Devices

A Device represents a single physical device that can send data to the platform. You can find all your devices when clicking Devices in the menu.

Devices page

On the Device page, you have an overview of all your Devices.

Elements on the page are:

  1. Total number of Devices you have and see on the current page.

  2. Device list of all your Devices with some information:

    1. The Device name.

    2. The Device type.

    3. The primary identifier of your Device.

      • For LoRa this is the DevEUI

      • For M2M the IMEI

      • For internet the DvnUUID

    4. The moment Things last received a message from the Device.

    5. The Project the Device belongs to.

    6. The number of Flows your Device is in. Hover over the number to get a popup with a list of Flow names.

    7. Clicking on a row will open the Device detail page of that Device.

  3. Search element to search for your specific Devices. You can search by Name and Primary identifier.

  4. Link to Add a new Device.

  5. Bulk manipulation options. Select some or all Devices and choose the bulk action from the action bar at the bottom of the page.

  6. Sorting options, by clicking on a specific table header the table will sorted by the selected value.

  7. A lock 🔒 icon for KPN Things devices. For such devices fewer editing options are available. See Device types for a comparison of what you can do with KPN Things devices and Supported devices.

Deactivate or delete Device

The most important difference is that: Device deactivation can be used temporarily and is necessary when you want stop data from devices being send to devices. As an example: a customer has not paid his invoice and in response this customer receives no data. Deletion is permanent. After the deletion, you can't onboard this device again. You can delete the device via the Bulk manipulation options. KPN Things devices can only be deleted by KPN. Contact the IoT Service desk for this.

In the table below you can read about the differences between deleting a Device and deactivating a Device.

Device detail page

This page offers you all detailed information about your Device and its connectivity.

The elements on this page are:

  1. Connectivity information card for your Device, depending on your network type:

    1. LoRa information card for devices with LoRa connectivity.

    2. M2M information card for devices with M2M connectivity.

    3. Internet information card for devices with Internet connectivity.

  2. Connectivity info tab showing you more details about the Connectivity configuration of your Device.

    1. LoRa tab for devices with LoRa connectivity.

    2. M2M tab for devices with M2M connectivity.

  3. Device Twin tab showing you the Digital twin of your Device.

  4. Device tab showing you more details about your Device.

  5. Send Instruction tab allowing you to send data to your Device.

  6. Connectivity data tab showing you detailed data history to and from your Device.

    1. LoRa data tab for devices with LoRa connectivity.

    2. M2M data tab for devices with M2M connectivity.

  7. Flows tab showing you detailed information about the Flows your Device is linked to.

  8. A button to delete your Device. This will completely remove your Device from KPN Things! (Not available for KPN Things devices).

Device information card

The Device information card contains general information about your Device:

  1. The name of your Device.

  2. The Device type.

  3. The processing status of your Device, which you may be able to update.

  4. The Flows linked to your Device.

Clicking on the Device name or Device type will open the Device tab with more information about your Device.

LoRa information card (only for devices with LoRa connectivity)

The LoRa information card contains more LoRa specific information of your Device.

  1. The DevEUI of your Device.

  2. The moment KPN Things last received data from your Device.

Clicking on the DevEUI or the Type = LoRa part of the card will open the LoRa tab with all LoRa specific information of your Device.

M2M information card (only for devices with M2M connectivity)

The M2M information card contains more M2M specific information of your Device.

  1. The IMEI of your Device.

  2. The ICCID of the SIM card linked to your Device.

  3. The MSISDN of the subscription linked to the SIM card in your Device.

  4. The connectivity status with the possibility to change its value.

  5. The moment KPN Things last received data from your Device.

  6. The moment your SIM card has been activated.

  7. The rate plan of the subscription linked to your SIM card.

  8. Button to unlink the current SIM card from your Device. (Not available for KPN (managed) devices).

Clicking on the IMEI or the white part of the card will open the M2M tab with all M2M specific information of your Device.

Internet information card (only for devices with Internet connectivity)

The Internet information card contains more Internet specific information of your Device.

  1. The SenML base name

  2. The moment KPN Things last received data from your Device.

Clicking on the base name or the white part of the card will open the Internet tab with all Internet specific information of your Device.

"LoRa data" tab (only for devices with LoRa connectivity)

LoRa data history will show you all data and mac traffic sent to and from your Device up to one month ago. Learn more about LoRa data history.

"Send instruction" tab

Currently you can only send data to your Device if your Device is linked to at least one Flow!

