Problems with SensorTag

Hi Marcello,

Sounds weird. Have you updated to iOS v6.1 or which version are you running on?

It could also be that the battery is poor/dead?

Best Regards

Hi Nick,

I haven't updated to 6.1 yet, i'm running 6.0.1.

I haven't tried changing the battery, it's the one that came with the tag box.
i'll try a new one.

Is there a way to do a hard reset without disassembling the unit?

Thanks for your asnwer.

Marcello

Hi Marcello,

Marcello Corno said:

Is there a way to do a hard reset without disassembling the unit?

No, unfortunately not. One "trick" you can do without removing battery is to simply lift the battery off the PCB Ground pad briefly which can be done with a nail or other object.

Best Regards

Hi,

I'm seeing pretty much the same issues as Marcello.  It worked one time, but not since.

The iPhone (iOS 6.0.2) finds and connects to the sensortag (but without the icon).

When you tap that line to see the sensor data, it reports "No profiles or sensors enabled..."

Removing the battery, resetting the iPhone does not correct this issue.

In summary, it talks to the iPhone (connects), but won't find the sensors.

Is there a setup step that I am missing?

This is a new unit just received yesterday after being back order for a long while.

Any thoughts of things to try?

John Miller

Hi all,

I had the usual problem as Marcello ( "No profiles or sensors enabled..." ) and I've tried the same operations to recover the sensor communication.

I've disassembled the battery an but it back. Now is running as before. I'm actually trying if the communication is kept active ... ( yes for now after 10 min ... )

Federico

I received two SensorTags this afternoon and have had the "No profiles or sensors enabled" message from each of them, one at a time and both at once. Disconnecting the battery for several seconds seems to fix the problem, at least temporarily.  In addition to the "No profiles" message, I also noticed that the SensorTag icon that is normally to the left of "TI BLE SensorTag disappears.  In at least one instance, it has been replaced by a question mark icon:

Normal operation prior to connection:

Both devices failed, no SensorTag icon, one with question mark icon:

Both devices failed, no SensorTag icon, no question mark icon:

I had originally thought that exercising the Simple Keys Service might be causing the problem but I have reproduced the problem on both devices without ever touching the key switches.

Another thing I noticed is that the X and Y axes appear to be swapped for the accelerometer, at least relative to the axis diagram.  For instance, with the SensorTag sitting on its base (with the keychain tab uppermost), it displays +1.0 G for the X axis while the diagram implies it should be Y:

Hi David,

We've seen this issues before and it's unfortunately a feature in iOS/core Bluetooth. We tried to find workarounds around this issue, but so far we haven't found a solution.

The mitigation technique is to turn on and off Bluetooth on the iDevice.

I agree that the accelerometer axis seems to have been swapped, we fix that with the next update , thanks for letting us know.

BTW: instead of taking in and out the battery to reset the SensorTag you may push the side button for 5 seconds to do a reset. 

Hi Delete,

restarting the bluetooth stack on the device (or even rebooting it) doesn't always solve the problem, sometimes it still hangs up.

Since my last post i upgraded my phone to iOS6.1 as suggested by Nick L but my SensorTag seems to be completely dead (i hope from a dead battery) so i haven't been able to test it again. As soon as i manage to find a replacement battery i'll test it again on my phone and, possibly, on my macbook air.

In the meanwhile, what's the expected "stand by" life of a battery cell?
Unless the above problem is a broken unit mine drained in 3/4 days of very light use (i'd say 15 minutes of active use tops).

Hi Marcello,

This is strange, restarting Bluetooth and restarting the app has always solved the issue at my end, but we'll investigate further at our end as well.

