Bud Red Light

My card seems to simply stop blinking in the middle of the flashing. No orange, no green, just goes dark. Very frustrating. Any suggestions? The app times out doing the check. I’ve turned up the brightness on my iPhone 4, turned off the lights. No difference. I’ve tried thirty times at least. Should the device be off before clicking in the card or on? To be honest, I’ve tried both since the instructions provided are contradictory.

It should stop blinking during the blinkup process (that means it’s watching the light from your phone). You should start blinkup soon after turning the redlight on - ie when you see the amber flashing, then press start blinkup and hold the phone against the sensor.

The diagram in the app is a bit strange; the screen should be flush against the imp, not against the red test button.

Check the card is fully inserted?

I connected my light using samsung galazy 3 and connected fine first time but then I went back to change cities and when I go through process step 4 keeps timing out. Why can I not correct the cities I want to follow?

I am having problems with my light too. Worked fine last season. I can connect to wifi, run a test, and all works fine. But 10 minutes later the wifi disconnects and when I run the “test light” on my iphone it is not connected. Very frustrating. Have to shut the unit off, pull out the imp card, and turn back on and it connects again. Read the instructions and they suggest this might be a battery problem?? Anyone else having this problem??

What kind of batteries does the thing use? 6V? 9V?

It sounds like a lot of people are having problems. Does anyone know where the imp is going (online) to get the information that makes the light go on?

I wonder if it’s easy just to program it yourself using a website (PHP) and the imp?

Can the thing be “reverse engineered”?

@mrgrinch “test light” only works for 5 minutes after blinking up your light, or during a game. The light goes to sleep after 5 mins of inactivity to save battery - it’s only ever fully awake during a game. Your light should work fine for goals on your chosen team!

@mlseim it uses 4xD cells, but can draw well over an amp when it’s going off (that thing is bright and LOUD). The sports data service that feeds the lights was developed independently of us - we just provide the connectivity.

@Hugo I was running the “test light” during a game that I was supposed to be getting updates for. It would work fine for about 5 minutes… and then would suddenly stop working. I’d then have to turn off the unit and pull out the card and do the whole procedure again. Exact same modem / router as last season and worked 100%. I will swap the batteries, but agree that’s likely not the problem. I think they are going to need to swap the unit on warranty…

Come to think of it one thing did change over the summer - I have subscribed to unblock us. But that shoudn’t affect the light, would it??

@MrGrinch If the light works at all, then it should be fine, hardware wise. Did the light work during the game to show goals?

I did some reading about this and found out that it sometimes lights before the goal happens on live tv. That happens because of delay to HD TV. The software to imp is faster than the televised delays. Users have been trying to find a way to synchronize the two.

I’m in the U.S., so I can’t use it. But if someone can find an online site or RSS/XML feed that provides live scores, you could make your own bud light with an imp and april board.

I was going to do that, and took a look at the ESPN API. Unfortunately you can’t get live scores. @beardedinventor mentioned that they aren’t even able to get access for hackathons, and live scoring data is big $$$.

All the other data is available from the ESPN API though, and its a really easy API to read with an agent… just sign up for a dev account and get your API key. Might be something else interesting to grab for an Imp project.

I think you’re right about big $$$ for live data. That’s what I’ve been finding on searches.

@Hugo My Jets played again tonight and got the same result. The light worked great for the “5 minutes notification” and the first 2 goals. But after that it gave up and stopped working for the last 3 goals. Did a turnoff/remove card reset between goal #4 and #5 and the imp card flashed green so was connected. But for goal #5 again the light did not go off. Just strange. I almost wonder if someone is just falling asleep at the wheel halfway through my Jets games! :wink: Still have to try a battery swap…

I’m having an issue with my light as well. My imp light starts flashing red up until the point that I try syncing it via the flashing lights on my phone. It stops blinking during this process, then, after my phone stops flashing, the imp light blinks green once, then perpetually blinks red until it turns off. At this point, I have a connection timeout error on my phone. Any idea what the issue could be? Thanks.

@LandynR It sounds like you are using an android device. Try running your setup with an iphone instead. Find someone who has one and borrow it. It works much better than android for synching the red light.

@LandynR actually if you get the green blink at the end, then the imp has got the blinkup data ok; if you’re only seeing a red blink after that (no red-orange or orange-red) then the imp is having problems finding your wifi network.

What wifi channel is it on, and what wifi router?

@MrGrinch that’s very strange, but we don’t supply the sports data so it’s hard for me to comment. If the light was green then it was connected. I’ll ask the Bud people.