incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Adafruit cellular platform - SMS and IoT over celluar

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jimk123
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by jimk123 »

Btw, i thought i posted here but late yesterday the ting started to fail :(
Hopefully the hologram will perform better. Will post more results later tomorrow after running several more hours of testing.

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rskup
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by rskup »

Hi Jim, bummer about the Ting sim, was hoping that would be the answer, I even started looking into Ting plans for myself, oh well.

Ok, so far today another 6 out of 6 messages without delay on the Hologram sim, testing every hour or so.

When I check the Hologram console it sez ATT, and also when I enter the AT+COPS? command to the 7000 I get ATT back (same as yesterday).

Also, I got mixed up on the charges, there is no charge to send an SMS to the board, only a charge if the board sends an SMS.

Ok, will keep testing, maybe IoT sims are the way to go,
Rob

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jimk123
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by jimk123 »

Hi Rob
Interesting yours connected on att and mine was tmobile, i did google tmobile cat-m nbiot and it did say they offer it though. Time will tell with more testing. I kinda feel like Charlie Brown here, i get excited with each new SIM card to test only to be let down later, lol, let’s keep our fingers crossed.

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jimk123
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by jimk123 »

one more thing, I added some commands at start up, curious on the CGREG it now returns 5 which means roaming, wonder what you see ?

18:04:18.825 -> AT+CPSI? results =
18:04:18.825 -> +CPSI: LTE CAT-M1,Online,310-260,0x50F8,228587013,80,EUTRAN-By

18:04:18.919 -> AT+COPS? results =
18:04:18.919 -> +COPS: 0,0,"T-Mobile Hologram",7
18:04:18.919 ->

18:05:18.802 -> <--- +CGREG: 0,5

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rskup
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by rskup »

Yes, also get the "5" for roaming:

at+creg?
+CREG: 0,5

at+cgreg?
+CGREG: 0,5

at+cpsi?
+CPSI: LTE CAT-M1,Online,310-410,0x5304,44814864,376,EUTRAN-BAND12,5110,3,3,-11,-96,-68,15

at+cops?
+COPS: 0,0,"AT&T",7

Interesting if we're going through different carriers and if the SMS tests keep going well, wish I knew more about whatever "handshaking" and checks is going on between the tower and board.

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jimk123
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by jimk123 »

Hi Rob
Thanks for sharing that info and agree how little i really know about cellular. Way back when Adafruit sold their fona boards it was so easy to use and they always offered great support if something went wrong. I'll keep my fingers crossed the hologram SIM performs better and know more later tomorrow and report back.

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jimk123
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by jimk123 »

testing the hologram SIM all day at random times, not perfect, out of 13 msgs I sent the SIM7000A 4 had delivery delays. The delays were shorter, 7-10 minutes but still not perfect and not sure if this would be reliable enough in a remote location to toggle AC and DC circuits on and off which is what I need it for.

Also the hologram cost is very high for , 19 cents per incoming message, regardless of the plan which is very expensive. If I receive 4 msgs a day would be $22/month.

I will run some more tests over the weekend.

I also found this article which is about CAT-M NBIOT service

https://www.twilio.com/blog/when-to-use-lte-cat-m

it says "Devices using Cat M may get pushed off the network (preempted) in case of congestion. When a cell site is congested, the network may force those Cat M devices that have been connected for a long time to disconnect and re-attach at a later time."

not sure if that is what is happening here.

Rob - I think you said you had a true LTE device but it also experienced slow delivery at times ?

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rskup
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by rskup »

Hi Jim, just a quick update for the day so far, 8/8 messages with no delay. So that's a total of 24 without delay over 3 days.

And I see you experienced some delays, bummer. I wonder if, like that article states, the board was bumped off the network...if that's what happened it probably wouldn't matter if you sent several texts in a row for redundancy, they'd just all get delayed until the congestion cleared.

I'm curious, when you send a text to control something, does your program send a text back after whatever action is completed? That way at least you know the text arrived.

Yep, that text message cost is high. I was looking at Verizon's IoT cards today, and even their high multi-GB IoT plans had a max limit of 100 texts?!?! Maybe sms uses non LTE-M bands and so you pay a premium for sms use. Ug, always something to learn in this hobby.

LTE board -- yes, the Waveshare board (SIM7600 chip) was true LTE, and it had delays. I think about 25%, several around 30-40 minutes. One or two were around an hour. Those were all on the T-Mobile sim.

