Configurations
Overview
A configuration is a set of settings that you can apply to a single device or to multiple devices. You can combine all of the settings that we offer and collect them in one configuration. This allows you to centrally manage your settings. It avoids to perform the same steps for multiple devices while offering the flexibility to maintain different settings for different use-cases. A device can either have no configuration or a single configuration. A configuration is always intended for a single device type. E.g., a Mesh Node requires a different configuration than a Gateway.
You must be part of the group Administrator or Device Manager to create and assign configurations.
|
Creating a Configuration with Settings
To create a new configuration navigate to > Devices > Configuration.
Now, press the Add button, then type in the configuration name and the description and specify the platform. The next step is to define the settings that will be part of the configuration and activate them.
Assigning a Configuration
To make use of your configuration, you need to apply it to one or multiple devices. You can select the devices for the configuration directly under Devices.
You can also assign the configuration directly on the device page under Configuration or you can select a number of devices from a device list and apply the same configuration to all of them through the options button.
Publishing a Configuration
| Read carefully as this is a typical pitfall. |
If you make changes to a configuration, these will not immediately be sent to the devices. This is useful as you might want to perform a few changes before you are happy with the new configuration and you do not want to mistakenly modify a live system with wrong settings.
If there are changes, that have not yet been sent to the devices, you will see a button to Publish changes. Make sure to do this after modifying the settings so that your devices are updated.
You can also check if all of your devices have accepted the new configuration by checking the Change Configuration actions for your device.
Gateway Settings
Below is a list of settings that are available for our BlueRange Gateways.
Schedule Automatic Updates
To schedule automated updates of the BlueRange software and firmware for your gateways and other devices, read the chapter on scheduling automatic updates.
IoT Features
The options provided by this setting allow tailoring an installation to your needs and use cases.
| Deactivating the web server or support access features severely restricts the options for online support staff! It is recommended to leave these setting active! |
| The asset tracking and smart metering features require additional licenses, as stated in the UI. If you do not have the required license, the status of your gateway will change to "non compliant" when enabled. To resolve this obtain the license or deactivate any unlicensed feature. |
Asset tracking
The feature allows tracking the position of tags. For this to work the mesh network must be attached to the floor of a building with the floor plan and it’s dimensions configured, and the placement of the mesh nodes given. With this in place the gateways of a building cooperate in estimating the floor and position of tracked tags.
The asset tracking mode can be chosen as optimized for standstill positioning or real-time tracking, and a standstill positioning interval may be specified. Brief explanation is given in the UI directly. It is recommended to use the default settings in most cases and to perform proper calibration of your environment.
Smart metering
Some IoT devices support the reporting of power consumption data. The feature prepares the gateway for reception of those readings and to perform additional computations involved in supporting smart metering of the platform.
M-Way support access
The BlueRange OS has build-in capabilities enabling support staff to remotely access the device using a reverse-tunneled SSH connection for error diagnostic purposes. The tunnel is TLS secured, requires client certificates and is opened upon explicit request only. Nevertheless administrators may opt-out for security reasons.
| This setting requires BlueRange Gateway Release 1.249.0. Use of BlueRange OS Release 2021-11-13 or above is recommended. The feature replaces the opt-out option available in the WebUI of older versions so that it can be configured globally for a number of devices at once. |
Integrated watchdog
The option activates the integrated watchdog monitoring that automatically restarts the BlueRange Gateway in case of malfunctioning. The watchdog feature is disabled by default but administrators may opt-in which is especially useful when the gateway is installed in a hardly accessible location such as mounted to the ceiling.
| The watchdog requires at least BlueRange Gateway Release 1.249.0 and BlueRange OS Release 2021-12-11. When enabling the option on older gateways, health monitoring information reported may be inadequate which may lead to incorrect device states. |
System logging
To collect all Gateway Logs at a Central Place configure your gateways to send the system log to a remote server by reading the collecting BlueRange Gateway logs chapter. Please see the BlueRange Install Guide and this Docker Composition for a sample setup.
