IoT Platform Sugestion

Cloud
1

So, I’m trying a few different IoT platforms/dashboards but I’m having some trouble finding one that matches is my device architecture.

Basically I have a main “Device Unit”. The “Device Unit” supports up to 4 for “Sensor Units”. There are N types of “Sensor Units” (Sensor Unit Type A, Sensor Unit Type B). Each “Sensor Unit” has 4 channels. Each channel provides different data variables.

So data from the Device Unit (basically a Boron with some stuff around) would be something like

{
  "UUID": "UNIQUE_ID",
  "TS": 465165,
  "SomeOtherStuff": "BLA",
  "SensorUnits": [
    {
      "UUID": 0,
      "Type": 2,
      "Channels": [
        {
          "UUID": 0,
          "DataVariable1": 23,
          "DataVariable2": true,
          "DataVariable3": false
        },
        {
          "UUID": 1,
          "DataVariable1": 15,
          "DataVariable2": true,
          "DataVariable3": true
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "UUID": 1,
      "Type": 3,
      "Channels": [
        {
          "UUID": 0,
          "DifferentDataVariable1": false,
          "DifferentDataVariable2": false
        },
        {
          "UUID": 1,
          "DifferentDataVariable1": false,
          "DifferentDataVariable2": true
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

The problem is from the stuff I tried so far (TBH not in-depth yet), I didn’t find anything that can structure my device like that (with hierarchy) in terms of data. All the platforms I tried so far your device has a long list of variables, but the only data structure supported is this list, no “sub-variables”.

From what you guys used so far, do you have a suggestion on platforms that I can handle this “templeatable” but not fully defined devices?

2

I use AWS IoT and AWS DynamoDB. My device reports as JSON to the cloud, stores it in DynamoDB, and processes it with a Lambda function. But that’s pretty complex.

While I’m still building out my cloud, I use Particle and ThingsBoard. I use Particle to send a webhook using a custom body to send the JSON data to ThingsBoard. There is no end to end solution only using Particle, since data sent to their cloud is not stored anywhere.

If you are agreeable to the price and limitations of Particle, it’s an easy solution to get started with.

2 Likes
3

I’m using Thingsboard too. As I wanted it web visible, I went for the cheapest AWS server (though I need to checkout their lightsail service which might be cheaper still).

With Thingsboard, you need to run a server, a web server then the Thingboards software itself. I was wondering if you could log all your data to perl (or similar) script sitting on a web server. Have that parse the JSON, split it up per device and then send each part to the unique device id for each device.

1 Like
4

This is a great question for real-world deployments that rely on vendor platforms, because the asset/device model of the platform can make or break a host of other functionality.

I currently use (or have used in the past) the following vendor platforms with Particle devices (via webhook). Unfortunately not all support a free trial, so that makes it extra hard to qualify their model against your device requirements. Additionally, they all use different terminology to describe device attributes so that makes it even harder to compare.

Hosted:

Siemens Mindsphere (via the MindConnect IoT Extension (which is actually Cumulocity))

AVEVA / Schneider Electric / Wonderware Insight

PTC / Rockwell Thingworx

Samsara

Ubidots
https://ubidots.com/

Self-hosted, as @picsil mentioned above:
Thingsboard

Not sure if this is what you are looking for? If it is, let me know if you have questions about any one.

1 Like
5

Thanks for all the input guys!

What I ended up spending more time with so far was with ThingBoard and Losant.

Losant seems to be the most flexible of the bunch and has this nice concept of System that aggregates data from different “Sensor/Devices” under the same umbrella. And more interesting, the “workflow”/“Rule-chain” offers a bunch of stuff including decoding/mutating/creating JSON payload and the capability of creating new Systems/Devices/Peripherals on the fly based on custom rules. The problem is that their start price is somewhere around 1k/month from what I read on other posts.

ThingsBoard (non-PE) is similar but offers a limited set of nodes for the workflow/Rule-chain. Maybe I’m able to add some code, since it’s open-source, and add new nodes to support the creation of devices on the fly?

I’ll continue to do some testing post my findings.

Tnx all for the sugestions so far!

6

I think Losant has an entry package at about $100/month but you need to sign a multi-year contract

1 Like
7

Where did you hear that from?

Do you have any more details on what is included with that package?

8

This is all I got:

image
image1037×731 32.6 KB

1 Like
9

Thanks!

That looks workable to me.

Losant is a killer platform.

10

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