cumbersome. Its not the same as remote controlling the Arduino obviously, however it can be useful for quickly testing something outside without requiring a battery.
I am also not sure if USB works with the IPhone...
Thanks again, I have been mulling over such an architecture to allow embedded device (with no external comms in normal operation) to be set up on initial installation. They have done the hardwork already. Now just need time to do that project (but need to finish another project first).
So good luck with your project!
This is a nice tool. I have a project where I was thinking about using the smartphone as a data logger over bluetooth. I would not need the screen, just the BLE connection and save the data into a CSV or something.
I did not use this functionality. So maybe you are lucky and it fulfills your needs.
I have used RemoteXY for a couple of projects with excellent results. I use one ESP32 Dev board with onboard relays to interface with the 3 button door opener on my large farm shop door. It can also toggle the lights. The second project is to use another ESP32 with a separate relay board to interface with two 3 button door openers on another farm building. Both have external antennas for greater range. Each is setup as a Soft Access Point so internet is not needed.. The doors/lights can be controlled by my iPhone, iPad or Android tablet. Since the shed uses 6 items, I must subscribe to the Pro Version. I wish I could post pictures of the phone/tablet screens.
Sounds like a cool project! Congratulations. I like useful stuff.
Caught this video today and it explained the problem I was having getting the "gauge" to indicate a reading. On another project I edited the values in the screen setup array and found by trial & error which values affected what on the phone screen. This allowed me to edit the values to get my input "buttons" aligned and spaced evenly. I tried adding a screenshot of my phone to this reply but was unsuccessful. TED@@AndreasSpiess
Your video is so detailed and to the point. Thank you sir! I can't wait to go home to try that!
Enjoy it!
Great! I've an 1980 RC car waiting for exactly this. Esp and H bridge are already installed.
Very cool!
Now that is pretty useful. Great find, Sir.
Glad you think so!
THis is very impressive. I'm planning to do something with a remote control. I guess this will speed up my project alot.
Enjoy your project!
Have been using something similar called *Virtuino* for about 4 or 5 years,
It probably needs a little more coding on the Arduino side, but the android side is extremely flexible and configurable.
Thank you for the tip. After other similar comments, I put it on my list...
@@AndreasSpiess I almost didn't want to comment because I wasn't sure if you may be sponsored by remoteXY.
I seldom pay for android apps, but this one i even made a little extra payment to the author after he helped me with some bug fixes.
I am never sponsored without telling it. And this happens very rarely ;-)
This is a great library to create simple interfaces with. Thanks from bringing this to my/out attention.
Glad you think so!
wie immer sehr nützlich und gut erklärt! Grüße aus dem Süden Argentiniens
Danke! Wusste nicht, dass man in Argentinien Deutsch spricht ;-)
Looks really nice the only downside is the subscription model I rather have a one time payment then paying for a subscription
I agree.
Thanks Andreas, another good experiment to do.
You are welcome!
I must show upmost respect to my seniors! Sir, take my like
Thank you!
Nice project. I intent to use this for my Mag Loop controller project, thanks M0RLF!
Good fit, I think.
Basically an implementation of industrial HMI for Arduino - very clever!
And easy to use...
Excellent video, very cool way to use a phone to control an ESP32!
Thank you!
Very simple and useful especially with BLE👍
I agree!
Recently I've tried to use HA or OpenHab for my home automation, but getting them build for my openwrt router architecture wasn't fun. So right now, I'm using tasmota (ESP endpoints) node-red, zigbee2mqtt (on the router) and MqttDashboard (android app) for a lightweight solution. It works well right now, but I'm a little worried about the dashboard app (closed source, no custom widgets) limitations for the future.
I showed my setup (HA and IOTstack on a used miniPC). I use HA as the frontend, node-red for automation and Grafana for statistics.
Thanks Andreas, it is a super easy service to get up and going, shame the development has stopped, I hope there is ongoing support just in case
I did not need their support, so I do not know how good it is.
@@AndreasSpiess This is true, to be fair, the app does work really well
Very practical and useful indeed. Thanks for sharing and inspiring to try something new
Glad it was helpful!
