Thing Family
A thing family represents a product model or, more precisely, it is a type of products in which common properties and behaviours are synthetised.
Families lie at the heart of Omnyvore configuration, because they allow you to define:
- which parameters you want to monitor;
- how things communicates with the platform;
- which commands you want to send to the things;
- when to raise an alarm;
- how you want to monitor all the data sent by the things.
Create a new thing family
First, select the Thing Families view in the left sidebar:
In this view you can find a list of the thing families. To add a new one, click on the box with the symbol.
Fill in the form by specifying the following properties of the family and then press the Save button:
- Name: a mnemonic name for the family
- Security Type: how each thing will identify itself. Available values:
- USERNAME_PASSWORD: each thing has its own username and password. Communication takes place directly between the platform and the thing.
- Application Id: the identifier of the software version running on things (that is, the firmware version). This identifier must be unique
- Family Type: the type of the thing family. If a configuration file for the selected thing family type is available, it will be loaded during the family creation. Available values:
- CUSTOM_TYPE: a custom type defined by the user;
- SIGFOX: the sigfox devices family (see the SigFox doc. in the Appendix section).
Once created a family, you can change its main properties using the Edit button in the top right corner.
Once the thing family has been created the family type can't be changed. If some things is associated to a family, you can't change its security type and application id.
Delete a thing family
After accessing the thing family detail view (that is, after clicking on a family box in the Thing Families view):
- select the Edit button in the right top corner;
- select the Delete link in the bottom left corner of the editing modal.
If some things have been created and associated to the family, then it is not possible to delete the family. You have to remove all the things of a family in order to delete the family itself.
Duplicate a thing family
Provided you have configured a complex thing family and you want to create a new very similar family, you may want to duplicate the family. The new family will be an exact copy of the old one, except for the name and the application id. Still, you can edit the new family without side-effects on the starting family.
To duplicate a family, follow these steps:
- select the Edit button in then right top corner;
- select the Duplicate thing family link in the bottom left corner of the editing modal;
- provide the name and the application id of the new family.
Versions
IoT things evolve over time and you need to be sure that both the old ones and the new ones continue to work correctly. Some use cases can be a bug fix or adding/removing a parameter measured by your things. Every time a thing family change substantially, its firmware change.
In these cases the thing family remains the same, but there's a few little changes in properties and behaviour that you have to handle. To do this you must use versions, each of which represents a new firmware. This ensures the proper functioning both of new and old things.
Create a new version
To create a new version of the family, follow these steps:
- select the Edit button in then top right corner;
- select the Create new version link in the bottom left corner of the editing modal;
- provide the application id and (possibly) mark it as a major version.
Each version is identified by two numbers separated by a dot, like 1.0. The first number is used for major release, whereas the second for minor changes. When releasing a new major version, the first number will increment and the second number will be reset to 0. When instead you release a minor version, only the second number will be increased.
Modify a previous version
By default, the thing family detail view show how the latest version available is configured. If you want to view the configuration of a previous version, follow these steps:
- select the Version button in then top right corner;
- select the version you want in the modal window which appears;
- after the family detail view reloads, it will show the configuration of the version you have chosen.
When the family detail view displays an old version, the title bar is yellow.
Subsections Configuration
By switching tab in the thing family detail view you can configure:
- Parameters: the information about the thing thant we want to monitor. More details in the parameter section.
- Channels: how to process the data sent by things. More details in the channel section.
- Commands: which command we want to send to the thing. More details in the command section.
- Alarms: what to do when the data received is not what we expected. More details in the alarm section.
- Dashboards: how to monitor and visualise the data. More details in the dashboard section.