We're working on a battery lifetime calculator in the app, and we hope to have it ready by the nest release. I've used mine for a very long time without changing the battery, but using the gyroscope actively is around 6mA and then you would burn out a 230mA/h CR2032 battery quite fast.

delete

Just for completeness: I am running iOS 6.1 on an iPhone 4S with version 2.1 of the SensorTag app. I have two SensorTag units.  Both PCBs are labeled "Rev. 1.3" on the silkscreen.  Each PCB also has a sticker with "1.3" on the first line and "1252" on the second line.  Each device identifies its FW rev as "1.0 (Dec 10 2012)" so either the 1.3 is just a hardware version or perhaps it is the version of the BLE stack.  The System IDs of the two devices are different from each other and different from the UUIDs displayed for each device on the initial view in the SensorTag app (listed under "Connected devices" or "New devices found").

Resetting the iOS Bluetooth stack by turning Bluetooth off and back on via the Settings app does not seem to help.  Killing and restarting the SensorTag app seems to be more effective more often.

I, too, have gotten one of my devices into a couple of states where it appears completely dead, once with no LEDs at all and once with D1 at presumably full brightness (i.e., no flashing whatsoever).  Clicking the button on the side didn't help in either case--but that was before you told us about the 5-second reset so I didn't know to hold the button down.  Yes, I have been careful to avoid static discharge.

Holding the side button for 5 seconds does seem to do something but it doesn't appear to be a complete reset, at least not always.  It seems to simply restart the advertising process.  One time after doing this I was able to reconnect to the SensorTag and see the view with the all sensor states but the keys wouldn't work and only the temperature sensors appeared to be updating--but with questionable data (holding my hand in front of the IR temp sensor kept yielding 26 or 27 C instead of rising well above 30 as it was earlier).  All sensors were enabled in the Profile view; indeed, as I understand it, if a sensor is off in the Profile view, the app doesn't display it at all in the sensor reading view; all sensors were displayed at the time.

As far as the accelerometer axis issue goes, I think it is simply the icon being misleading. After a little more experimenting, I believe the axes are indeed correct if the SensorTag is placed on its long flat side (the one with the switch) as opposed to standing upright.  In that orientation, it shows -1.0 G for Y, as expected due to gravity.  The only thing that needs fixing is the icon in the app.

I want to add another +1 to suffering this problem. I have had the SensorTag lock up fairly frequently (5-6 times today) while using both the SensorTag iOS app and my own app.

This lock up can occur while sensor data is being read. The SensorTag will suddenly disconnect with all LEDs off. Pressing the side button has no effect, no LEDs will come on, until the battery is removed and replaced.

Holding the side button for 5 seconds has had no effect whenever I've tried it. Neither has switching Bluetooth off/on on the iOS device.

I have been testing with an iPhone 5 running iOS 6.0. 

If there's any more information or any specific testing I can do to help track down this issue, just shout.

Cheers, Chris

Thank you for this valuable feedback.

We're trying to reproduce the issues and find the root cause of this issue, by the way is there a consistent way to reproduce the error or is it randomly?

I'll update you on this thread once we have found a solution. Then we'll update the app so you can download the new FW using the Over-the-Air-Download functionality. 

I'm sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused.

Best regards

Espen

Thanks for the update.

I have been trying to determine a pattern to the lockups, or a way to reproduce them, but I haven't been able to unfortunately. They appear to occur randomly, from my experience so far.

Cheers,

Chris

Hi Everyone,

My sensor tag + iPhones 4S ended up having this issue as well. I tried forcing the app to shutdown, restarting the phone, turning the phone and sensor tag off/on, those did not seem to work. Last I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app and that worked. I am not entirely sure what steps taken with the tag caused the issue in the first place. But hopefully this might help someone else who is having trouble with the tag/app. I am taking note of what I am doing with the app/tag now so if I run into the issue again Ill post and let you know what I find.

For any that are interested what it looks like I was able to find is that after initially connecting to the iPhone with the sensor tag it runs normally and will output transmitted sensor data, which is good. After a few minutes somehow my connection between the sensor/phone either timed out or the connection was lost. When trying to reconnect the sensor and the phone I am getting the error conditions described above (missing icon/question mark). However, if I immediately try to connect the tag another iOS device, the tag starts working again with the other device. I was not able to reconnect again to the original iOS device without reinstalling the app. I tested this on both iPhone 4s and iPhone 5, if anyone sees something different or finds another workaround it may be useful as well. Overall, this seems to confirm that the issue is on the iPhone/App side as suggested by Espen above. I hope this helps.

