4.5. Device Types

Device Types are a technique for identifying a particular type of Device/Sensor. A Device Type is used to explicitly identify the type of device seen within a BLE Advertisement events.

4.5.1. Defining Device Types

Device Types are defined in the Edge Connect Configuration document. Any number of Device Types can be defined. Any key present within an advertisement may be used to identify advertisements as a type of device.

Each type of device is defined within the devices:{ types:[]} section of the Edge Connect configuration. A device type requires an id and a matcher. The matcher definition informs Edge Connect of how to identify a BLE advertisement as that type of device. Device types may also include accessible properties which behave similarly to metadata but are simpler to access within filters and actions.

Example device type:

{
    "devices":{
        "types": [
            {
                "id": "rs40",
                "match": {
                    "serviceData.fd95": ""
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

The above example defines a device type for an rs40 which is a Rigado device. An advertisement will be identified as this type of device if it contains a serviceData section with a UUID of fd95.

The general guideline is to provide an all lowercase single word device ID or multiple lowercase words separated by .. The data used to identify any device needs to be as specific as possible to avoid misidentification.

4.5.2. Device Type behaviors

When Edge Connect starts, all device types are registered within an internal registry. When any advertisement event contains data which matches the matcher defined for the device type, a deviceDetected event is generated. This event can be captured by a pipeline which can then perform additional actions, if necessary, when a new device of an appropriate type is detected.

Example:

{
    "pipelines": {
        "rs40Detected": {
            "eventType":"deviceDetected",
            "filters":[
                {
                    "matcher": { 
                        "match": {
                            "deviceType":"rs40"
                        }
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    }
}

Further advertisements containing a device with a known type can access the device information using the template function Device (i.e {{ Device.Type }}). See Template Functions for details on the available fields of Device.

4.5.3. Targeting Device Types in Pipelines

To detect a type of device within a pipeline, a templated matcher is added either to the matchers portion of the top level pipeline configuration or with a matcher filter within the pipeline. The templated matcher should use the Device function to get the type as follows:

"{{ eq Device.Type \"rs40\" }}"

Alternatively, upon receiving a device detected event, the device could be added to a device group. Then, pipelines which operate based on the device’s advertisement data can specify this device group. This ensures that only the appropriate types of device advertisements are delivered to the pipeline.

In addition to deviceDetected events, the following events will occur as follows:

deviceAssigned when any device is added to or removed from a device group. deviceHealth when health information about the device changes. Currently, this event is only triggered by the change in state of a device’s presence.

4.5.4. Device Type Events

As discussed, when a new advertisement matching any defined device type is observed, a device detected event will occur. All of the following events contain, among other things, the special key deviceType. Validating that this key matches the type of device a behavior (pipeline, filter, etc) is interested in should always be considered.

These events have the following format:

{
    "mac":"32427aad00fc",
    "presence":"Unknown",
    "lastRssi":-33,
    "lastSeen":"2021-06-08T15:53:21.065286708Z",
    "advIvl":0,
    "health":"Unknown",
    "deviceId":"32427aad00fc",
    "smoothRssi":-33,
    "firstSeen":"2021-06-08T15:53:21.065286708Z",
    "lastAdv":{
        "services":["4f8="],
        "serviceData":{
            "ffe1":["oQFfABYAGQ=="]
        },
        "mac":"32427aad00fc",
        "addressType":1,
        "eventType":3,
        "connectable":false,
        "rssi":-33,
        "flags":"Ag=="
    },
    "assigned":false,
    "deviceType":"minew-s1"
}

Device health events have the following format:

{
    "assigned":true,
    "deviceType":"minew-s1",
    "smoothRssi":-32,
    "lastSeen":"2021-06-08T15:52:54.605252418Z",
    "advIvl":15698,
    "lastRssi":-38,
    "firstSeen":"2021-06-08T15:51:20.415835922Z",
    "lastAdv": {
        "flags":"Ag==",
        "mac":"32427aad0074",
        "addressType":1,
        "eventType":3,
        "connectable":false,
        "rssi":-38,
        "services":["4f8="],
        "serviceData": {
            "ffe1":["oQFfABYAGQ=="]
        }
    },
    "health":"OK",
    "deviceId":"32427aad0074",
    "mac":"32427aad0074",
    "presence":"OK",
    "groups":["validatedDevices"]
}

Device assignment events have the following format:

{
    "mac":"32427aad011b",
    "deviceType":"rs40",
    "lastRssi":-40,
    "firstSeen":"2021-06-08T15:51:12.216959664Z",
    "lastAdv": {
        "serviceData": {
            "fd95":["oUIAYlUKewECAwQFBgcICQo="]
        },
        "mac":"32427aad011b",
        "addressType":1,
        "eventType":3,
        "connectable":false,
        "rssi":-40,
        "flags":"Ag==",
        "services":["lf0="]
    },
    "assigned":true,
    "deviceId":"32427aad011b",
    "groups":["validatedDevices"],
    "smoothRssi":-35,
    "lastSeen":"2021-06-08T15:51:47.539083677Z",
    "advIvl":17661,
    "health":"OK",
    "presence":"OK"
}

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4.6. Configuring Edge Connect for Connection Based Devices