Tom mentioned Twilio (2nd page), I've been looking over their webpages here and there, pretty interesting. If I'm understanding their pricing correctly (there are multiple tables) their sms rates look pretty low.

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jimk123
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by jimk123 »

Hi Rob
I am still sending msgs every 30-60 minutes, when it delayed i sent 3 more right in a row so in all fairness it was clustered around a single time yesterday. Then they all arrived at once a few minutes later. So the hologram SIM seems a little better but not sure i can trust it to toggle AC or DC circuits on a marine vessel 100 miles away :(

I am testing right now but the production code i had been using with the older adafruit FONA always sent back a “msg recvd” as an acknowledgement.

When they announced they were shutting down 3g i went out and bought a att negear mifi device , put it on the boat and converted all my old fona devices to use eps32 wifi boards to upload stats on the boat to the adafruit IO cloud service which as been working well, i have 25+ feeds that upload once a minute, and a dashboard to view the data but that is a ‘view only’ of sensors. The uptime is been excellent with that solution. Also that opened up other possibilities since i could now use esp32 feather boards on wifi , one example was arduino offers an alexa library so i put a amazon echo device on the boat and with the esp32 alexa library and i can speak commands like “turn of the main cabin lights” The boat interior is all 12v dc lighting making it easy with the esp32 and qwiic relays to take the alexa commands and toggle relays.

I was using the fona to remotely send real time txt msgs to toggle relays. The simplicity of a simple txt msg for remote control was a big plus for that solution. Now that i have a wifi device on the boat I thought of using the adafruit io service to also receive commands via a dashboard but just seemed like a lot more moving pieces to fail. I never knew how complicated this LTE CATm nbiot jargon could become, lol.

The twilio webhook services for sms seem interesting but seems like another steep learning curve to master and wonder if it too would have the same periodic delays.

My phone is on att and i was wondering if i bought a catm nbiot sim from att if that would help with both the phone and sim7000 on the same network.

This has been so frustrating

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rskup
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by rskup »

Hi Jim, I'm still having zero delays with Hologram. You said you bought a number from hologram...I'm guessing you're sending your texts from your phone to the board? I'm sending texts through Hologram's dashboard. If sending text through the dashboard turns out to be more reliable, is that a solution for you?

btw, your setup on the boat sounds pretty cool.

Like the Adafruit i/o, I've also wondered if using the 7000's http get/post capability would be more reliable, but as you say another learning curve if you stray from the sms simplicity.

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Tkall
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by Tkall »

Gents,
The cost for Hologram sms puts it out of consideration for me. I have been in contact with Particle and Twillio. With Twillio I have had to pry information out of them because the sales reps don't know anything; I am waiting for tech support to write/call back. My concern is that if I need to send an sms to a controller, and I need it to respond, any delay longer than a minute or two is unacceptable.
One thing I can say about the Particle equipment is that it is beautifully made. It is significantly higher in quality, to my eye and touch at least, than the botletics board. I have a feeling it will do exactly what I/we want.

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rskup
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by rskup »

Hi Tom, if I'm understanding Jim correctly, he uses SMS to the boat (or board) to control things, but the Adafruit i/o to receive info from the boat. If sending messages from the Hologram dashboard works for him, there's no charge for messages to the board. They only charge for messages from the board, but he's using the Adafruit i/o for "receiving".

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Tkall
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by Tkall »

Hi Rob,
I have been using Adafruit io to monitor the temperature and humidity in my guitar room. It seems to work well but adds another level of complexity to the system. If I decide to go the data route, I will stop using sms and go all in.
I also tried out using a verizon jetpack which allowed me to connect an esp32 to the wifi over 4g. That worked ok too but I sure would like something more perfectly integrated and not so cobbled together.
I am going all in on the Particle and not going to monkey around with anything else until I hear back from them. If it won't do what I need, then back to the drawing board. But as it looks now, the Particle is a complete solution and will let me do away with the separate cellular breakout and arduino board. Clean baby, clean.

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rskup
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by rskup »

That Particle board does look nice -- LTE, processor, and lots of gpio on one board, slick!

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rskup
 
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Re: incoming SMS messages delayed 15-30 minutes

Post by rskup »

Hey Jim, interesting test today, using the COPS command I was (eventually) able to switch the carrier from ATT to T-Mobile (yep, while using the Hologram sim). I sent 12 texts using the dashboard, about one an hour again, and all 12 arrived without delay. So if using the Hologram dashboard will work for you it's looking pretty solid.

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