RTK Express providing hostname when getting address from hotspot

[dewey-b]

When I am in the field, the RTK Express connects to my Android phone’s WiFi hotspot. My phone is also where I run GField and SW Maps, I configure my RTK Express to obtain RTK data over the internet using my phone’s hotspot. However, if I want to connect from my phone to my RTK Express using TCPIP, I have an issue, because my phone’s hotspot assigns a random IP address to my RTK Express, and the RTK Express (apparently) does not provide a hostname to my phone’s hotspot when obtaining an IP address. I know it is possible to provide a hostname when obtaining an IP address from my phone’s hotspot, because when I connect other Windows computers to my phone’s hotspot, I can ping these other computers by name.

It would be useful if a hostname could be provided when the RTK Express is obtaining a DHCP IP address so I could configure this hostname in GField (SW Maps does not currently have the ability to connect to the RTK Express using TCPIP).

[gdt]

Android phones unhelpfully randomize the third octet of the DHCP range on every reboot. So a client gets 192.168.X.Y, where X changes on reboot, and Y tends to be stable. I have been working around this for Vespucci by running ifconfig in termux.

I agree with the point of this request, but I am not sure that the hostname is about DHCP, rather than implementing zeroconf/mdns. It will be helpful to understand precisely how this name resolution is happening.

[nseidle]

@dwightbrew - You need to know the IP address of the RTK device, correct? If we periodically displayed the device's IP address on the OLED, would that solve your issue?

[gdt]

I'm not @dwightbrew but there are two aspects. Yes, one is knowing the address. The other is having a setup that causes the phone program (or some other program on some other computer) to connect without having to fiddle with it. Sending mdns might enable that -- someone needs to resaarch that.

(For me, being able to use Bluetooth SPP with QField is great as I don't need to fiddle with the addresses. Vespucci with ardusimple used to be great when Android's subnet was stable, and now it's a minor hassle.)

[dewey-b]

@nseidle - I don't think periodically displaying the IP address is something I would use. Although I haven't tried this, I think I could get the address by put it in config mode to get the address and then back to normal mode. As @gdt pointed out, this request is more about not having to fiddle with the settings each time.

Not being able to easily get to my RTK Express is not a showstopper for me, it just limits some of the things I would like to try. For example, I use a few different NTRIP casters. Currently I have each NTRIP caster as a separate profile. I have thought about using the NTRIP (Lefebure) app to switch between different casters. Although Lefebure can supply NTRIP data using TCP/IP, I don't know how to do this even if I know the RTK Express address. I would use Bluetooth on Lefebure to provide the NTRIP data and then TCP/IP for QField.

Rather than periodically displaying the IP address, I would prefer to wait for a solution to access the RTK Express by hostname, even it this is a lower priority that may take some time coming.

[nseidle]

We can enable mDNS at the expense of some RAM (we're already running out, but that's a different issue).

Is this what you're looking for? We can make the device connect via 'rtk.local'.

[gdt]

I suspect that is what @dwightbrew is looking for. I totally get the RAM issue, though, but if it only uses RAM when enabled and people only enable what they need, that might all be best.

[nseidle]

Sounds good. MDNS can be enabled from the WiFi menu.

[dewey-b]

@nseidle - This looks very promising. I downloaded the RTK_Surveyor_Firmware_RC-May_13_2023 release, but I am having trouble getting the WiFi working. The config menu says that WiFi is not compiled (image attached).

[nseidle]

Whoops! Sorry about that. I committed with the modules turned off. RC is now updated correctly.

[nseidle]

This has been implemented in firmware release v3.4.