Infrastructure Monitor

The Infrastructure Monitor is a desktop network and infrastructure status display built around a Raspberry Pi Pico W. It combines five OLED displays, an 8-LED NeoPixel status module, Wi-Fi connectivity, DHCP-derived network information, NTP time synchronization, and firewall SNMP traffic monitoring.

The goal is to create a small always-on dashboard that shows network health at a glance. Dedicated OLED displays present Internet, DNS, NTP, traffic, and system summary information, while NeoPixel indicators provide quick color-coded status for major infrastructure checks.

Current status: all core hardware has been verified. The project is ready for continuous live monitor implementation.

Hardware Baseline

Component	Configuration
Controller	Raspberry Pi Pico W
I²C Bus	SDA = GP14, SCL = GP15
I²C Multiplexer	TCA9548A at `0x70`, reset on GP13
NeoPixel Module	8 RGB LEDs, data pin GP12

OLED Display Layout

Bus	Display	Controller	Address	Role
0	0.96" OLED	SSD1306	`0x3C`	Internet status
1	0.96" OLED	SSD1306	`0x3C`	DNS status
2	0.96" OLED	SSD1306	`0x3C`	NTP status
3	0.96" OLED	SSD1306	`0x3C`	WAN RX/TX traffic
4	1.3" OLED	SH1106	`0x3C`	Main dashboard, configured with rotation

Planned Display Content

OLED 1

INET
OK
Internet connectivity status.

OLED 2

DNS
OK
DNS resolution status.

OLED 3

NTP
OK
NTP synchronization status.

OLED 4

RX / TX
WAN traffic values such as 12M and 3M.

OLED 5

Main summary dashboard with time, overall system status, RX/TX traffic, and warnings.

Main Dashboard Example

Normal Operation	Warning State
`14:32 EST SYSTEM OK RX 12M TX 3M`	`14:32 EST SYSTEM WARN DNS FAIL RX 12M TX 3M`

NeoPixel Status Indicators

LED	Function	Normal	Warning	Failure
0	Wi-Fi	Green	Yellow	Red
1	Internet	Green	Yellow	Red
2	DNS	Green	Yellow	Red
3	NTP	Green	Yellow	Red
4	Gateway	Green	Yellow	Red
5	SNMP	Green	Yellow	Red
6	RX Activity	Off / Dim	Blue pulse	Bright Blue
7	TX Activity	Off / Dim	Blue pulse	Bright Blue

The project uses a local NeoPixel driver with myNeopixel, not the standard NeoPixel class.

Network and Time Checks

Wi-Fi: connected state is monitored continuously.
DHCP: IP address, subnet mask, gateway, and DNS are obtained automatically using wlan.ifconfig().
Internet: tested using TCP connectivity to 1.1.1.1:53.
DNS: tested using hostname resolution for google.com.
Gateway: tested using the DHCP-provided gateway.
NTP: time synchronization is monitored as part of the system health checks.

Day and Night Modes

The current day/night concept uses configurable time thresholds. Day mode starts at 07:00 and night mode starts at 22:00.

Mode	OLED Contrast	NeoPixel Brightness
Day	`255`	`10`
Night	`20`	`2`

SNMP Firewall Monitoring

The monitor uses SNMP to poll firewall interface status and traffic counters. The selected monitored interface provides RX and TX byte counters, which are converted into live Mbps values for display on the OLED dashboard and activity LEDs.

Traffic is calculated from byte-counter deltas:

Mbps = (delta_bytes × 8) / seconds / 1,000,000

Display formatting examples include 0.25M, 3.1M, 15M, and 120M.

v1.7 Design Direction

The planned firmware baseline is hardware_test_v1.7.py. It is intended to run continuously, refresh the display every 10 seconds, maintain Wi-Fi connectivity, periodically refresh NTP, poll firewall SNMP counters, calculate RX/TX Mbps, and update OLED and NeoPixel indicators.

A minimal embedded SNMP v2c GET implementation has been implemented because MicroPython does not include native SNMP support.

Future Features

Web dashboard
Automatic DST handling
Router uptime monitoring
CPU and memory monitoring
Multiple infrastructure checks
Historical traffic graphs
Additional SNMP OIDs
Alert history
Configuration page
Optional MQTT integration

Current Status

Component	Status
Pico W	OK
TCA9548A	OK
SSD1306 × 4	OK
SH1106 × 1	OK
NeoPixel × 8	OK
Wi-Fi	Ready
SNMP	Ready

The project is ready to proceed with implementation of the continuous live monitor.