Hi all, i finally managed to buy a new set of battery (i didn't image that finding a CR2030 cell could be so hard! ;)) and i did some other tests.

Basically i can say that while i haven't found a way to reproduce the issue i didn't find a way to make it work either: the issues always come up, sooner or later.
I simply can't use the sensorTag reliably. The one thing i noticed that regularly creates problems is lowering the acceleration sensor update time to 100ms.

Things actually got worse because now the tag accelleration sensor never works: even when the other sensors give readings it shows basic readings and never updates.

I tried connecting a freshly reset sensorTag to my MacBook Air and while it showed up on the device selection screen it then got stuck on the next step: the app showed the temperature reading screen with no values and the cycling "scanning for services" text. i tried relaunching the app and turning bluetooth on and off but to no avail.

one thing i noticed then is that while the sticker on my sensor tag says V1.3 the firmware is actually reported as 1.0 (10 dec 2012) by the app (see screenshot).

Hello Marcello,

I'm sorry to hear that you have such problems with the SensorTag. First of all the revision number on the FW is the FW revision number, the number you see on the PCB is the revision number on the HW.

We have experienced some reliability issues with the SensorTag communication with iOS products and we're working on finding a solution to the problem. However there should be reason why the acceleromter should stop working (other than ESD issues). Could you try to update the FW with the FW that is included in the App? 

Select "profiles" in the bottom right corner of the app, select "TI OAD Profile", then select upload image, choose internal image and then select SensorTagImgB.bin and the upload process should start.

ImgA and ImgB are equal just different flash locations, you are not allowed to select the image which would override the image that is currently in use.

Please note that the upload process will take approximately 3 minutes, this is due to the connection interval set up from the iOS device.

Best regards,

delete

Hi Delete,

i tried reflashing the firmware as suggested and it worked.

for about 20 seconds: after the update i was able to connect to the tag, checked the sensors all worked, got into the profiles menu and lowered the accelleration sensore update time to 100ms. the tag worked at the faster rate for about 2 seconds, then dropped the connection and now pressing the sync button doesn't do anything, LED stays dead.

the device no longer shows up on the app selection page.

I reported earlier that I was also seeing similar problems to what Marcello was experiencing with my new Sensortag.

After some more experimentation, I believe there is excessive current draw problem with this unit.

The first battery only lasted a short while (less than one day - as previously reported).  After the battery has been removed for a while, you can see that its voltage recovers to over 3V, but when reinserted, it drops over the next few minutes to the 2.8V range, at which time the unit quits working again.  I could repeat this with a second, fresh battery.

This explains why removing the battery seems to correct the problem for a while, but leaving it in and resetting with the side button for 5 seconds doesn't.  This explanation would cover several of the problems described on this thread, but not all.  We may have more than one issue here.

Are all units that fail from the same batch?  Mine was ordered in November and arrived late January.

Are these eval units tested for current draw after their assembly? 

John Miller

Hi John,

John Miller said:

After some more experimentation, I believe there is excessive current draw problem with this unit.

Well, it's a problem if you enable all sensors and continuously obtain data from them :) The average current draw for a busy system might actually drain the battery rather quickly. Bluetooth low energy is targeting solutions with sensor applications, that's true; Although running 5 sensors at full speed on a single coin cell might not be a good idea over time...

Best Regards

Hi Nick,

You make a great point.  Thanks for the quick reply.

I guess I had assumed that by default this unit was setup to safely run off of its included coin cell.  My bad.

Its unfortunate that the unit always starts with all sensors enabled, even if they were turned off previously.

Is there a good summary for the current used by each sensor in this particular design and running the latest firmware?

Thanks again,

John

Nick L said:

Hi John,

After some more experimentation, I believe there is excessive current draw problem with this unit.

