Tilt Pi for Tilt Hydrometer

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mrcastellino

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Hello,

Has anyone ever setup a tilt pi app for a rasberry pi? Seemed straightforward enough but I seemed to have run into a dead end. Followed the tutorial for updating the SD card with Tilt Pi app including the setup file for the WiFi configuration and Cloud logging. The issue is that an email is never generated for creating the cloud logging after running the rasberry pi. The problem seems to be that the rasberry pi cannot detect the Tilt via blue tooth. I ran bluetooth scan on the rasberry pi with the command 'sudo hcitool lescan' and it does detect other bluetooth devices in the area but the tilt never comes up. I confirmed that the tilt bluetooth is working as the iOS app connects and works with the tilt. Any ideas as to what else i should check?

Thanks for the help.
 
I have never experienced your specific problem. I have had a couple of random issues which led to the pi discontinuing logging and even reading. The first thing I would do is reformat your sd card, then re-flash it with the latest image from the tilt website. Essentially start over and do what you have already done, create new config files, etc. This has solved any problem I have had. I am not sure if it could possibly be a bad burn from Etcher (i had never used Etcher and have not tried to use it for anything else). You could also try using a different program to burn the image, or even re-download the image to make sure there are no corrupt files.

I previously had issues with power outages and had to re-flash as described above. The newest version of the app is supposed to be able to reboot itseslf without issue but i have not tested that.

How far is your tilt from the pi and what kind (material) of fermentation vessel are you using?

Also, you can contact their support and they may be able to help. I have nothing but good things to say about their support people.
 
Not sure if you are still having problems (I see your original post was from July 15). But, I may have a solution if you still are.

Does your WiFi password have any unusual characters in it?
Mine did. Turned out the pi wasn't connecting to the WiFi because the keyboard was setup by default to use the GB (British) layout instead of US.
This caused the password I typed in to be incorrect.

To fix, search on google for "raspberry pi keyboard layout command line". There are a number of different ways to go about it.

I also changed the locale from UK to US, though I don't think that mattered.
 
Hope this isn't too much of a hijack -- it seems related...

I got my Tilt (which seems pretty great, so far), but it's currently paired with an old phone, since my Pi didn't come until a few days into fermentation.

My problem is: All the instructions I see for Tilt + Pi seem to be "Flash your SD card with this dedicated Tilt-OS software, making your Pi useless for parallel operations"

What I'd like to do is: I'd like my Pi-running-Linux to do its Tilt thing plus also run some *other* software. It's a pretty powerful computer, and trying up the whole thing just to read a sensor every 15 minutes seems like a huge waste!

In a perfect world, I'd love to monitor TWO Tilts, plus run some other little thing (it doesn't matter what -- for the purpose of discussion, assume that I'm mining BitCoin and playing Doom during fermentation ;) )

My Q is: Do any of y'all have a pointer to directions for a Tilt+Pi app -- ideally that can run 2 instances (2 Tilts/2 batches at once) -- that can run alongside other software all under Raspbian (Pi's Debian-alike) ?

Thanks!
 
Hope this isn't too much of a hijack -- it seems related...

I got my Tilt (which seems pretty great, so far), but it's currently paired with an old phone, since my Pi didn't come until a few days into fermentation.

My problem is: All the instructions I see for Tilt + Pi seem to be "Flash your SD card with this dedicated Tilt-OS software, making your Pi useless for parallel operations"

What I'd like to do is: I'd like my Pi-running-Linux to do its Tilt thing plus also run some *other* software. It's a pretty powerful computer, and trying up the whole thing just to read a sensor every 15 minutes seems like a huge waste!

In a perfect world, I'd love to monitor TWO Tilts, plus run some other little thing (it doesn't matter what -- for the purpose of discussion, assume that I'm mining BitCoin and playing Doom during fermentation ;) )

My Q is: Do any of y'all have a pointer to directions for a Tilt+Pi app -- ideally that can run 2 instances (2 Tilts/2 batches at once) -- that can run alongside other software all under Raspbian (Pi's Debian-alike) ?

