Setting up InfluxDB and Grafana for storing and viewing Arduino measured sensor values

Viewing the raw data

After uploading the sketch in your Arduino, and making sure that it can connect to the computer which hosts the InfluxDB server, you should see something like the animation below, which are the Arduino’s serial port monitor and InfluxDB terminal:

If you are seeing something similar to the above animation, then everything is right! Otherwise, discuss in the comment section or in the forum and I will try to help you out.

To access the administration panel of InfluxDB, open a browser on the host computer and go to ‘localhost:8083‘. On the top of the page, select the database to work on (remember we named it embedonix if you have changed that name, then it is something else :P). After that in the Query text box, enter the following query:

Then you should see an overview of recently received data.

So far, these are raw data in the database. They can be viewed, queried and sorted based on metrics such as time, maximum and minimum and average. But This is not what we want! we want a nice and clean graphical presentation, which leads us to the next section, using Grafana!

Saeid Yazdani

An Electronics Engineer with passion in Embedded Systems, Wireless Sensor Networks, Assembly, Desktop and Mobile Development, Web Development and generally anything that has to do with hardware and software of any kind!

27 Comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing !!!

    Code “as-is” is giving me very weird errors en compiling for arduino 2560
    Still investigating on this

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr\cores\arduino\main.cpp: In function 'main':
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr\cores\arduino\main.cpp:51:1: error: unable to find a register to spill in class 'NO_REGS'
    }
    ^
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr\cores\arduino\main.cpp:51:1: error: this is the insn:
    (insn 294 291 297 19 (set (mem:QI (post_dec:HI (reg/f:HI 32 __SP_L__)) [0 S1 A8])
    (subreg:QI (reg/f:HI 271) 1)) \\WIN7PRO\__Projets\Grid Tie solar et vent\arduino\to influxdb\v033 test influx\v033\v033.ino:144 1 {pushqi1}
    (expr_list:REG_ARGS_SIZE (const_int 5 [0x5])
    (nil)))
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr\cores\arduino\main.cpp:51: confused by earlier errors, bailing out
    lto-wrapper: C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\tools\avr/bin/avr-gcc returned 1 exit status
    c:/program files (x86)/arduino/hardware/tools/avr/bin/../lib/gcc/avr/4.9.2/../../../../avr/bin/ld.exe: lto-wrapper failed

    collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status

    exit status 1
    Error compiling for board Arduino/Genuino Mega or Mega 2560.

    but werirdly compile fine for arduino due !
    ( from all I know, back end compiler is not the same at all )

    Using arduino 1.8.1 on windows 10

    • I have only tested this with Due. I’m not sure what the problem could be as I don’t have any other arduinos to test again. I just guess it has something tido with your Ethernet library.

  2. Thank, I tought you were using a 2560 .
    BTW You dont need the board to test compilation

    I got the stock etherne lib
    Playing around commenting uncomenting lines, still got weird compil errors

    I’ll use a Due if its the only issue , just a bit more expensive

  3. Found a work around

    Seems a documented bug in the latest GCC Compiler
    https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=60040

    Aplied a similar work around I got from here
    https://github.com/arduino/Arduino/issues/3972

    I’ve Added
    void eth_send_data(char* data, int dataSize) __attribute__((__optimize__(“O2”)));

    On line 2 of your code
    Now compile Fine for 2560 , dont ask me more details !!!!!

    Thanks !

  4. Eratum
    You need 2 “spaces” before “__attribute__”
    Dont ask me why , but it is not the same

    void eth_send_data(char* data, int dataSize) __attribute__((__optimize__(“O2”)));

  5. Sorry … itsjust because I ve taken back My own comment and it wasent compiling again

    The issue is not the double space at all

    it is because this web page convert the ” character to another type of ”
    Just have to type it back to the “real” ” one …. hard to explain

  6. Just gave up, moved it all to arduino due, still having compilation error for 2560, but all working fine on due. Rest of instructions are all good.

    Except minor error, on page 5:
    $sudo dpkg -i https://grafanarel.s3.amazonaws.com/builds/grafana_4.0.2-1481203731_amd64.deb
    that should read
    $sudo dpkg -i grafana_4.0.2-1481203731_amd64.deb

  7. Orange Juice

    Hi. Code is working fine, I also needed to Optimize due to using a Mega. I am actually using a ENC28J60 with the UIPEthernet which is drop in for Ethernet.h however I dont get any respone from the server shown in Serial Monitor just the “Reply from InfluxDB”, The information is reaching influx it just doesnt display the 204 error it should in serial monitor.

    Dont suppose you have any pointers, not that its essential as the code is working.

    • I think you should play around with the delay value between sending and waiting for the response. Give it a try.

    • And perhaps you can show the changes you made to make it work on Mega? maybe that’s the problem. Jean-Francois Payeur comments show that it doesn’t work on Mega, although I have never tried it with Mega so can’t say for sure.

  8. Orange Juice

    Thanks for responding, great tutorial by the way.

    I followed Jean’s instructions as I got the same compile error an it was the GCC .

    Only difference in code compared with yours is i added this at the top of the skect.
    #include

    void eth_send_data(char* data, int dataSize) __attribute__((__optimize__(“O2”)));

    I will check delay and have a look into if it is a issue with UIPEthernet and syntax

  9. Orange Juice

    I managed to get it working by replacing availible with connected.

    Serial.println(“Reply from InfluxDB”);
    while(client.connected()) { //receive char
    Serial.print((char)client.read());
    }

    Thanks for a great tutorial.

  10. Pingback: InfluxDB Week in Review – Feb 13, 2017 | InfluxData

  11. Orange Juice

    It could be because I’m using the UIPEthernet library.

    I regret to inform the test I had running which was taking humidity readings from 3x DHT11 stopped sending information to influx after 60hours.
    Unsure on why it failed as it wasnt plugged into the computer so didnt have Serial Monitor open 🙁 I have reset the Arduino and hope for a better result, maybe it was my cat.

  12. Pingback: Comunicação Arduino+InfluxDB+Grafana Parte 1 | Daniel Ortega

  13. Excellent tutorial! But im having a problem that a copple minutes after starts sending data, arduino cant send any more messages, it just cant connect. If i restart arduino, it works again. Any ideas?

  14. how can i post each field with multiple field value.
    batch data sent to influxdb.

    • It is possible according to influxdb documentation, I do not know myself but I have seen it in their documents. Search for something like “sending multiple data in single query” or something similar on their documentation page.

  15. Hi!

    I found your code very useful, but the thing I do not see is how the data is written into your created database. I mean how do you tell the Arduino to send the data to the database named “embedonix”? In my case the data is being sent (at least the serial monitor says so) but if i check for the data, the databse appears blank.

    Thank you very much

    • Please check to log file of influxdb (or run influxd in standalone mode to see std output) and see if you receive any http request or not.

  16. I planned to do this for my house but instead of Ethernet shield i’m gonna use esp8266 wifi module.So can i do some changes to your code and use it for my project?

  17. I cant seem to establish a connection with my InfluxDB server. Influx is running on a virtual machine (Ubuntu) and I am trying to send data from Arduino installed on Windows using a NodeMCU

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