Great app and video. I've always been looking for an app that makes controlling an ESP32 as easy as demonstrated in this video. This would really improve my teaching at school since the daunting task of programming a web server is no longer necessary. The only real downside is the 5 item limit and the pricing. In public education it is always a great advantage to be able to use an app without any incentive to buy additional features, especially since the students in my case are minors. If there is a similarly easy-to-use free alternative, I would be very grateful for any recommendation...
Maybe you contact the creator for a special arrangement?
@@AndreasSpiess Right, might actually be worth trying... Thanks.
This is a game changer - thanks for the info.
You are welcome!
Very interesting again!
Thank you!
Cool 😎, a big thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching!
Wow! This app is literally the … Swiss Army knife 🤭 for such projects 😮
Indeed!
Thank you! Interessting for mobile and portable devices without access to my Wifi/LAN. Usage e.g. for hiking, biking etc. Otherwise I have my ioBroker running as a server in my home.
Same here. BLE and Smartphones are a good combination because they extremely easily connect. For all "infrastructure based" things, I also prefer WiFi.
It is also possible to write great applications for Android and control a set of microcontrollers with the MIT app inventory. Of course, you need to have a significantly larger amount of programming knowledge and there are no restrictions on the number of elements used in the application.
I agree.
Great video as always 👍
Good find.
Thanks for sharing your expirences with All of us 👍😀
My pleasure!
Nice tip. Many thanks for the video. Maybe one of the next presents for my nephew.
Good idea! And a robot car to steer ;-)
An interesting and pragmatic tool. I now need to experiment with this, as seems easy and convent to get started and end up with a working project.
It might be interesting to snoop at what is sent across bluetooth, or wifi, as it could be possible to have a non-supported device emulate messages of a supported device. (depending how simple/complicated the protocol)
While seems geared towards simpler project needs, the subscription model is very reasonable (
I think you see in their library what is sent via BLE/Wifi
I have my iPhone would I be able to use this project with the?Elegoo uno board ????
It should work with IOS if you provide the proper connectivity (Arduino uno has none).
YOWW THIS IS MARVELOUS!!! THANK YOU SIR, IT REALLY HELPS ME WITH MY FINAL YEAR PROJECT
Good luck with your degree!
Great project. I have many old cell phones with dead batteries. I can use them as thermostat for example. Is there anyway to boot the cellphone using a PS and load this app with its default settings after boot completed without users interaction?
You have to try. I do not know if they boot with a defective battery.
If you change the phone long enough it will boot but the battery last for a short time.
Pretty neat. Hopefully the revenue from those subscriptions will make it possible for them to add additional support for boards. I've never been part of the Espressif ecosystem -- went straight from the ATmega328 to the RP2040. Would love the latter to be supported.
Unfortunately, the RP2040 never caught fire in the community. I think, because it had no WiFi in the beginning...
@@AndreasSpiess You're probably right, but I'm not writing off the Pi Foundation just yet. We'll see what happens when they release other versions of the RP2040.
Thank you for the video. You are great.
You are welcome!
Thanks, Andreas 😁
You are welcome!
Project suggestion 😉 A MLX90640BAB thermal camera connected to an ESP32 or similar, that sends live video to an app like WiFi Viewer on the mobile phone. And lightweight enough to be used from a 250 gram drone like DJI Mini 3 Pro. Preferably taking power from the USB-C connector on the drone if possible.
Would of course not be usable to find anything from high up, but maybe could be used for roof inspections if flying really low. I have searched but not found a project like that.
I once made a video with the MLX90640. Unfortunately, I was not happy with its resolution :-(
Andreas - Another fine video showing me something I didn't know I didn't know. Can we do OTA programming with RemoteXY ?
I am not sure if Wi-Fi and BLE work together on a single ESP32. It has to be tried. With Wi-Fi, it should work. If you add a BLE module to the ESP32 it should work, too (as a work around)
@@AndreasSpiess I am now using RemoteXY over WiFi. I also need OTA programming ability. I don't see that feature on their website so I am wondering how to do OTA. Any idea of OTA packages that might work with RemoteXY? I have asked them the same question, but no response as yet.
@@JimFelich Arduino OTA is not hard to integrate into any sketch, look at their examples.
Danny is right. Just add the OTA example file commands to your RemoteXY file.
