Marx Weather Station

MARX: Weather Station is an IoT project for monitoring air quality using an ESP32 and BME680 sensor. It collects sensor data, sends it via MQTT to a backend service, stores it in a SQL Server database, and allows data visualization for a given time period.

Project structure

MARX-Weather-station/
│── backend/             # ASP.NET Web API (C#)
│── database/            # SQL script (MSSQL)
│── frontend/            # HTML, CSS, JS, Chart.js, jQuery...
│── firmware/            # ESP32 code (C++)
│── docker-compose.yml   # RabbitMQ container
│── README.md            # Project description
│── ...

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose
• .NET SDK 8.0 or later
• SQL Server instance
• Visual Studio or any other IDE for editing/running backend
• Visual Studio Code (optional, for editing/running frontend)
  • Live Server VS Code extension (for serving the frontend locally)
• Arduino IDE or PlatformIO (for uploading firmware to ESP32)

Setup

1. Clone this repo

git clone https://github.com/mihaelsegulja/marx-weather-station.git
cd marx-weather-station

2. Start and configure RabbitMQ

2.1. Make sure you're in the same directory as the docker-compose.yml file, then run:

docker compose up -d

• Management UI: http://localhost:15672
• Default credentials:
  • Username: admin
  • Password: admin
• MQTT port: 1883
• AMQP port: 5672

2.2. From the management UI, go to Queues and streams tab, and from there you need to manually add a queue named weather/data (set Durability: Durable, leave everything else default). Then go to Exchanges tab, click amq.topic and add a binding from this exchange (To queue: weather/data, Routing key: weather.data, leave everything else default).

3. ESP32 setup

Go to firmware/src/main.cpp and change the following parameters:

// WiFi credentials
const char* ssid = "some ssid";
const char* password = "some pass";

// RabbitMQ (MQTT) config
const char* mqtt_server = "some ip";
// ...

Replace these values with your actual access point credentials and server IP address your ESP32 will connect to.

Tip: For local testing, it's recommended to create a WiFi hotspot on your computer and connect the ESP32 to that network.

Flash the firmware to your ESP32 using the Arduino IDE or PlatformIO.

4. SQL Server setup

Open SQL Server Management Studio or your preferred SQL tool and execute the SQL script from the database/ directory.

5. Configure and run the Backend

5.1. Go to backend/WebApp/appsettings.json and modify the database connection string if neccessary:

"ConnectionStrings": {
    "Default": "Server=.;User Id=sa;Password=SQL;Database=dbMarxWeatherStation;TrustServerCertificate=True;trusted_connection=true;MultipleActiveResultSets=True"
}

Note: Replace sa and SQL with your actual SQL Server credentials.

5.2. Run the backend from your shell (or via your desired IDE):

cd backend/WebApp
dotnet run

The backend should now be running at http://localhost:8080

6. Run the Frontend

Important: The frontend must be served from http://localhost (not opened as a file) due to browser security restrictions (CORS).

Recommended: Use Live Server + VS Code

1. Open the frontend/ folder in Visual Studio Code
2. Install the Live Server extension (if not already installed)
3. Right-click on index.html -> "Open with Live Server"

This will serve the page at something like http://127.0.0.1:5500, allowing it to access the backend safely.

Additional notes: By default, the backend whitelists http://127.0.0.1:5500 and http://localhost:5500, but that can be easily changed if needed from the backend/WebApp/appsettings.json, under the section CorsOriginsWhitelist.