Connecting Devices
Connecting devices and applications clients
A device or software application connected to the Exosite platform is typically done so through the Internet, using TCP/IP. We’ll skip over the IP application layer protocols for right now and focus in on the basics of getting devices connected.
Computers, Servers, Mobile Phones
The most common ‘connected devices’ are a PC or server connected using WiFi (802.11) or Ethernet usually in a Local Area Network (LAN) which is then connected to a WAN, and so on and so on. It’s a notion that almost everyone understands to some degree. Applications on a PC or on a server are right away able to connect to Exosite’s platform. The same basic assumptions can be made for mobile phones that have data connections. The client application for both reading and writing data is communicated over the network connection to the server based One Platform.
Embedded Electronics / Microcontrollers
This is where it gets fun. Getting embedded devices connected to local area networks has been going on for several years and many new consumer electronics are now able to be connected to the Internet. It won’t stop at LCD TVs. Industrial, Agricultural, and Medical products will all begin to be a part of the Internet over the next 10 years.
The obvious ways to start connecting is to begin to add Ethernet, WiFi, and cellular controllers to products. Many microcontrollers are adding Ethernet to their lists of functionality and WiFi / Cellular chips are becoming available to lower volume opportunities. Check out our development API Documentation for different methods of communicating with our platform using different IP protocols.
For electronics that will likely never connect to the Internet (light switches, temperature sensors, .etc) there are a lot of great local area wireless technologies to take advantage of back to a gateway device that sends data on behalf of those ‘node’ devices. Exosite’s One Platform hierarchal client support allows gateways to communicate data on behalf of node devices.
Third-party equipment
Companies that use Exosite’s technology in their products typically have this all ‘under the hood’ and you should check with the OEM about connection and use related questions. On occasion, product device hardware can be configured to work with Exosite and are covered in our ‘3rd Party Devices‘ section.
For integrators who are interested in using off the shelf products with Exosite, please feel free to contact us and ask about supporting those products. If they don’t have a connection to the Internet, there are other gateway type devices that could be used. If they do have an Internet connection, we can help dig into the protocols it supports and whether it can be custom programmed. We recommend also contacting the OEM about adding support in the future into their products.
Connecting an existing device
If you have a device with a protocol that will not support the current Exosite API protocols, please contact us with details about adding support for that device’s protocol.
