To upgrade, or not to upgrade

dirknerkle

dirknerkle

Supporting Member
The last version of FPP I used was version 4.x (something...) It was running as the receiving component of my bus detector. For fun, I checked the Falcon Christmas site, which I haven't done for literally years, and I see that the current version of FPP is 9.3!

It's a long way from 4.x to 9.3. I don't really use the bus detector anymore as I've severely scaled down my display and there's no traffic anymore, so I don't see a need to upgrade it at all. But wow, do I ever feel out of date!!!
 
I'll have to check what version mine is sometime. I only use it during the off season to run the permanent digital strip over our garage door, and our roofline lights if they're up, for non-Christmas holidays like Halloween, Valentine's Day, and St. Patrick's day. Mine might be even older, as I don't think I've ever bothered upgrading it and I've been doing that for years now.

How did the bus detector work? I remember you talking about doing that but I don't remember the final results.
 
I don't upgrade FPP this time of year unless the Zoom room specifically says I need to upgrade the version I am on.
 
FPP 9.xx will require a new image to upgrade from FPP 4.xx to FPP 9.xx I believe with all the fixes and feather enhancements 9.xx is a must over 4.xx or anything before FPP 9.00

Someone had a great idea on another post regarding upgrading to 9.xx - I'll pass it on

Don't overwrite your old image, get a new uSD and image it with 9.xx. . . . if 9.xx fails you, just swap uSD back to the 4.xx you were running.
 
tfischer said:
How did the bus detector work? I remember you talking about doing that but I don't remember the final results.
Click to expand...

It served it's purpose -- the tour buses were identified, which triggered a switch, changing the FM transmitter's audio source from the show computer's music to a raspberry pi that was playing a continuous spoken message (without music) that "the regular show will return when the noisy tour buses depart."

WIthin a week, there were no more tour buses.
 
dirknerkle said:
It served it's purpose -- the tour buses were identified, which triggered a switch, changing the FM transmitter's audio source from the show computer's music to a raspberry pi that was playing a continuous spoken message (without music) that "the regular show will return when the noisy tour buses depart."

WIthin a week, there were no more tour buses.
Click to expand...

Was it based on vehicle height? Was was the detection technology?
 
This is a bit convoluted, so bear with me -- I'll try to remember how it worked and I'll explain it in more-or-less a cause-effect order:

A LiDar sensor scanned left-right to cover the area in front of the house, aimed about 7' high to shoot above cars. The sensor was sampled about 40 times over the full left-right and back again scan and when the sample counted 10 hits it was deemed to have found a parked bus. The scanner was based on an Arduino UNO using an XBee radio paired to another XBee (indoors) using digital i/o line passing, and the indoor receiver then triggered an input on the raspberry pi which was running falcon player, then FPP triggered a relay to switch the audio source going to the FM transmitter from the normal music (show program) to a somewhat unkind short message. The message repeated continuously as long as the bus remained in the scanner area and the normal show audio returned only when the scanner area was cleared of buses.

<whew!> anyway, that's what I remember...

The continuous message was something like "A tour bus has been detected within our viewing area. The normal program audio will return as soon as the bus departs." and because it was using the Pi's built-in audio, it was scratchy, noisy and unpleasant to hear over a radio. Perfect.

It was a tremendously fun project to build and I was pleased how well it worked, even though I really only used it for a couple weeks, when the buses apparently deleted our address from their hit lists.

It perhaps would have been better to just stop the show (also easy to do) but I couldn't conjure a way to resume where the show left off -- it would have had to start from the beginning again and I didn't want to do that. Besides, the show was timed to repeat itself on the hour (the show was about 59:50 in length) and resuming would have created a timing problem with the show controller. So I let the show continue to run and simply switched out the FM audio while one or more buses where in the viewing area. Hey, it worked!
 
That's really technically impressive, and sounds like it had the desired results.

In my case I'd love to have a "loud party bus" detector. I don't mind the mini-busses from the eldercare homes as the busses are pretty quiet and I love bringing joy to people who are shut in most of the time. But I'd love to have a way to get rid of the loud party busses.

Thankfully they tend to come only a few nights a season, and our current set of neighbors seem to tolerate them.
 
Hmmmmm... not sure how one would design a "loud party bus detector" since a diesel bus with the motor running is loud enough on its own without any party going on.....
 
Perhaps a double trigger. Use your detector to see a bus height vehicle. Use an audio sensor to listen for sound levels above a certain level. If both are true, do your "get out of here" routine.

The only problem with this is someone who is really into your show, driving a tall van (like the newer ones) and cranking your music. Not sure how to handle that situation.
 
I've got a variety of versions of FPP running. One installation is still running 1.8. I've got 1.9 running at my office. If it ain't broke....

I have nothing newer than 7.5. Mostly because I chose not to upgrade last year. There were some things in 8.x that would have broken some of my automations, so I avoided it at the time and was going to do it after christmas but before I tore down so I could work the bugs out. That never happened. Now comes this year and 9.x is out. I was very late in setup with no time for experimenting with upgrades. I'm not upgrading now in the middle of this year's show season. Maybe after Christmas.
 
I finally thought to check my version of FPP now that the main show is off and I'm going to use it to twinkle the roofline for awhile.

2.5.3 lol
 
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