Well, it's a problem if you enable all sensors and continuously obtain data from them :) The average current draw for a busy system might actually drain the battery rather quickly. Bluetooth low energy is targeting solutions with sensor applications, that's true; Although running 5 sensors at full speed on a single coin cell might not be a good idea over time...

[/quote]

Nick,

What is your experience with the 'shelf-life' of the sensor tag? I have experienced the drained battery as well, with the tag just sitting on the desk, nothing connected to it.

Now I have replaced the battery and I'll see how much idle time I get out of it.

Hi all,

First of all I must thank you all for the inputs, we've now worked hard on solving the problems with the SensorTag and we've released a new version of the firmware 4353.SensorTag101.zip. This firmware version should sort out the problems you have been reporting. You might still experience that the icon is not displayed correctly, this may happen if the side button is pushed while the SensorTag is connecting to the app. If you expereince this please just click 'Rescan Devices' once more.

The zip folder contains images for over the air download (OAD) from the app and a hex image if you have a CC-Debugger. Explanation on how to use the OAD features can be found here: http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/SensorTag_User_Guide#OAD_.28Over-the-Air_Download.29_Service. To use an internal image just upload the ...ImgA and ...ImgB bin files to your iDevice either via iTunes or send it to yourself in an e-mail and the app should find them.

Best regards,

delete

deleted post

Hi Sign Bit,

Sign Bit said:

What is your experience with the 'shelf-life' of the sensor tag?

I've had my "golden" SensorTag for a couple of months now, using it now and then for short demonstrations (~20 min).. I still run on battery out of box.

I recommend you do the upgrade as Mr Delete suggests.

Best Regards

What is the white residue on the -ve terminal for the battery? Is there a problem with connection to the battery?

Soch said:

What is the white residue on the -ve terminal for the battery? Is there a problem with connection to the battery?

I got the white residue too. And the battery is dead - now, on a second battery it seems to be holding up.

Hi,

The white residue is left over from flux which is in the solder paste. Due to the battery holder it's difficult to properly clean the area underneath the battery connector. All SensorTags have been tested with a battery so any left overs on the connector itself shall have been removed.

Best regards

delete

Can't do OTA installation as the SensorTag App no longer show  the TI OAD Profile under profiles section. 

And the side button hold for 5 sec doesn't reset the sensortag.

Update: On restarting the iPad, was able to make the SensorTag app work!!! The profiles are showing. Proceding to the installation of the new firmware. Can you please describe what the firmware A & B are? Are we supposed to install both in a sequence or only the B one?

Hello,

The reset functionality is implemented on the latest version, i.e. the one that is mentioned earlier in this post, have you updated the SensorTag FW with the latest FW?

The app will show the OAD profile if it detects that the SensorTag has OAD implemented, if it's not detected it will not show TI OAD profile. 

delete

Hi, I have the same problem, I'm using the sensortag connected to a PC with a Java application with BLED112 dongle from Bluegiga.

This lock up can occur while sensor data is being read. The SensorTag will suddenly disconnect with all LEDs off. Pressing the side button has no effect, no LEDs will come on, until the battery is removed and replaced. On the sensortag side the only sensor connected was the SHT21.

the connection was made with the following parameters:

bgapi.send_gap_connect_direct(BDAddr.fromString(d.getAddress()), 0, interval_min, interval_max, latency,timeout);

the interval_min and interval_max =60;

the latency=100;

the ,timeout=0;

the sensor was activated with:

bgapi.send_attclient_write_command(connection, 0x3C, new byte[]{0x01});

and the advertising with:

 bgapi.send_attclient_write_command(connection, 0x39, new byte[]{0x01, 0x00});

Sometimes it takes more than 24h to be able to reconnect the sensor?

Help will be appreciated.

Regards

Sérgio

Update, its a lock up, not a current question because even after connecting with external power it stays lock

Hi Sérgio and Marcello,

Did you try to do the changes that I explained in this post on Feb 7?

As explained in that post we did unfortunately have a bug in a FW release of the SensorTag, however that bug should have been fixed by now.