I Like MQTT Dash on my smartphone, RPi4(or any other SBC) as a MQTT Broker. Esp32 - endpoint device.
I did not know MQTT Dash. Thanks!
I use Raspberry Pi Pico W for the communication and Arduino as the controller ... if needed.
So this is nothing for you :-(
@@AndreasSpiess Up to some point it is. I was hoping to get some information about how to get Arduino communications working, and eventually even with the ESP 8266 module, but without reprogramming the ESP. I am still satisfied because I learned about a new app to explore.
It is not bad, however I am not a big fan of these product types. I prefer the open-source solution/extension api where it is possible to extend the components and the devices/connection types. For a home gamer this doesn't matter much, however nobody who builds a bigger scale project will use this tool.
I agree that this is not for big projects. There, you can afford a programmer for a decent app.
@@AndreasSpiess it depends, as someone who works now as android developer, hiring someone to build custom apps is equivalent to burning a hole into your pocket, mostly because these development ecosystems are unnecessary complex and slow to develop in, if I were to choose I would go with custom development only if there is no alternative.
Thanks! Most useful.
You're welcome!
Great video Andreas! Many thanks for posting this. I am going to try this but I wish there was a way to connect the ESP 32 to the home WIFI network by way of configurable provisioning for the app to interface out of the box instead of needing to connect to ESP 32 AP.
I thought it has this feature, but I did not use it.
This is video helped a lot with my project. Since I am new to using arduino's and esp32's this was really helpful with unlocking the Bluetooth potential with my esp32. I tried using the remotexy app and it worked really easily with controlling led lights but I also included a circular bar and I can't figure out how to make it so that the bar updates its value based on RSSI readings from the phone to create a bar that can show me how far away my esp32 is. Could you help me with this? Thanks so much.
Also is it possible to make an led blink on and off a couple times when a push button is pressed because as of now, it just turns on and then off.
dankeschön, sehr interessant und inspirierend
Gern geschehen!
Very cool tool/app, which I'm looking at for use in a class project (or at least something in the toolbelt)! The bluetooth connection with my cheap esp32 board is quite flaky, but as I've only used these boards for wled through wifi in the past, I'm inclined to blame the board.
One unfortunate thing about the lib is servo support. While the site has projects that show use of servos, the code provided isn't clear to me how to integrate.
For anything non-servo, this is amazing out of the box!
I assume you have to write the integration, which seems to be simple to me. A servo only needs a number passed from the app to the servo function. I am sure you will find it out.
Hi Andreas, sorry if I go off topic.
Will you do a seminar/tutorial about CO/CO2/COV/gas/PM2.5/PM10 monitoring sensors?
I’m sure a lot of people are interested.
Thank you very much, as usual!
At the beginning of covid, I did videos about CO2 sensors and alike.
@@AndreasSpiess Are those sensors still valid after 3 years or there is something better nowadays, please?
Thank you.
I do not know
Hallo Andreas, eine sehr interessante Möglichkeit.
Danke Werner aus Süddeutchland
Gern geschehen!
Thx, on Android, Bluetooth Electronics app does about the same and is great
Good to know. Thanks!
Thank you, this is useful and interesting
You are welcome!
Excellent video Andreas thank you. Has anyone found a way to do angle of approach AOA using BLE on esp32?
I did not :-(
@@AndreasSpiess I'm researching it and will let you know what I find
Here is what I learned from fellow Reddit people. BLE 5.2 standard introduces BLE Audio as a successor for Bluetooth Classic Audio. ESP32S3 implements BLE 5.0. Hoping that some future Espressif processor will include BLE 5.2. -Frank
I also learned that AOA is still new for ESP32. Some people are working on antenna arrays to make AOA work. -Frank
Thank you for explanation i hope i have one
wow, this is great! I never commented but congratulations on your work, very good indeed! I wonder though, to make an mobile app that uses BLE but stores the information so the user can check the evolution through time, what would the best options?
I do not know, I am no "Smartphone guy" :-(
this is EXCELNT!, as a novice i pounded out my first project....
i do have 1 problem, my inputs are analog (0-5v) pressures, by the esp32s3 is 0-3.3v... resistor divider? what about the limits .5v and 4.5v does that scale too?
