HiveTech

ESP32-based beehive monitoring firmware for live environmental telemetry.

What It Is

HiveTech is an early firmware project for monitoring beehive conditions with an ESP32, a BME280 sensor, deep sleep, OTA updates, and MQTT publishing. The current code publishes temperature, humidity, pressure, and altitude values to MQTT topics and is intended as the technical base for a revived live beehive monitoring project.

Current Scope

• ESP32 + BME280 environmental telemetry
• MQTT publishing for downstream automation and dashboards
• OTA update support
• Deep-sleep based low-power operation
• Foundation for future hive-specific monitoring extensions

Status

This repository is being revived from an older prototype. The current firmware is functional as a starting point, but the repo still needs cleanup and modernization. The public baseline now includes documentation, ownership, and configuration templates so work can continue in a controlled way.

See docs/STATUS.md for the current project state.

Configuration

The firmware expects a local src/config.h file that is not committed. Start from src/config_template.h and adjust the values for your network and MQTT broker.

For compile-only validation, the repository now supports a temporary-config path:

python scripts/compile_check.py

If src/config.h is missing, the script copies src/config_template.h, runs platformio run, and removes the temporary file again.

For real node validation before OTA upload:

python scripts/hardware_smoke_check.py

The preflight checks whether src/config.h exists, whether it still contains placeholder values, whether the configured OTA target is reachable, and whether the configured MQTT broker answers on port 1883.

Additional operating context now lives in:

• docs/hardware.md
• docs/operations.md
• docs/topic-contracts.md
• docs/verification.md
• anr.profile.yaml

Topics Published

• HT_BME280_Temperature
• HT_BME280_Humidity
• HT_BME280_Pressure
• HT_BME280_Altitude

Immediate Next Steps

1. Replace the legacy config.h flow with a clearer credentials/config separation.
2. Turn the current hardware preflight into a fuller post-upload smoke workflow with serial/MQTT assertions.
3. Decide which parts should remain standalone versus moving into SkySentinel.
4. Add hive-specific telemetry beyond the current BME280 baseline once the hardware scope is stable.