8. Building Web APP with @Anvil

We will write a project to communicate bi-directionally between the Raspberry Pi Pico W and Anvil’s servers. The temperature and humidity transmitted from the Pico W will be displayed in real time in Anvil. Additionally, you can input messages in Anvil to be displayed on the Pico W’s I2C LCD1602.

anvil

1. Required Components

In this project, we need the following components.

It’s definitely convenient to buy a whole kit, here’s the link:

Name

ITEMS IN THIS KIT

LINK

Kepler Kit

450+

Kepler Kit

You can also buy them separately from the links below.

SN

COMPONENT

QUANTITY

LINK

1

Raspberry Pi Pico W

1

BUY

2

Micro USB Cable

1

3

Breadboard

1

BUY

4

Jumper Wires

Several

BUY

5

I2C LCD1602

1

BUY

6

DHT11 Humiture Sensor

1

BUY

7

Li-po Charger Module

1

8

18650 Battery

1

9

Battery Holder

1

2. Build the Circuit

Warning

Make sure your Li-po Charger Module is connected as shown in the diagram. Otherwise, a short circuit will likely damage your battery and circuitry.

../_images/8.anvil_bb.png

3. Create an Anvil APP

  1. Go to the Anvil website and click on Start building.

    ../_images/anvil-1.png
  2. Sign in or Sign up.

    ../_images/anvil-2.png
  3. Create a New Blank App.

    ../_images/anvil-3.png
  4. Select Material Design Theme.

    ../_images/anvil-4.png
  5. Now, you are on the app editing page.

    ../_images/anvil-5.png
  6. From the Toolbox, drag a Label tool and place it on Drop title here.

    ../_images/anvil-6.png
  7. You can fill in the label text in the text field under the Properties menu.

    ../_images/anvil-7.png
  8. In the same way, drag a TextBox to the right.

    ../_images/anvil-17.png
  9. Drag a button to the far right and you can modify the text field. This button will be used to “send” a message to the Raspberry Pi Pico W.

    ../_images/anvil-14.png
  10. After double clicking the SHOW button, the form will switch from the Design page to the Code page and highlight the code for the button. You need to fill in the following code, which functions to call a function inside the server (in this case, Pico W).

    anvil.server.call_s("show_message",self.text_box_1.text)
    
    • show_message is the function that will be defined when Pico W is programmed.

    • self.text_box_1.text is the message you type on the text box, which will be sent as a pass-through to show_message().

    ../_images/anvil-15.png
  11. Go back to the Design page, drag another label and place it under the previous elements. This label will show the DHT11 sensor data from the Pico W.

    ../_images/anvil-9.png
  12. In the Toolbox, click on More Components and drag the Timer into the form.

    ../_images/anvil-12.png
  13. Using the Properties, set the timer to an interval of 3 seconds. This time is used to update the screen for our sensor data.

    ../_images/anvil-18.png
  14. Double-click the Timer tool to program it. Use a anvil.server.call_s() function to call the publish_data() function from the server to get the message that needs to be displayed on the Anvil APP, assign it to self.label_2.text and you’re done.

    data=anvil.server.call_s("publish_data")
    self.label_2.text=data
    
    ../_images/anvil-16.png
  15. At this point, the part that needs to be programmed on Anvil is done. You can see more details on using Anvil from Anvil Docs.

4. Setup Pico W

In order to simplify the connection of the Raspberry Pi Pico W to Anvil services, Anvil uses a custom firmware image. Pico W’s firmware is written in MicroPython and appears as a USB drive with two files (boot.py and main.py). The Pico W must be flashed with custom firmware and connected to our Wi-Fi before we can begin writing code.

  1. Download the custom Raspberry Pi Pico W firmware from Anvil, it is recommended to download the complete version.

    ../_images/anvil-p-1.png
  2. Push and hold the BOOTSEL button on the Pico W, then connect to your computer using a micro USB cable. Release BOOTSEL once the drive RPI-RP2 appears on your computer.

    ../_images/anvil-p-2.png
  3. Drag and drop the .uf2 file you just downloaded into it and Pico W will install the firmware at this point. When it is done, Pico W will reload the disk drive and you will see the main.py and boot.py files.

    Note

    Before reinstalling the firmware, make a backup of all your important files stored in Pico W.

    ../_images/anvil-p-3.png
  4. Select “MicroPython(Raspberry Pi Pico).COMXX” as the interpreter in Thonny IDE. After clicking View -> Files, you will see the local drive and the hard drive of the Raspberry Pi Pico.