System monitoring
Various system metrics are available for monitoring the IoT installation, e.g. mesh and network traffic, CPU and RAM usage, etc. The setting allows transmission of the metrics to a Graphite server for visualization and alerting using Grafana. Please see the BlueRange Install Guide and this Docker Composition for a sample setup.
Mesh Node Configuration Settings
Sensors Configuration
You need to upload a valid json file for your sensors. Please see Sensor Definition.
Power Consumption Configuration
We provide the option to read out values from mesh nodes that allow to calculate the power consumption of a device. For each type of device, the parameters required to determine the power consumption need to be defined. With the appropriate adaptation of our mesh firmware, these values can be provided to the Gateway for power calculation.
Direct Power Readout
Some devices allow you to read the power consumption directly in Watts. In this case, a simple setting of the sensor JSON is sufficient to provide power readings, e.g.
Calculated Power
If a direct read out of the power is not available, the power consumption may be deducted from a different parameter. E.g., the power consumption of a luminaire can be matched to the light output of the luminaire. In this case, the luminaire provides the BRIGHTNESS value with the current luminosity of the device in lumen. This value can be mapped to a linear multi-point linearly interpolated curve to determine the power. For this purpose, you will need to provide
-
a sensor setting of the
BRIGHTNESSvalue of the luminaire -
a power setting for the mapping of
BRIGHTNESSonto the correspondingPOWER
Example of a sensor JSON for BRIGHTNESS readout of a luminaire ranging from 0 to 7560 lumen on a logarithmic scale:
{
"archetype": "LIGHT",
"sensorModule": [
{
"moduleId": 151,
"module": "vs",
"component": 1,
"register": 28161,
"offset": 1,
"length": 1,
"type": "BRIGHTNESS",
"unit": "LUMEN",
"index": 0,
"dataType": "UINT8",
"scale": 75.6,
"formula": "iff(VAR=0, 0; VAR!=0, 10 ^ ((3 * VAR - 256) / 253))",
"min": 0,
"max": 7560,
"influenceArea": 5,
"showInAnalytics": true
}
]
}Example of a power JSON to map the BRIGHTNESS value from 0 to 7560 to a linear power between 0 and 50 Watts:
{
"sensor": {
"type": "BRIGHTNESS",
"index": 0,
"scale": 1
},
"characteristic": {
"level": [
0,
7560
],
"power": [
0,
50
]
}
}The arrays for level and power need to contain the same number of elements. They are mapped to each other, similar to a diagram using level as the x-axis and power as the y-axis. As an output, the calculated value for power is reported via MQTT. A sample MQTT output for the above setting with a BRIGHTNESS value of approx. 1087 lumen looks as follows:
{
"deviceUuid": "29387575-6305-4580-9FB4-3F7F4A1C09F3",
"deviceId": "BA123",
"siteUuid": "35234113-1CA7-4DC7-A944-C63083821958",
"module": "vs",
"type": "BRIGHTNESS",
"index": 0,
"value": 1087.98914,
"timestamp": 1606230440490
}
{
"deviceUuid": "29387575-6305-4580-9FB4-3F7F4A1C09F3",
"deviceId": "BA123",
"siteUuid": "35234113-1CA7-4DC7-A944-C63083821958",
"module": "",
"type": "power",
"index": 0,
"value": 7.195695402191622,
"timestamp": 1606230440490
}Configurations Placeholder
To easily create configurations that work for multiple users, several placeholders are supported.
You can use them in settings to universally set the appropriate attributes:
${user.fullname}
${user.name}
${user.givenName}
${user.surName}
${user.phone}
${user.salutation}
${user.email}
${user.country}
${user.custom1} - ${user.custom10}
${device.jailbroken} / ${device.rooted}
${device.manufacturer}
${device.model}
${device.name}
${device.osversion}
${device.phonenumber}
${device.platform}
${device.serialnumber}
| If you use the custom attribute placeholders, you have to make sure the corresponding custom attribute is set for every user that the configuration gets applied to. |