Newbie Setup in garage outside of Local Network

General
1

I am thinking about purchasing a BrewPi, my concerns are; do I need to be on a local network for this to work?

I have a garage that is separate from the house and is outside of my local network. Can I setup the BrewPi and take advantage of the multi step temperature features for which it was designed? Can I then connect it to my network later (bringing it in the house) and then connecting to network and retrieve the data?

Sorry if this seems like a daft question, but sometimes you have to ask.

Thanks

Duncan

2

Duncan,

Do you not have a WiFi network the RPi could connect to?

Cheers,
-Stephen

3

Unfortunately the garage is not connected to the house or near the wifi connection. It’s out of the wifi range.

4

Well that being the device will datalog as long as it has power. You can bring it in and boot and review the data, but you would need to make sure you are either done fermenting else you have a couple of problems to overcome.

  1. You will have gaps in the data for the time spent away from the BPi
  2. You will need to make sure the BPi itself has a dedicated power supply since most folks power it via the USB connection.

Are you such a great distance that a range extender will not carry the WiFi signal? I would say that would be a better route to go if possible since not having the web interface accessible makes using the device a bit more complex.

Hawking makes some really good range extenders that will cover a pretty great distance and they aren’t super $$.

Cheers,
-Stephen

5

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for the detailed reply, The garage about 40 metres away from the WIFI network. I’ll have a look at the WIFI range extenders. At the moment I have an STC 1000 doing the job and was looking to be a bit more ‘geeky’.

Thanks

Duncan

6

Check this guy out. I had the older model of this and it was rock solid.

http://hawkingtech.com/products/hi-gain_wireless_networking/high_power_wi-fi_solutions/hwren2.html

7

Cheers I’ll have a look!

8

Duncan, Do Not use a range extender. They are unreliable and cut your bandwidth in half. Rather I would buy a unidirectional AP and set it up pointed at the garage. Ubiquti makes several very affordable models. A nano station will work great and is only about $50 US. I am a certified CWNA and I never recommend range extenders.

9

You can have an access point (router) in the garage to provide local wifi, which is just not connected to the Internet. Or you could add a display and keyboard / mouse to the Raspberry Pi. The BrewPi Spark and pi connect via USB.

You’ll just have to take it inside the house for updates.

10

Thanks Beerwoz, I’ll definitely look into that.

And thank you Elco. The latter option was what I was original thinking, I love the idea of step fermentation (love of the wheat beers). Taking it inside to the house for updates would be fine with me.

Thanks everyone!

11

Hi DuncanT,
Thanks for your post. I have the very same problem. My brewshed is a Faraday cage and has no network signal.
I have connected a monitor and keyboard to my raspberry Pi in my shed.
I can’t seem to access the brewpi controller. It keeps looking for internet access.

Did you have this problem?

Many thanks,

Lozbrewer

12

What do you mean by that? Is the BrewPi Spark connected via USB?

Do you go to http://127.0.0.1 to access the web interface?

13

If you have power out there, powerline adapters may be an option.

14

Hi Elco,
That was all it was. Sorry for such a stupid question.

Thank you. All working well now.

I guess being lost is just not knowing where you are.

Cheers,

Lozbrewer

15

Is it different now with the Spark based Brewpi? I would love to leave only the Brewpi in the basement during fermentation. Once finished, take it back to office, connect to Rasperry Pi to see the data.

Best would be to configure first using Rasperry Pi and to have a “start” button to launch the fermentation profile directly on the Brew Pi :wink:

16

I’ll second the idea of using a powerline adapter. It basically extends your LAN via your house electrical system. You can have a LAN connection anywhere you have an outlet.

See this Amazon link for a bunch of different ones you can try:

Powerline adapters on Amazon