Arduino Serial Plotter Alternatives

Posted By admin On 24.05.21

Serial Plotter In Arduino
Arduino Serial Plotter Alternatives

Web Serial Plotter brings Serial Plotter on Arduino IDE to web browser, which can be accessed from mobile devices. It can be customized.

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Components and supplies

Arduino UNO

Arduino Uno or Mega

PHPoC WiFi Shield 2 for Arduino

PHPoC [WiFi] Shield R2 OR PHPoC [WiFi] Shield R1 with upgrade firmware to v1.5.0 (or higher)

About this project

In this case you will be using the classic Arduino editor, which comes with a tool to automatically graph the data. Using the code from the previous experiment, simply go to the editor and instead of opening the serial port monitor, you will open the Serial Plotter tool available at the Tools menu of the editor.

Web Serial Plotter is one of the built-in embedded web apps in PHPoC [WiFi] Shield.

Web Serial Plotter is similar to Serial Plotter on Arduino IDE, except for the following points:

Web Serial Plotter is accessed on web browser through Internet (Serial Plotter is accessed on Arduino IDE through USB cable).
Web Serial Plotter can be accessed from any OS (Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux...) without any installation.
Web Serial Plotter is easily customizable via a setting page.

This tutorial shows how to use Web Serial Plotter.

Demonstration

Circuit

Stack PHPoC Shield or PHPoC WiFi Shield on Arduino Uno or Mega

How It Works

How Serial Plotter works

Serial Plotter is a tool of Arduino IDE. This tool reads data that is sent by Arduino through serial port, and then visualize the data.

How Web Serial Plotter Works

Web Serial Plotter is a built-in web app, which is stored in PHPoC [WiFi] Shield. When users access this web app in web browser, a WebSocket connection is created between web browser and PHPoC [WiFi] Shield. PHPoC [WiFi] Shield read data that is sent by Arduino through serial port, and then send the data to web app through WebSocket connection. Web app visualize the data

Serial Plotter vs Web Serial Plotter

The Commons

Visualize data that is sent by Arduino through Serial.

The Differences

Web Serial Plotter's functionalities are similar to Serial Plotter's functionalities. Especially, Web Serial Plotter has the following advantages:

Can be accessed via Internet. There is no limit about distance.
Run on any platform that has a web browser (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS...). Therefore, data can be plotted on mobile devices.
Custommable via the setting page. Web Serial Plotter can be customized to become graph for any sensors. (See 'Web Customization' part)

You can learn more about Arduino Serial Plotter here

Network Setup

This part is needed only for the first use.

1. If Ethernet is used:In case of using PHPoC Shield (P4S-348), you have two options to connect to network: Ethernet or WiFi.If using Ethernet, please follow this instruction to connect the shield to Ethernet.

2. If WiFi is used: WiFi is available in both P4S-347 and P4S-348. Please follow:

This instruction to access the setup page.
This instruction if you want to connect shield to WLAN router or Access Point (AP)
This instruction if you want to operate shield as Access Point (AP)

How To

Run Arduino IDE.
Navigate to Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries

Search 'PHPoC' on search bar of the Library Manager.

Select the PHPoC library and press the [Install] button.

Restart Arduino IDE for the next step.
Open 'WebSerialPlotter' example on Arduino IDE

The line-by-line explanation of code is presented inside the code.
Compile the example code and upload to Arduino
Open a web browser from PC, smartphone or tablet.
Type IP address of PHPoC [WiFi] Shield on address bar. If you do not know IP address of PHPoC [WiFi] Shield, see this instruction.
Web browser shows web page that displays the list of web app.
Click Web Serial Plotter icon. (You can also access directly by typing: ip_address/serial_plotter.php).

Click 'Connect' button and see the data is plotted.

Data is plotted.

If you are connecting Arduino to Arduino IDE, you can open Serial Plotter by navigating to 'Tools' -> 'Serial Plotter' on Arduino IDE.Graph is the same as Web Serial Plotter.

Serial Plotter In Arduino

Web Customization

The web app has been created and pre-load to PHPoC [WiFi] Shield. User does not need to write the web code. User just needs to write Arduino code based on the Arduino example. However, user can modify user interface of web app via a setting page.

Customizable Parameters:

Plotter Area Size: Fixed Size (default) of Full Screen. In case of Fixed Size: Width:settable value,Height:settable value.
Max Sample:settable value. This is the number of sample plotted.
Y-Axis Auto Scale:Auto Scale (default) or Fixed. In case of Fixed: Y-Fixed Min Bound: settable value, Y-Fixed Max Bound: settable value.
X-Axis Title:Settable String.
Y-Axis Title:Settable String.

How To

Click 'Setup' on Web App

It shows setup page. The below is default setting.

Change setting parameters as you want. The below is an example.

Back to Web App, we can see the changes (portrait and landscape)

References

Code

Author

phpoc_man

20 projects
316 followers

Published on

November 15, 2018

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View Arduino Serial Monitor and Serial Plotter on a smartphone over WiFi without installing any mobile application.

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Components and supplies

About this project

If you are new to Arduino, you can get started with Arduino Tutorials for newbie.

Problem

Serial Monitor and Serial Plotter tool on IDE are used not only for debugging but also for monitoring.It is inconvenient to use these tool for monitoring because :

Available on PC only. => NOT mobility
MUST connect PC to Arduino via USB to Serial cable => short distance

Solution

Using Web Serial Monitor and Web Serial Plotter:

Available on any PC, Smart Phone and Tablet, as long as web browser is available => mobility
Connect via WiFi => unlimited distance (via Internet)
NOT required installing any software/app

How To

Stack PHPoC Shield 2 or PHPoC WiFi Shield 2 on Arduino
Install Arduino library for this shield
Upload WebSerialPlotter example to Arduino
Open Web Browser and type IP address of PHPoC Shield. It looks like below

Click 'Web Serial Monitor' and 'Web Serial Plotter' one by one, we will see Serial Monitor and Serial Plotter on mobile phone as below

More detail about Web Serial Monitor and Web Serial Plotter.

The Best Arduino Starter Kit for Beginner

See The Best Arduino Kit for Beginners

Function References

Code

Author