Will NodeMCU/ESP8266 reliably send data to Thingspeak for months, without my intervention, reboots etc ?

I've just installed a NodeMCU for transmitting temperature data to Thingspeak & am very impressed.

However, will it do this reliably & continuously for months without my intervention ? I often go away on holiday for a few months and want something that doesn't stop at random.

The Node transmits temperature data, then goes into deep sleep for 3 minutes and then repeats the process.

I've had a Raspberry Pi sending data to PrivateEyePi for several years. However, this drops out at random every few weeks and needs a reboot. To fix that, I have script which reboots the Pi every 30 minutes and a plug in timer to reboot it every 24h.

Will I need any similar set up to ensure my node MCU doesn't drop out ? Or do these usually work ?

[Håkon Dahle]

Based on my experience: Yes. My ESP8266 systems reliably run for 6 months or more, posting to Thingspeak every 5 minutes. They never reboot. To understand the uptime of the ESP8266 devices, the ESP8266 posts its uptime in one of the "Fields" to Thingspeak, allowing me to track the uptime of every box. In one of my locations the WiFi is unreliable/weak, but the ESP reconnects to WiFi without user intervention.

[Jeff]

Thank you.

I just had my first errors today, after 3 weeks of use, several hours of data was missing, when my set up normally updates every 3 minutes.

One channel was perfectly OK.

The other channel has been receiving data from two Node MCUs, one Node MCU in fields 1~5 and the other in fields 6~8. This channel missed approx 3 hours data from one Node MCU and then later missed data from the other one. I tried refreshing & downloading the data, but still missing.

I've now moved them onto separate channels`. I think there's some rule about not being able to write more frequently than 15 seconds, so presumably this could cause problems if 2 devices write to one channel ? No idea if that is the problem.

I kind of hope it works tonight, as I want to log the temperature of the water pipes in the loft, with freezing forecast.

[Cobus van Rooyen]

Awesome, thanks Jeff. Your post helped me - I wrote < 15 seconds apart

[Jeff]

Update:

I've had 3 node MCUs uploading data to Thingspeak since November (4.5 months), very reliably.

None of them have stopped uploading. One of the 3 had a plug in timer to reboot it daily, but the other two were just left running.

This is more reliable than my Raspberry Pi solution. Also, Thingspeak us much easier to set up.

Incidentally, in addition to the Raspberry Pi temperature logging, I had a Raspberry Pi with a security camera uploading images to google. This worked for about 3 months, then just stopped in mid Feb. When I returned from holiday a couple of weeks later, it worked fine after a reboot.

So any Raspberry Pi application I use for logging or security will have a plug in timer for rebooting from now on.

So far, the node MCU is reliable and does not need this.

[Farmacia INP]

Hola, he trabajado con NodemCu por dos años sin problema hasta el sabado pasado, tengo 5 usuarios y 7 canales con 10 nodemcu y el sabado todos dejaron de trasmitir, no tengo respuesta en la pagina, alguien sabe de esto?

Answer 1

[Jeff]

Replying to my own thread, I've been runing ESP8266s sending data since late Nov 2019. The reliability is exceptional. Whilst Raspberry Pi devices will periodically crash, the ESP8266s just keep running and running.

Answer 2

[Vinod]

It's difficult to comment on the reliability of your NodeMCU device with your code running on it without knowing it. I'd say you're in a better position to make a call about the reliability of the device and the code.

ThingSpeak has multiple users collecting data on the platform for many years reliably. Some of these channels are updated by Arduino like devices powered from a wall socket and we can correlate the times when the device send data to when it was unplugged from the wall, or the WiFi network the device was connected to went down.

[Jeff]

I was hoping for practical advice from people who have had or tried to have devices running continuously for months.

If we take the Raspberry Pi "Private Eye Pi" comparison, these can run for many weeks, then drop out at random. None of the contributors on that forum have a fix. I was wondering if the Node MCU users have similar experience.

[Vinod]

Personally speaking, I've had an ESP8266 that's been sending data for a couple of years now. It's been super reliable based on the data I see. The code on the device is deliberately simple, and, I have it wired up to protect against brownouts and surges.