    ../_images/anvil-20.png
  5. Double click the boot.py script and fill your WiFi’s SSID and PASSWORD.

    ../_images/anvil-21.png

5. Finish the Code

  1. Upload dht.py and lcd1602.py from the path of kepler-kit-main/libs to the Raspberry Pi Pico W.

    ../_images/anvil-22.png
  2. Open main.py and replace the original code with the following code.

    import anvil.pico
    import uasyncio as a
    from machine import Pin,I2C
    
    from lcd1602 import LCD
    lcd = LCD()
    
    from dht import DHT11
    sensor = DHT11(Pin(16, Pin.OUT, Pin.PULL_DOWN))
    
    UPLINK_KEY = "<uplink_key_goes_here>"
    
    @anvil.pico.callable(is_async=True)
    async def show_message(text):
        print(f"show anvil's input message: {text}")
        lcd.clear()
        lcd.message(text)
        return
    
    @anvil.pico.callable(is_async=True)
    async def publish_data():
        sensor.measure()
        return "Temperature: {}, Humidity: {}".format(sensor.temperature, sensor.humidity)
    
    # Connect the Anvil Uplink. In MicroPython, this call will block forever.
    
    anvil.pico.connect(UPLINK_KEY)
    
    
    # There's lots more you can do with Anvil on your Pico W.
    #
    # See https://anvil.works/pico for more information
    
  3. Go back to the Anvil interface and tap the Uplink option in the App Browser settings.

    ../_images/anvil-p-6.png
  4. Click Enable the Anvil Server Uplink for this app to get the uplink key.

    ../_images/anvil-p-7.png
  5. Copy it and replace <uplink_key_goes_here> in main.py, which makes your Pico W can connect to the Anvil APP you created.

    ../_images/anvil-p-8.png

6. Run the Project

  1. Click the Run current script button or press F5 to run it. After successful connection, you will see the connection success prompt in the Shell.

    ../_images/anvil-19.png
  2. Run the Anvil, now you will be able to see the display temperature and humidity from the Anvil APP. If you click the SHOW button after you enter a message on the text box, the I2C LCD1602 will display the message you entered.

    Note

    If the character you entered is not displayed on the I2C LCD1602, you can turn the potentiometer on the back of the module to increase the contrast.

    ../_images/anvil-r-2.png

7. Publish APP

If you want to share your made app to others, you can generate a sharing link by the following method.

  1. Go back to the Anvil page and click the publish app option in the** App Browser settings**.

    ../_images/anvil-s-1.png
  2. In the Share via private link tab you will see a list of links. Anyone can access your app through this link.

    ../_images/anvil-s-2.png
  3. Access the link and your app is ready to use directly.

    ../_images/anvil-s-3.png
  4. You can also share your app through the public link, fill in your personalized domain name and click Apply below to make it effective.

    ../_images/anvil-s-4.png

How it works?

Here is the basic framework of main.py, which forms the basis of the communication between Pico W and Anvil APP.

import anvil.pico
import uasyncio as a

UPLINK_KEY = "<uplink_key_goes_here>"


# Connect the Anvil Uplink. In MicroPython, this call will block forever.

anvil.pico.connect(UPLINK_KEY)


# There's lots more you can do with Anvil on your Pico W.
#
# See https://anvil.works/pico for more information

Set up dht11 and lcd1602. Details of the use of these two components can be found in 6.2 Temperature - Humidity and 3.4 Liquid Crystal Display.

from machine import Pin,I2C

from lcd1602 import LCD
lcd = LCD()

from dht import DHT11
sensor = DHT11(Pin(16, Pin.OUT, Pin.PULL_DOWN))

In Anvil’s code, we have called two internal functions of the server (Pico W).

The first is show_message(), whose function is to make the LCD display the message typed by Anvil. The decorator @anvil.pico.callable(is_async=True) makes this function callable by Anvil.

@anvil.pico.callable(is_async=True)
async def show_message(text):
    print(f"show anvil's input message: {text}")
    lcd.clear()
    lcd.message(text)
    return

Next is publish_data(), which functions to get the value of dht11 and return the temperature and humidity to Anvil. Again, it uses the decorator @anvil.pico.callable(is_async=True) to make it callable by Avil.

@anvil.pico.callable(is_async=True)
async def publish_data():
    sensor.measure()
    return "Temperature: {}, Humidity: {}".format(sensor.temperature, sensor.humidity)