On this tab you can send data or instructions to your Device, and you can see the status of requested data/instructions. Data to LoRa devices is also called a downlink.

Depending on your device type, different ways of sending data/instructions to your Device will be available. These could be:

  1. Raw LoRa data - for own LoRa devices and supported LoRa devices.

  2. Raw SenML - for any Things M2M or Internet device.

  3. Predefined commands - for KPN devices. Learn more about KPN Things Devices.

  4. No downlink available - for devices that do not support downlink communication.

To see which methods are available for your device type, you can check the available encoders for your device type.

1. Raw LoRa data

Some Device types allow you to send raw LoRa data to your Device. To do this, you need to enter two values in the form as shown below:

  • FPort - the LoRa application port you want to send the data on.

  • Payload - the data you want to send to your Device in hexadecimal characters.

2. Raw SenML

Things M2M devices and Internet devices can communicate with SenML. So downlinks to these devices should also be SenML.

The input form in the Portal should be filled in with a valid SenML measurement list formatted as JSON. Learn more about SenML. The entered SenML measurement list does not have to contain base values, KPN Things will add those before sending the downlink to the Device.

[{"n":"door","v":1}]

3. Predefined commands

For KPN Devices we provide a predefined list of human readable commands that you can send to the Device. Simply select the desired command to send by clicking on the radio button (if multiple commands are available), select the desired value for the command from the drop down, and click submit.

If downlink is not available for your Device, you will see the following:

If your Device is not yet linked to a Flow, doing this could enable Downlink for your device. A Flow is required to enable an encoder that is required for downlink communication. Learn more about downlink communication.

Often data or an instruction sent to your Device is not received immediately. Often the Device is in sleep mode and will be able to receive the data when it wakes up again. So to monitor the status of the requested data/instructions to your Device, you can check the downlink status table on this tab.

There are five downlink statuses, illustrated in the diagram below and further explained in the table below.

More information on sending data to your Device can be found in the Send instruction to LoRa Device.

"Device" tab

This tab shows you detailed information about your Device configuration:

  • Network info - The information required to register the Device to the correct network.

  • Device type - What type of Device it is.

  • Description (optional) - More information about your Device.

  • Barcode (optional) - The serial number of other code that is visible on the outside of the Device.

  • Name - A descriptive name of the Device.

"LoRa" tab (only for devices with LoRa connectivity)

You can read more about the LoRa Connectivity information that you can find on this tab.

Register on Network

If your LoRa Device is not yet registered on the LoRa network, you can click Register Device on Network here. This will open a modal for you to enter the LoRa network information for this Device.

"M2M" tab (only for devices with M2M connectivity)

The M2M tab shows you detailed information about your M2M connectivity. You can read more about the M2M Connectivity you can find on this tab.

Additionally, you can perform some M2M specific actions:

2. Edit M2M Device Configuration - allows you to generate a new shared secret for your M2M device. 3. Switch SIM card - allows you to administratively switch the SIM card of your M2M device. 4. Unlink SIM card- allows you to administratively remove the SIM card from your M2M device.

If your M2M Device is not linked to a SIM card, you can click Link Connectivity here. This will open a new page to allow you to link your Device to a SIM card. The steps you take for this action are the same as for linking your SIM card to a Device.

"Flows" tab

In the Flows tab you can see:

  1. A list of all the Flows your Device is linked to and the Project this Flow is in.

  2. You can click on a Flow to open it.

  3. You can click on Unlink from this Flow to remove the Device from that Flow.

  4. Also you can add your Device to another Flow.

Flow warning labels

If there is a possible issue with one of the Flows your Device is in, a warning icon is shown on the Flow tab link and in the row of the concerning Flow. By clicking on the warning icon of a Flow, you will continue to the Flow detail page displaying more information about the warning.

After you click on Link to another Flow in the Flows tab, a modal will open.

In this modal you can:

  1. Select the Project to which you want to add the Device, if you have more than 1 Project.

  2. Select the Flow to which to link your Device.

  3. Optionally create a new Flow to which to link your Device.

Processing status

Each Device in KPN Things will have a processing status. This will tell you whether data from and to that Device will be processed by KPN Things.

Network info

To connect a Device to KPN Things it needs either to be registered to our LoRa or M2M network, or it needs to be an Internet-connected device running our SDKs or other KPN Things compatible software.

Separate pages will explain more about the supported network types:

Connectivity status

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