OpenTrafficMap Wiki

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====== Your Node ======

The self-service portal is a small web interface for a single receiver. It is where you name your node, decide whether it appears on the map, adjust the LEDs and look at what it has been hearing.

This page is about the things you click. The machine side — the broker, the topics, the wire format — is on [[en_alt:server|The OpenTrafficMap server]].

The portal applies to **every** node, not just to boards from the group order. If you built your own receiver, you can get access to it too.

===== Accessing your node =====

Each node has its own portal URL, of the form:

  https://opentrafficmap.org/service/?nodeId=nodeXXX

Where to find your link:

  * **If you received a board from us**, a QR code pointing at your node is stuck to the back of the receiver. The same link is printed on the packaging and the delivery note, and it is in the shipping confirmation e-mail.
  * **If you built your own receiver**, send us the MAC address of your node by e-mail and you will get access credentials.

{{:node_self_service.png?700|The self-service portal}}

===== Password protection =====

**Set the user password.** Until you do, anyone who has the link — and the link is a QR code on the outside of the device — can change your node's settings.

Once a **User Password** is set, the portal for that node can no longer be opened without it.

===== Friendly name =====

By default a node identifies itself by the Ethernet MAC address of its ESP32, which is correct but unreadable. We are happy to replace it in our database with a friendly name, so your node shows up as something you recognise. Just ask.

The name matters beyond cosmetics: it is also the name that appears in the [[en_alt:server#topics|MQTT topics]] for your node.

===== Show on map & coordinates =====

Two separate things have to be true before other people can see your node on the live map:

  - **Show on map** has to be enabled.
  - **Coordinates** have to be set. We do not know where your node is — the receiver has no GPS, and nothing about the network tells us its position. Until you set the location in the portal, it is unknown.

If your node is not appearing on the map, it is almost always one of these two.

===== Node settings =====

  * **LED brightness**, from 0 (off) to 255 (maximum). Worth turning down on an outdoor node — see [[en_alt:placement#temperature|Temperature]].
  * **Reboot** the node remotely.

There is no local web interface on your own network; the portal is the only graphical way to configure a mounted receiver. See [[en_alt:receivers#configuration|Configuration]].

===== View your messages =====

The portal shows the frames your own node is currently receiving, which is the quickest way to confirm that it is working at all.

For anything more than a glance — filtering, recording, feeding into your own tools — subscribe to your node directly on the broker instead. The portal shows you the credentials you need; see [[en_alt:server#subscribe_to_your_node|Subscribe to your node]].

===== Heatmap =====

The portal draws a reception heatmap for your node: where the messages it heard actually came from.

{{:heatmap_self_service.png?700|Reception heatmap in the self-service portal}}

This is the tool to use when evaluating a change. Move the node higher, turn the antenna, take the receiver off the windowsill and put it outside — then compare heatmaps. The antenna measurements on [[en_alt:placement#antennas_polarization|Antennas & polarization]] were done exactly this way.