Custom LoRa device

Custom LoRa devices are LoRa devices from third parties that are not officially supported by Avelon out of the box. They can still be integrated, but they require additional configuration before the system is able to parse its messages.

If you want to integrate a new device, click on Add Device in the toolbar above the device list. Select My LoRa Device as your device type and provide the required information, especially the Device EUI, Application Key and Application EUI.

For the system to be able to parse incoming messages from the custom LoRa device, you’ll also need to select an IoT profile. You can find more information about IoT profiles in the section Assign IoT profile.

Click on the desired LoRa device in the device list to go to its configuration page. All relevant information about the device is displayed there.

../../_images/my-lora-device.webp — Detailed view of a custom LoRa device

General

Device EUI

The device EUI is used to uniquely identify the device. You can also find the device EUI on the label on the back of the device.

Activation Date

The date the device was registered on the system.

Last Connection

Indicates when the device last connected to the Avelon server.

LoRaWAN

LoRaWAN Network Provider: Indicates which LoRaWAN network provider the device is currently registered with. To learn how to change your network provider, see LoRaWAN network provider.
Application EUI: The EUI of the application on the LoRaWAN server to which this device is assigned. Only available if the device is self-managed.
Application Key: The key of the application on the LoRaWAN server to which this device is assigned. Only available if the device is self-managed.
Application ID: The ID of the application on the LoRaWAN server to which this device is assigned.
Allow access to this device in the public web app without login: If you want to use the QR code on the device to quickly access its measurements, keep this option enabled. However, this will make the device accessible on iot.avelon.cloud to anyone who has access to the QR code. If you deactivate the option, the device and its measurements can only be accessed when you’re logged in. You can change this setting at any time.

Location

Address: The location address of the device. If you fill in this field, the device will be displayed on the map widget and in the map navigation.
GPS: If the address input above is insufficient, you can also specify the location of the device using GPS coordinates.

Device access

Here you configure which user groups are allowed to access the device and its data points. If users should see data points or their recordings or live values, they need to have access to the respective device on which these data points are located.

Granting access to a device also enables access to the device via our public API.

To add a user group, click on Add User Group* and select a user group from the list. All users in that user group will get access to the device. To remove a user group, click on Remove next to the corresponding user group.

Assign IoT profile

Unlike IoT devices from Avelon, custom LoRa devices need a custom script that parses incoming LoRaWAN messages. This script can be defined in an IoT profile. Please read the chapter IoT profiles for instructions on how to create an IoT profile and assign it to your custom LoRa device.

Alerting

Enable Watchdog: Activate the watchdog to be notified if the device does not report in for a longer period of time. This allows you to react in time in the event of a device defect or insufficient transmission power. Select the desired alarm chain from the dropdown.

Warning

Watchdog alarm tickets cannot be closed until the device sends an acknowledgment that the alarm is gone and that the connection with the server is reestablished. As a result, when trying to close a ticket prior to device acknowledgment, the following error message is displayed: “This ticket cannot be closed. The alarm must be acknowledged by the device first”.
Enable Battery Alarm: Activate the battery alarm to be notified if the battery falls below a certain threshold. Select the desired alarm chain from the dropdown.

Setting an alarm

You can add an alarm for any of the data points assigned to a custom LoRa device. The available data points are displayed on the Data Points card. To add an alarm for one of the data points, proceed as follows:

Select the data point by clicking on Go to Data Point on the right hand side.
Under Alerting, define an upper and/or lower alarm limit value.
Select the alarm chain to be invoked in the event of the alarm. For information on how to set up alarm chains, see Manage alarm chains.
With the value Deadband for gone alarms relative to the limits you can also set the difference relative to the alarm limit value as of which any alarm that occurs should automatically be marked as “gone” by the system. For more information on how to edit data points, see Edit data points.
Save your changes by clicking on Save at the top right in the toolbar.

Warning

If you only have a free Heads-up! license on your device, only alarm chains with one user and email notification can be selected. In order to add more users to the alarm chain and to receive alarm notifications via SMS also, a paid Heads-up! license needs to be purchased.

Gateways

The LoRaWAN gateways with which the sensor was recently in contact are displayed on the map. For a gateway to be displayed correctly, the operator of the gateway must have stored the correct GPS coordinates on the device.

Download labels

You can download or print the labels, which are factory affixed to the outside of the case, at any time. Different labels are available depending on the device type. The front label contains the QR code needed to use the device in our IoT app as well as a marker used in connection with its augmented reality function. The back label contains technical information about the sensor, such as the serial number or device EUI.

You can download or print the two labels by clicking on More at the top right, then on Front Label or Back Label respectively, and then on either Download or Print.

Schematic link

It is possible to jump directly from the IoT app, which you can open via the QR code of one of our IoT devices, to a specific schematic, for example to control the parameters of the air conditioning system. You can specify which schematic is to be opened under Schematic Link.

If you also select a data point filter, the system will try to dynamically fill the data points on the schematic using this data point filter. However, this only works if the system names in the shapes used are set in such a way that a unique assignment of data points from the selected data point filter to the shape is possible.

As soon as the link is set up, a corresponding link to the schematic appears on the IoT app.

Licenses

All licenses that are activated for the current device are displayed here. These are either enabled functions or data point packages that can be used in conjunction with this device. You can also see how many units of the respective license have already been used.

Energy Management: The number of data points that can be used for energy management, i.e. mainly in chart widgets.
Energy Reporting: The number of data points that can be used for energy reporting, i.e. as part of automatically generated PDF reports.
Heads-up!: The number of data points that can be used in the context of an alarm.
Operate: The number of data points that can be used in a control system on schematics.
SMS (this month): The monthly quota of SMS messages that can be sent to users in the context of alarms. If this quota is exhausted, all further SMS messages will be charged additionally.
Weather Forecast: The number of forecast data points of the Avelon weather service that can be used.
Weather Readings: The number of weather readings from the Avelon weather service that can be used.

Warning

If the suffix “Free” is added to one of the data point packets, this means that this data point packet was not purchased. In this case, Avelon provides a free entry-level license so that basic functions can still be used. However, the functionality of the free licenses is limited. For example, measurement data are only stored for a few days, and the configuration options for alarms are limited.

Note

To purchase additional licenses for the device, please click Shop. You will then be redirected to the Avelon Shop. This function is only available on Avelon Cloud.

Manage LoRaWAN provider yourself

Custom LoRa devices can be used outside of the Avelon ecosystem and integrated into a proprietary LoRaWAN solution. However, this requires a “Self-managed” license on the device.

To configure the device accordingly, click on More at the top right and then on Configure LoRaWAN Network Provider. In the following dialog, select Self-managed from the drop-down LoRaWAN Network Provider and click OK.

This will give you access to data needed to integrate the LoRa device in the new system, such as Device EUI, Application EUI and Application Key.

Once the device is successfully transferred to another network, it will be removed from the pre-configured network provider.

Warning

This process is not possible if there is still a Building Automation license assigned to the device. The process is reversible and the device can always be transferred back to Avelon Cloud afterward.