TinyGateway WiFi

TinyGateway WiFi Wirepas User Guide

TinyGateway WiFi Wirepas (in the following referred to also as “TinyGateway WiFi” or simply “gateway”) is the new Wirepas Mesh 2.4GHz gateway by BlueUp based on ESP32 module (for WiFi connectivity) and nRF52832 (for Wirepas sink). TinyGateway has a web user interface that allows to:

configure the WiFi network, sink parameters, MQTT connection;
monitor gateway data and active services;
update firmware.

Hardware description

TinyGateway WiFi Wirepas is a low-power and low-cost Wirepas Mesh gateway, with WiFi connectivity, compatible with Wirepas Mesh 2.4GHz network (sink node). TinyGateway WiFi has one button on the side that has the following features:

single press to reboot the gateway (WiFi LED Red when pressing)
5 sec long press to perform the reset of all the configurations, except for Sink Configuration (WiFi LED Red when pressing and then blinks Red after 5 sec)
10 sec long press to perform the factory reset of the gateway (WiFi LED Red when pressing, blinks Red after 5 sec and then blinks Red again after 5 sec).

TinyGateway WiFi has 3 LEDs, placed as depicted in the figure whose functionality is described in table below.

Name	Color	Description
Power-on LED	Green	Gateway status: ON: power-on OFF: power-off
Wirepas LED	Blue	Wirepas Mesh 2.4 GHz stack status: ON: Wirepas stack active OFF: Wirepas stack not active
WiFi LED	RGB	WiFi network status: White ON → gateway is in Access Point (AP) mode Green blinking → gateway is connecting to the WiFi network Green ON → gateway is connected to the WiFi network Red blinking → some malfunctioning of the gateway has been detected Red ON → when pressing the button

First Start

By default, TinyGateway is pre-configured in Access Point mode and must be configured to be able to use it.

In the following section are described the steps to follow at the first start of the gateway to correctly configure it.

Step 1: Power-on

Install and power-on the gateway

At the first start the LEDs configuration will be:

Name	Color	Description
Power-on LED	Green	Gateway status: ON: power-on
Wirepas LED	Blue	Wirepas Mesh 2.4 GHz stack status: OFF: Wirepas stack not active
WiFi LED	White	White blinking → gateway is booting White ON → gateway is in Access Point (AP) mode

This is a transitory configuration that has to be used to connect to the gateway web interface and to configure the gateway.

Step 2: Connect to the gateway

Since the gateway is in Access Point mode, the user can directly connect to it through WiFi connection, using the following credentials:

SSID	TinyGateway WiFi
Password	tinygateway

Step 3. Web interface access

Once connected to the Access Point the user can access the web user interface using a browser at the following address:

URL	http://192.168.4.1
Password	blueup

From this interface the user can configure all the gateway parameters.

The Device interface summarises the gateway information and its runtime working status.

Now proceed with the ~~WiFi~~ network configuration to let the gateway connect to an existing WiFi network.

Gateway Configuration

After you have successfully connected the TinyGateway to your local LAN network, the configuration of the gateway can be performed through the gateway web interface.

To access the gateway web interface, open a browser (Chrome or Firefox) and type the IP address of your gateway.

The configuration section of the web interface lets you configure all the settings of the TinyGateway:

WiFi / Ethernet / LTE network connections
Wirepas Sink parameters
MQTT broker connection
Remote Management
NTP parameters
Password

Network configuration

Multiple network interfaces can be configured, depending on the gateway model.

For TinyGateway WiFi, only the WiFi network interface is available.
For TinyGateway PoE, the Ethernet and the WiFi network interfaces are available.
For TinyGateway LTE, the LTE, Ethernet and WiFi network interfaces are available.

The above network connections are exclusive: when one connection is configured, the other are disabled automatically. The only exception is the WiFi Access Point that could be enabled in parallel to the Ethernet or LTE connection.

WiFi configuration

To configure the gateway WiFi network interface go to Configuration → WiFi.

WiFi Access-Point configuration

To let the gateway act as a WiFi Access Point, select Access point from the Mode select box.

When Mode is set to Access point, the following parameters need to be set up:

SSID: the SSID of the WiFi network created by the gateway
AP Hidden: if selected, the WiFi network will be hidden and only those who already know the SSID and the password will be able to connect to it
AP Timeout: if configured to a non-zero value, the WiFi network will be shutdown after the timer is elapsed
Password: the password of the WiFi network

After pressing the Save button, a confirmation pop-up will appear.

