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kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany asked

Node-RED dashboards

I'm just about to play with their dashboards, no previous experience.

On checking documentation I found that the dashboards are based on Angular 1, which was end of life while I was still working, about 4 years ago.

I also found there's a company offering Node-RED dashboards V2. But little about the engine behind.

Just wondering what others think.

Or would it be better to skip this, bite the bullet, pull data with MQTT into influxDB and use that to drive a Grafana board. Grafana moved off Angular about 4 years ago ify memory isn't playing it's usual tricks.

More work, but probably more future proof.


Node-REDMQTTgrafana
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hominidae avatar image hominidae commented ·

the company is flw fuse, the company behind the inventor of NR (originally / still working for IBM, I think).

Dashboard 2.0 info can be found here: https://discourse.nodered.org/t/new-1-4-0-release-node-red-dashboard-2-0/86402 I think it will be fully supported

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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ hominidae commented ·
Thanks, the link has opened my eyes.
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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ commented ·
Forgot to say that the Node-RED docs say the dashboard is on life support.
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nickdb avatar image
nickdb answered ·

I am moving all my stuff to dash 2, but it doesn't have feature parity yet.

Some things are also done differently.

The charting seems to be generally improved and visually, it definitely is.

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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ commented ·
It's for my boat which has an electric motor. Most of the power will be solar, with an occasional generator/shore power top up.


What I'm going to do is have a standard interface inside the boat, but a secondary display at the helm, which will have at least motor current/power, battery level, battery net/gain from solar. This could be pulled direct from Cerbo, or with an RPi pulling from the Cerbo. Nice to haves will be prop rpm, speed from the GPS connected to the Cerbo.


Net result is that Node-RED might provide a quick minimum installation, but will require a big rework later. GUI2 is unlikely to provide the extra functionality, even when everything is there. And from what I saw before retiring, MQTT/InfluxDB/Grafana will take a lot of work, but should cover it. Future maintenance is another issue.


But the issue with Node-RED dashboards means not even good for medium term, and that's going to affect a lot of people unless the Node-RED guys do something. Couldn't see anything to indicate they're doing it.


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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ commented ·
When you mentioned dash 2 I thought you meant the beta of the Venus dash. Hadn't found the new NR dashboard from the old links.

But that's a lot more reassuring. Thanks.


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hominidae avatar image
hominidae answered ·

Influx / Grafana is best for greating complex charts and diagrams for information view.

NR Dashboard is able to create dashboards with interactive elements, like buttons and switches for "steering" processes / creating Events.


my 2 cents

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hominidae avatar image
hominidae answered ·

Here's a good summary of NR dashboard solutions: https://discourse.nodered.org/t/choose-dashboard-solution/81789/6?u=hominidae

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