J&J datum Sensors Autodetect & Publish to NetworkTables

[JandJstudios]

Hey teams!

We’ve got another sample project available now on GitHub! This project shows how you can autodetect any of our datum smart sensors and have their data automatically published to a network table.

Have multiple sensors of the same type? No problem. Set the friendlyName parameter on each sensor to something unique and the data is automatically published under that name. Our datum-Light color sensor, datum-Distance time-of-flight laser ranging sensor, and datum-IMU 9 axis inertial monitoring unit are available now through GroupGets!

[Tom_Line]

I think you need to work on the website a bit. What’s the max distance on the distance sensor? What’s the update rate? What’s the update on the color sensor? Where is a getting started guide of some sort, and where are user manuals with troubleshooting guides?

Note: I did find informational pages later, but they are still missing key data. However - why is your actual product page not linked to from your storefront? Having to check the github then finally end up doing a web search to find the info isn’t what I’d expect when buying a product - and a lot of people won’t bother.

The addition of network table communication is an awesome feature, but without some more technical information a lot of people won’t be able to engineer your solution into their robot.

[JandJstudios]

Thanks for the great feedback! We updated our website to include the information you mentioned. Our storefront is managed by GroupGets, who we partnered with as part of their GetSparked program. As such we don’t have direct control over the storefront. We have reached out to them requesting they update the storefront and link back to our own product pages.

We do have a getting started guide as well as more detailed information on the datum sensors available on our website. Each datum sensor also has built in documentation. For example, issuing the following commands returns the options available for each of the configurable parameters. We felt that having that information available right at your fingertips was worth the extra effort.

get /options

---

200 OK
{
"friendlyName": {
    "minimum length": 0,
    "maximum length": 32
},
"reportRate": {
    "minimum": 0,
    "maximum": 100
},
"automaticReporting": ["true", "false"],
"compactReport": ["true", "false"]
}

---

get /sensors/options

---

    200 OK    
    {
    "color": {
        "enabled": ["true", "false"],
        "units": ["counts", "normalized"],
        "gain": [1, 4, 16, 64],
        "integrationCycles": {
               "minimum": 1,
               "maximum": 256
        },
        "filterType": ["none", "min", "max", "mean", "RMS", "median"],
        "sampleRate": {
               "minimum": 0,
               "maximum": 250
        },
        "dataRate": {
               "minimum": 0,
               "maximum": 250
        }
    },
    "proximity": {
        "enabled": ["true", "false"],
        "units": ["counts", "normalized"],
        "gain": [1, 2, 4, 8],
        "LEDstrength": ["12.5 mA", "25 mA", "50 mA", "100 mA"],
        "filterType": ["none", "min", "max", "mean", "RMS", "median"],
        "sampleRate": {
               "minimum": 0,
               "maximum": 250
        },
        "dataRate": {
               "minimum": 0,
               "maximum": 250
        }
    }
    }

---

Quite a few teams have been evaluating the datum sensors and so far the feedback has been very positive. Most often we get comments back like “Nice and simple!” or “Your use of USB was definitively a superior choice!”. That said we are compiling a list of troubleshooting tips. As more teams use the datum sensors we’ll get a better sense for where they’re having troubles and get our documentation updated accordingly.