Thanks!

The RPi Tilt software is already capable of monitoring multiple Tilts, as long as they are different colors, ie a red" tilt, a "purple" tilt, etc.

The latest RPi version is simply a stripped-down version of ARM Debian Stretch. You can access the OS locally using user "pi" and password "tilt".

With a little work, you should be able to get root access, and do whatever you want.
 
I agree - the "canned" Tilt package was likely generated to make it easier for folks new to the RPi environment to get up and running.
There are instructions to install the application on a Debian platform yourself here that includes an update to get it working on Stretch...

Cheers!
 
Thanks both. Yeah, I get that it was meant as a simplifier -- and that's great -- but Tilt doesn't own my computer, and I have other plans... :)

Jimmay: yeah, I knew about the colors, just wasn't sure if the app already supported it. Thanks for the info.
 
Has anyone used a rpi zero W with this. I had one I haven't used laying around and it is painfully slow with normal raspian and with the tilt pi image.
 
Has anyone used a rpi zero W with this. I had one I haven't used laying around and it is painfully slow with normal raspian and with the tilt pi image.
I use a Zero W for Tilt Pi and one for Fermentrack. I had both working on a single Zero W, but they started getting wonky when I'd upgrade one or the other. The hardware is cheap, so I separated them and they've been working OK for a year or two.
 
Do you have serious lag when messing with the tiltpi interface on chromium? I feel it is so bad I could pay for my time in a few minutes and just get a pi3
 
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I have no issues with the lag on my pi0w running tiltpi. When it first boots up, that takes about 10 minutes to get to the point where it is tracking and the UI is live, after that it's a responsive webpage. The Tilt company replies to comments on their facebook group, if you're having trouble that's a good place to go.
 
Anyone experience this:

Tilt pi was working, as was the logging into a google spreadsheet.

Suddenly, both stopped working. I uplugged the rasp pi and plugged it back in.

Logging is now working perfectly (for about an hour now), but not the tilt pi program. When I go to tiltpi.local.1880... I just get the "this site can't be reached" message.

UPDATE: I posted this after first trying to simply unplug and replug, which did not work. However, I tried again later and that did the trick.
 
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Glad to see a number of knowledgeable folks on here. I've got a few problems running Tilt Pi that I am hoping some of you could help with.

I have a RPI Zero W and a nice new Samsung 32GB Pro MicroSD card. My ideal situation is to have Tilt Pi running on a functional GUI/desktop install of Raspian, so I can also have pi-hole running at the same time. I tried the instructions supplied by Baron for doing so on Raspian Jesse and Raspian Stretch Lite, but I have the same net result -- All goes well until I try the final step where I attempt to display the downloaded TiltPi Node-Red deployment flow via the localhost link. The Node-red webpage (localhost:1880/ui) tells me that "no UI flows were found." I triple checked and all commands were entered properly.

So I tried another, less desirable route: simply flashing the "TiltPi HDMI" image onto the SD card and running it that way. A number of issues arise here. First, it never sends an email to my supplied gmail address with the google sheets, which is really the whole point of me wanting this device. All i get is a live feed of my Tilt. Second, the timestamp is stuck at 3-26-2018 when homeboy programmed this thing, and won't update to current time on the Eastern US.

Does anyone have a current, sure-fire way to get a RPI Zero W running so that I can watch the live feed on a small LCD screen in my beer room, but also receive continuous logging on google sheets? That's all I really want. This $135 gadget and $25 RPI is really costing me a lot in time and frustration at this point.
 
Anyone experience this:

Tilt pi was working, as was the logging into a google spreadsheet.

Suddenly, both stopped working. I uplugged the rasp pi and plugged it back in.

Logging is now working perfectly (for about an hour now), but not the tilt pi program. When I go to tiltpi.local.1880... I just get the "this site can't be reached" message.