BR

Delete

Can any one tell me if it's possible to program the txpower of the sensortag using the atributes handler?

Hello Sergio,

with the current handles it is not possible to change the TX power.

For what application would you need that option, I'm just curious as we might want to add that functionality?

BR

Delete

I'm testing the power consumption over distance and also trying to figure  how to relate RSSI values to dBm power.

Hi delete,

I just wanted to confirm that I uploaded the Feb 7 firmware to the SensorTag and haven't had any stability/freezing issues. It looks good so far. Thanks for posting the update.

Cheers,

Chris

Hi

I just got my second SensorTag and had the same connectivity issues. Did not see these issues with my first Unit, which is still running perfectly on FW 1.0. Updating the second SensorTag to 1.01 helped to solve the issues

BUT...

...now that i can properly connect thanks to FW 1.01,  the IR Temperature is showing a constant value of 280.5 deg C; Ambient is fine at 23 deg C.

[edit: using the native TI SensorTag App, first read after stopping and restarting IR Temp service looks ok at 25degC all following reads then show 280.5)

Given that the specs for the TMP006 list a range of -40 -- 125deg C something must be wrong here.

Anyone has a hint on that?

Thanks!

Cheers,

Peter

Hi TI,

Firstly, thanks for creating the SensorTag and making it available to the community at a great price point!

I am experiencing the same problems with stability that other users have reported here on the forum. I am not using the patched firmware (flash files) published here on the forum February 7 but building my own using the firmware (source code) available through the BLE-stack v1.3 package (released in December last year). It works great with the exception for the connectivity issues reported in this forum.

The Feb 7 firmware appears to work, but only contains the flash files so I can't edit it. Since many of us are looking at the SensorTag as a great tool for innovation and building our concepts on top of it, we would like to get the bugfixed source files to include in our BLE-stack projects. Can you please make the updated source files available to us?

Many thanks,

Tom

Please find updated SensorTag software in the newly released v1.3.1 SDK: www.ti.com/blestack.

Hi delete

I'm having the same issues on my SensorTags as described in this thread. (After a few minutes the sensor stops working, reset with removal of battery is required.) My SensorTags shipped with FW rev. 1.0 (Dec 10 2012). I've tried tho OAD download (iPad) of the 1.01 firmware, but this is not successful. (IPad sows progress bar but no LED feedback on SensorTag and no change of the firmware version when I reconnect to the SensorTag with the iPad.)

Is FW 1.0 actually able to perform an OAD?

If yes, what am I doing wrong?

If no, I guess I have to get a CC-Debugger, correct?

Thanks,

Sebastian

Hi Sebastian,

the first batch of SensorTags did unfortunately not have the OAD functionality enabled. 

Could you advice on what you mean by I've tried to OAD but it was not successful?

The FW will either have support for OAD or not have support for OAD, to check this go into profiles in the app and check if there is a profile called "TI OAD Profile".

/delete

Hi delete

Thanks for your response. This is what I did:

Copy the 4353.SensorTag101.zip contents (3 files, from this thread) via iTunes to the iPad

Open App > Advanced Mode, click side button on SensorTag > Connect to SensorTag > Enter details Page with sensor data (works fine) > Profiles > Enable TI OAD Profile > Confirm Box with OK > Click "Upload FW Image" > Click "Shared Files" > SensorTagA.bin (SensorTagB.bin doesn't work) > Wait 3 minutes for the progress bar to finish > Confirm with "OK".

During that time the SensorTag shows no reaction. On the wiki site there is a comment, that the SensorTag will flash a LED a few seconds after the firmware update is finished. However my two SensorTags don't flash a LED.

When I reconnect the app to the SensorTag it still shows the old firmware version 1.0 (Dec 10 2012).

This is what I mean by the OAD was not successful. :)

From your comment I assume that it should actually work since the App allows me to switch on the OAD Profile. Am I missing an important step or detail?

Sebastian

Hi Sebastian,

thank your for explaining. This is actually an error that we saw the last few days as well - we've managed to add an old image to the app.

