Local API access

Hi, it would be great to retrieve sensors values via LAN, without relying on internet access / cloud,
so that we can still monitor our grow offline.

This could be done via Modbus/TCP, MQTT, etc.

Thanks

I would like this as well; one of my biggest hesitations about going with Pulse was “What if they (heaven forbid) go under or get bought out and the new owners decide to discontinue the service?”

A local API would mean the hardware would still be of use in that scenario.

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I would also like something like this but my main use case is I want to know what the environment is right now, not “a few seconds ago” or “a minute ago”. I understand that I can’t expect charts with data for every second, but the ability to fetch “this exact second” cause the user explicitly asked would be great. Trying to calibrate other equipment to the Pulse unit is challenging because a lot of other monitors update as quickly as every second, and you’ll see them fluctuate much more often in a 1 minute timespan than one might expect. It makes calibration a guess and check situation which is less than ideal.

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Hey there, immediately reading the latest data looks pretty doable for our hub sensors, not so sure about the ones and pros at the moment. I’ll bring it up with the team to see if we have the capacity to accommodate this.

Thank you for taking the time to contribute.

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Greg,

I currently am using a Pulse one, so he ability to do that would be awesome. I did also pre-order the Hub, so excited for that feature as well as many more I hope :crossed_fingers:

Regarding what my plan is if we go under; it would be open sourcing the firmware and hardware, and unlocking the devices. In that case someone could potentially self host, or implement their own local API.

As far as plans for developing local API, it is a lot of work with a very small benefit, so it’s not high on our priority list unfortunately.

The type of customers who could and would leverage a local API can also trivially connect off the shelf sensors to a project board, and feed that data into their own local server.

Hi there, just wanted to add to Peet’s reply above.

We decided to add pulling the most recent data for hub sensors sometime in near future.

Most likely it will look like a button that just gets the latest data without waiting the rest of the minute for new data to come in.

We will only be adding this to the hub since the hub already supports this for its internal stuff and uses a even more capable infrastructure, while One’s and Pro’s would need significant development to accommodate this feature.

Hi there. Thought I would add my use case here, even if it is not the general use case which would make sense for Pulse to work on right away, as Peet has alluded to.

Due to the location I grow in (frequent lack of electricity and/or frequent lack of internet access), I need the ability to retrieve data locally as far as possible since alternatives for electricity still does not mean I will have access to the internet for making decisions “now” when I need to retrieve data for said decisions.

I am, like many, looking to create grow rooms with as little custom device integrations as possible. The Pulse Hub seems to offer all of the sensors I could possibly hope to use in my grows, and in an excellent package. The current solution for me to use data locally to manipulate devices locally is to use Home Assistant as my “logic hub”. It would be great if I could pull measurements from the Pulse Hub into Home Assistant to make these decisions (primary use case), and then push the same into the cloud for remote monitoring when internet access is available (secondary use case).

Thanks

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Hi there, as for your second question - have you taken a look at our api ? You could use it to pull the data and then manually feed it to your setup with google assistant. An out of the box google assistant integration is unlikely to come around soon.

Seems like quite a few people have requested it. I’ll do a quick investigation on how much effort this would be for the team

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@guidagalattica @monstermash @Painted @specialgrows

We’d potentially be able to expose an interface using UDP packets to communicate to devices on the same WiFi router’s local network. Is this something you would be interested in?

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Hi @peet

Thanks for getting back to us.

Yes, I would be happy with pretty much anything that can be retrieved locally.

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Thanks @peet , TCP would be more reliable and easy to implement, but UDP is great too.
With some documentation I could try to develop a home assistant integration

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Agree UDP makes sense since its data not coming from the DB. Would prefer to have access outside the local network, but if thats the difference between a minor change and a major one, then that works well enough for me. Easy enough to write that data somewhere that can be exposed outside the network.

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Hi @peet

Pinging here for an update. I am traveling back to the location where I am growing soon, and would love to trial the Pulse Hub while there, but not without this functionality unfortunately.

Happy to jump on a call/DM to discuss further. Also happy to work on a Home Assistant integration with @guidagalattica if the use case fits

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We’re not planning to release a feature to allow local API access any time soon. We’re focused on bringing more sensors other things to the hub.