UPDATE: I posted this after first trying to simply unplug and replug, which did not work. However, I tried again later and that did the trick.
Have you had any issues since? I am having issues with the localhost:1880/ui and IP address:1880/ui connection as well. I get the emails, links and even logs in google sheets. I just cant get to the UI to set up the thing or see it remotely. I can hit the Tilt with my IOS and Android phone but the PC doesnt connections wont work. I formatted and reflashed the image and that didnt seem to help. It used to work and wonder if it is related to my new router not allowing the connection? Any other advice or tips to try?
 
Have you had any issues since? I am having issues with the localhost:1880/ui and IP address:1880/ui connection as well. I get the emails, links and even logs in google sheets. I just cant get to the UI to set up the thing or see it remotely. I can hit the Tilt with my IOS and Android phone but the PC doesnt connections wont work. I formatted and reflashed the image and that didnt seem to help. It used to work and wonder if it is related to my new router not allowing the connection? Any other advice or tips to try?

I had the same issue after it was working for a while. Mine stopped logging so I restarted it and now it logs but I can't get to the UI. I checked my router DHCP client list and figured out that my router had rebooted and had given the tiltpi a new IP address. Once I used that to :1880/ui I was able to see the UI again. So try logging into your router and checking your client list. The name of the client is just tiltpi.
 
I had the same issue after it was working for a while. Mine stopped logging so I restarted it and now it logs but I can't get to the UI. I checked my router DHCP client list and figured out that my router had rebooted and had given the tiltpi a new IP address. Once I used that to :1880/ui I was able to see the UI again. So try logging into your router and checking your client list. The name of the client is just tiltpi.

Your router should support IP address reservations. You specify the MAC address (hardware address) and the IP you want it to have. (It's usually a good idea to reuse the address it currently has to avoid conflicts.)
 
I turned off my firewall and gave it a try. It still didnt work so I re-flashed the image and tried it again. I added the address and tiltpi link into the firewall and it seems to be working. Thanks again for the tips! I was beating my head against the desk trying to figure it out and didnt even think of the firewall blocking it.
 
Glad to see a number of knowledgeable folks on here. I've got a few problems running Tilt Pi that I am hoping some of you could help with.

I have a RPI Zero W and a nice new Samsung 32GB Pro MicroSD card. My ideal situation is to have Tilt Pi running on a functional GUI/desktop install of Raspian, so I can also have pi-hole running at the same time. I tried the instructions supplied by Baron for doing so on Raspian Jesse and Raspian Stretch Lite, but I have the same net result -- All goes well until I try the final step where I attempt to display the downloaded TiltPi Node-Red deployment flow via the localhost link. The Node-red webpage (localhost:1880/ui) tells me that "no UI flows were found." I triple checked and all commands were entered properly.

So I tried another, less desirable route: simply flashing the "TiltPi HDMI" image onto the SD card and running it that way. A number of issues arise here. First, it never sends an email to my supplied gmail address with the google sheets, which is really the whole point of me wanting this device. All i get is a live feed of my Tilt. Second, the timestamp is stuck at 3-26-2018 when homeboy programmed this thing, and won't update to current time on the Eastern US.

Does anyone have a current, sure-fire way to get a RPI Zero W running so that I can watch the live feed on a small LCD screen in my beer room, but also receive continuous logging on google sheets? That's all I really want. This $135 gadget and $25 RPI is really costing me a lot in time and frustration at this point.


I am currently having the same issue with Tilt Logging. I can type in the email address or my own URL and it just never creates a log. Always says waiting for a response after I hit enter. Let me know if you have had any success getting yours to log. Thanks
 
I am currently having the same issue with Tilt Logging. I can type in the email address or my own URL and it just never creates a log. Always says waiting for a response after I hit enter. Let me know if you have had any success getting yours to log. Thanks
I did, but honestly don’t remember what I did to achieve success. My memory is that I just wasn’t pressing enter to send the log? Pretty sure I’m using the tilt pi hdmi installed on raspbian.
 
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