Yes, you need a voltage divider (in: 5 volts, out 3.3volts. And you can create one that creates output voltages up to 4.5V. The ESP will not love this one ;-) I do not think it is easy to create one that starts at 0.5 because of ground reference.
i figured out the scaling (bidirectional level shifter boards.. has 4 channels of resistors ).. note, i had to use 12v supply so the regulated 5v is correct (not 4.8v using usb)
can't figure out how to pass data from my iphone (accelerometer, and gps data) to the ESP32... any hints?
@@steveyoutube1709 Unfortunately, no
Hi Andreas, do you know if RemoteXY can do a one-to-many (one ESP32 to a mix of Android(s) and iPhone(s) devices). We have a long driveway and I'm setting up a motion detection system PIR sensors. I would like to notify each phones from my ESP32 app. Thanks, Jim.
I do not know. You have to try yourself :-(
Thanks a lot Swissman, but I prefer HomeSpan: Completely free no matter how many things you use.
They are very different approaches. If you are happy with your solution, that is perfect!
when you are making sliders for the app, can they show value?? for example if i make pwm will the app show frequency number when i move the slider?
I do no more remember the details. But you should be able to show the readings of a sensor or similar.
Hallo Andreas, dieser Ansatz mit RemoteXY fand ich höchst interessant. Mich würde interessieren, ob es mit RemoteXY möglich ist, einen ESP8266 in das lokale WLAN einzubinden. Hast Du diese Variante auch schon mal ausprobiert? - Ansonsten vielen Dank für die vielen lehrreichen und fundierten Videos!
Das sollte gehen wenn du Ethernet (nicht Access Point) als Connection wählst.
@@AndreasSpiess 👍
There is other platform that offers same capabilities but supports much more platforms - Blynk. One of it's authors is my friend, he lived in Irpin (near Bucha), and now his house is destroyed by russians. So if you decide to use Blynk, you will help him in rebuilding his destroyed home.
Thank you for the info!
@@AndreasSpiess if you interested, I can share some links about him, if youtube will not block links.
Interesting and educational, as always. It's probably me being thick (no change there) but how is the compass related to RemoteXY. I understand the operation of the button and temperature sensor, but surely you would just use gps test plus if you wanted a compass.
The compass is a Smartphone sensor that can be used by your ESP sketch.
A great and inspiring video of a great tool. Thanks to this video I have found new intrest in ESP and related. I even bought the PRO version (about €15 and done) just to support the project. I've had, since I saw your video, a lot of fun testing and dreaming about possible applications. BUT
Do you, or anyone for that matter, happen to know if RemoteXY is still maintained and still will exist in the future? The community is not that thriving as I had hoped.
I do not have more information than posted on their homepage :-(
Really interesting. I wonder if the phone battery charge can be read back to the ESP 32 to control charging?
I did not see such a sensor :-(
Any chance to get some sensors connected to esp32 and be able to use android apps to read these sensors? For example Raspberry Pi 4 Android 14 has no sensors, but I need GPS and 9dof and BME680, is it possible to use remotexy to connect to other android apps? If so, how?
If you use Android on the Pi, I assume you have to use python or c to read the sensors.
@@AndreasSpiess I can use C or C++, but there are no drivers for android to run sensors, I was wondering if I could create like esp32 sensor box and connected it to raspberry and provide streaming of sensor data to applications on raspberry pi
Excellent video as usual, thanks.
Have you evaluated Virtuino? I suggest you see it if you never checked it before.
No. But briefly looking at it seems to be interesting. Do you use it?
@@AndreasSpiess in the past yes and it was just fine. The creator is a Greek professor, very capable and friendly.
Thank you !
You are welcome!
Very interesting. Thanks
You are welcome!
Very cool Andreas, I have been looking for a way to send esp8622 data to smartphones. Will have to try this out.
:-)
Wow, that is just *crazy* easy! (Maybe even easy enough for me) I have an ancient iPhone in a box somewhere in my Lab: I wonder if the app will run on whatever the latest version of iOS is that that old phone will support? I also have two equally-ancient Android mini-tablets, same question for them. (Android updates are so finicky though, I suspect those old tablets won’t even connect to the Play store anymore :-/)
Thanks so much for this vid, it’s one of the most inspiring to date, because it seems like I can finally connect my phone to my little projects. Thanks again!
