If you want to follow the voltage of your sensor in real time you can display the voltage level in a widget. This can be useful if you don't want to get surprised about a low battery level while in the middle of an experiment during which it is impossible to charge your sensor. Or when you are charging it can be good to see the voltage level going up, once the voltage is not increasing anymore (generally about 4.2Volts), you know that your battery is full and you can start using the sensor again.
Below you see a step-by-step explanation of how to display the voltage in a widget.
- Go to Dashboard in the main menu.
- Choose the dashboard you would like to add a widget to.
- Click on the “+ Add widget” button.
- Choose a line chart to visualise battery voltage in real time. If you would like to plot several sensors into one graph choose as well to 'combine sensors in a widget'.
- Choose a sensor or check you want to read in the widget and deselect all fields.
- Click on 'Show advanced fields' and select the option 'Voltage' and click on next.
- Adjust all options as you please, preview your widget on the right. If you’re happy, click on “+ Create”.
In general, for sensors that you can recharge, your battery is empty when it is below 3.2 Volts, and it is charged when the voltage is above 4.2Volts. If you don't see any data in your dashboard from your sensor, expand the selected time frame, it might be that the battery was empty before you realised it and without battery no data is sent.
Since you now can follow the trend of the lines in a widget you will have a better idea of when the next charging moment is going to be, and you can adjust this to your experimental schedule.