After confirmation, in order to apply the new WiFi configuration, the gateway must be rebooted by pressing button on top right.

WiFi Station configuration

To connect the gateway to an existing WiFi network, select Station from the Mode select box.

When Mode is set to Station, a WiFi network scan can be started by pressing the icon located on the right of the SSID text box. The gateway will now start scanning the available WiFi networks.

When the scan is completed, a list of the available WiFi networks will appear and the user will have to choose the network to connect the gateway to.

After choosing the network, enter the password of the selected network.

The user can choose whether to use DHCP or not for IP address assignment.

If DHCP is disabled, it is necessary to enter IP address, Netmask, Gateway and DNS manually.

After pressing the Save button, a confirmation pop-up will appear.

After confirmation, in order to apply the new WiFi configuration, the gateway must be rebooted by pressing button on top right.

NOTE:

In case the entered WiFi password is wrong, the gateway won't be able to connect to the WiFi network and the web user interface will be unreachable.

In this situation, a factory reset is the only solution to be able to access the gateway interface again.

To perform the factory reset of the gateway, press and hold the button for 5 seconds, the led will emit a red blink to indicate that the gateway will perform a factory reset.

After the factory reset, the gateway will restore its factory default configuration and will be reachable again as an Access Point.

Once the reboot is completed the gateway will try to connect to the user's WiFi network and the LEDs blinking will be as follows:

Name	Color	Description
Power-on LED	Green	Gateway status: ON: power-on
Wirepas LED	Blue	Wirepas Mesh 2.4 GHz stack status: OFF: Wirepas stack not active
WiFi LED	White	White blinking → gateway is booting Green blinking → gateway is connecting to the WiFi network Green ON → gateway is connected to the WiFi network

Sink Configuration

This section explains how to configure the Wirepas Sink settings of the TinyGateway.

To configure the Wirepas Sink settings of the TinyGateway, go to Configuration → Sink. The following Wirepas settings must be configured for the Sink to work correctly:

Stack mode: this parameter defines how the Wirepas Sink interface is managed by the gateway. The following Wirepas Sink interface management modes are available:
- Enabled on WiFi/Eth/LTE network status: the Wirepas Sink interface is enabled when there is an active network connection, i.e., the WiFi interface is connected to a WiFi network or the Ethernet interface is connected to a LAN network. In this configuration, the Wirepas Sink interface will be disabled on the gateway only when the network interface in use gets disconnected, i.e., the WiFi signal is lost or the ethernet cable is unplugged.
- Enabled on MQTT status: the Wirepas Sink interface is enabled when there is an established MQTT connection with the broker. In this configuration, the Wirepas Sink interface will be disabled on the gateway as soon as the gateway loses connection with the MQTT broker.
- Permanently enabled: the Wirepas Sink interface is always enabled
- Permanently disabled: the Wirepas Sink interface is always disabled This parameter could be useful to overcome situations where the gateway loses the connection with the MQTT broker backend for a long time. If the Wirepas Sink interface is kept always active, the Wirepas Sink will continue to receive data from the Wirepas nodes even if the MQTT connection with the backend is not established (i.e., a disconnection has occurred). For short disconnection times, the TinyGateway is able to buffer received Wirepas nodes messages (up to 250 messages could be buffered), but when the buffer is filled, packets will be discarded and messages will be lost. In such cases, using one of the first two stack management mode is recommended, as the gateway will turn off the Wirepas Sink interface if the backend connection gets dropped and the Wirepas network will re-organize to send data to another Sink.
Node address: the Wirepas Sink node address
Node role: TinyGateway could act as both a Wirepas Sink or a Wirepas Anchor.
- if the gateway should act as a Wirepas Sink choose CSMA-CA Sink.
- if the gateway should act as a Wirepas Anchor choose CSMA-CA Router.
Network address: the Wirepas Sink network address in decimal format. If the address is in hexadecimal, it must be converted into decimal, ensuring it is in big-endian format. If the address is provided in litte-endian, the byte order must be reversed before conversion into decimal.
Network channel: the Wirepas Sink network channel
Sink cost: leave to the default value
Cipher Key: the Wirepas Sink network chipher key
Authentication Key: the Wirepas Sink network authentication key