We are doing a major upgrade which has been submitted to Apple and will be available next week in AppStore - approval time is approximately a week.

SensorTagA and SensorTagB is two identical images with different flash location, so if you're not allowed to load SensorTagB that means that you already are using an image that is located in position B in the flash.

I've attached two new images (needs to be unzipped) which you can upload (the same image as we will use in the upcoming app), if you store this on your iDevice you should find them under shared files.

Please let me know if it solves your problem.

5125.SensorTagImg.zip

Hi delete

I tried the files (1.04) you supplied on two tags with the same procedure and result as last time. (The iApp still reports 1.0 Dec 10 2012). I'm able to flash into A only, on both SensorTags. To me it seems like the switch from B to A isn't written into the flash, therefore B still boots up. (I hope I understood the 2 firmware concept correctly.)

If I'vre read correctly, you're saying that the current iApp contains an old (i.e. 1.00) firmware. Is there a bug in the iApp itself as well?

I guess I will wait for the new iApp version to appear in the AppStore and then retry flashing the SensorTag.

Sebastian

Hi Sebastian,

first of all there is nothing wrong with the app itself, it was just old image that was included into the app.

I tried to do the same as you and I had the same experience, but when I re-did the operation it worked. Instead of watching for the message in the app stating that the upgrade is OK, look at the LED when the OAD upgrade is close to 100%. If the upgrade was successful the LED will blink, if not you may have to do it again. The FW revision should be stamped July

I did not go through iTunes but included it into the app from my e-mail account, by pressing and holding the attached images and including it to the app. Then they appear in the shared files folder in the SensorTag app. The FW revision should be 1.4 (Jul 12 2013)

I hope this works for you as well.

delete

Hi delete

I tried the OAD about 5-6 times in a row (iTunes) yesterday. And now once more three times with your images sent to the iPad by E-Mail. Unfortunatelly always with the same outcome that the sensortag did not update. Maybe there is a different behavior vor iOS version or iPhone and iPad? (I'm using an iPad Model A1430.)

[edit] I've now tried twice with an iPhone 4s, too [/edit]

I guess I will order a CC Debugger and flash my tags the old fashioned way or try to find someone with an iPhone :)

Best regards

Sebastian

Hi,

This is very strange as the app should be identical for iPhone and iPad, the only difference might be how the allocate time slots for BLE (which we don't have any control over). I'll try to get hold of an iPad and test if I'm able to reproduce the features you're observing. 

Could you just try with a pair of fresh batteries to just make sure that you're not experiencing that the batteries are drained during OAD.

I'm sorry for the inconveniences this has caused, implementing OAD was supposed to omit the CC Debugger.

BR

delete

Hi delete

Since it isn't working on the iPhone either, it has an identical behaviour for me. :)

The battery I used is brand new (this was one of my initial thoughts when the devices crashed several times, so I replaced it).

For the CC-Debugger I will need the 1.4 firmware in *.hex. (The file for v1.4 you supplied in this thread contains the OAD *.bin only.)

Would you mind updating the wiki page with the new firmware version?

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/SensorTag_Firmware

Thanks

Sebastian

Hi Sebastian,

please see the 1.4 in hex attached: 7522.SensorTagOadImgA_v1-04.zip

Once again I'm sorry for all the inconvenience this may have caused.

delete

Hi delete

I just wanted to report back, that the update with the CC-Debugger worked nicely. I'm now running on 1.04.

Unfortunately it didn't solve the crashes I'm experiencing. I'm connecting to the SensorTag using gatttool from bluez 4.101 (Ubuntu 13.04) and the Python skript by Michael Saunby (or my own Python skript). To exclude any power related issues, I replaced the battery with two LR14 batteries (7800 mAH).

After some time (10-30 Minutes), the gatt server on the SensorTags seems to crash. It doesn't respond to the gatttool any more (connection is dropped and connection attempts time out). The only way to get it back working is replacing the battery on the SensorTags. (Resetting the SensorTag using the connection button doesn't work either.)

Sebastian