You are welcome!
hi,
android 5
latest remotexy app
trying to connect with usb
i get this error:
"USB device not opened : usb interface detection failed ''
what can i do? thank you
I did not try USB. So maybe you go to their forum. I do not know if you know "OTG". If not, google.
Hi, thanks for the interesting video. Did you have a look to Virtuino? I use it for some years now to connect Arduinos or ESPxx to the Android smartphone. It is very simple and works great, also in the free version. A minor shortcoming is that the documentation is not as great as the project itself.
No, I did not look at it. But after other comments, I have it on my list...
thank you for this usefull information
You are welcome!
Thanks for the great intro to RemoteXY. It looks like if you use WiFi that the MCU has to host it's own WiFi network that you then have to connect to with your smart phone. Is there a way for this to work if the MCU and your smart phone are both connected to your existing local WiFi network?
Maybe this is their "cloud" solution. I did not look at this one.
I have been trying to use RemoteXY in my code, as I want to control a Servo Motor and want to show any object detected in an ultrasound sensor. Please help on this matter
Unfortunately, I cannot help. But I am sure you will get it working. Just make everything work independently first and then combine it.
Hi Andreas, any thoughts about USB-C interface?
I do not understand the connection between USB-C and this project :-(
@@AndreasSpiess i was thinking an app for Android phones that enables similar interactions with esp32 or arduino WITHOUT wifi or ble. any thoughts?
@@philippewinum3126 This project also supports OTG (USB)
Great to see another video and one about something i already know!! hahah... I am trying to get RemoteXY setup so i can congifure the wifi settings on my esp32 via bluetooth.. having some issues, are you able to help with that??
WiFi and BLE on one ESP are not easy. I would expect problems (and probably would go the WiFi way in your case)
@@AndreasSpiess thanks for the recommendation.. after a few day of searching it seems the esp32 doesnt like having wifi and ble on at the same time. I have found a method of using one at a time by turning the other one off first.. this kind of works but i was hoping to use a text field entry on the RemoteXY app to store the wifi credentials on the ESP32 in variables and then switch to wifi but the variables are not getting the right info for the credentials..
Bluetooth and WiFi use the same internal radio...
Can I use this ESPN without data connection I mean using payed data connection instead I use WiFi or Bluetooth to controlled without data connection
I do not understand :-(
Sorry bro, but I needed to know if I can use the Arduino for remote access, outside the house, or if it's a lot of work and I need to make several releases in the mold, how to have a fixed IP?
These are many topics in one question. I would divide you wish in several steps. Then Google knows the answers.
i will never use this because of the payment. if the app itselve didnt have an subscription,but instat offer an one time buy i would use this... but for now i stick to the simple webserver on the esp32 that provides also an good option and works witout any app... i just use an ip or name in the browser.
Also a good decision.
How to use "level" in RemoteXY to monitor the dose of a liquid?
I assume similarly to the temperature gauge I showed in the video. Just replace the sensor code.
Interesting video, as always, thank you. I suppose the core of the library/app combination is really pretty simple and allows you to really quickly put something together in ways that would be very difficult if you weren't already into NodeRed or, as many of us are, thanks to your long line of videos, producing acceptable JS http pages from the ESP.
I think you are right that it would be great for education, as proof of principle can be built really easily with the teaching emphasis being on the code logic and not all bound up in why the UI elements don't quite work. A really good idea.
A long time ago now I used the MIT AppInventor to build two Android apps to control my central heating (ESP8266) and an array of 433.92MHz wireless mains switches, also ESP 'hubbed'. That handled the http aspects for me (at the phone end) with the ESP hosting a simple endpoint and that gave me the simple UI I wanted. It must be what, 5-7 years ago now and I wonder how much the AppInventor has grown since.
Others also compared it with App Inventor. I think they has somehow similar goals. This one is probably better integrated into the Arduino IDE.
@Andreas Spiess I agree completely, AppInventor doesn't have any linkage whatsoever to Arduino, the delta between them is that integration, which looks very simple in the app you demonstrated.
Have you tried the MIT App Inventor?
No, I did not try it.