Getting Started¶

Installation¶

SwarmSense setup is really easy. It comes with one-click installer script which will take-care of every dependency of the application.

Follow the installation guide from last topic.

Entities and Relations¶

Create Sensor Type¶

To create a Sensor Type follow these steps:

-> Login to your account.

-> Go to admin section.

-> Go to Manage Sensor Types and create new Sensor Type.

-> Give a name and add value field and configuration field.

-> Save it and done.

Now the Sensor Type is ready, you can add sensors of this type.

Add your first sensor or device¶

It is really easy to add sensors or devices with the system. Before creating a sensor make sure the sensor type exists. Check how to create sensor type guide for more details. Now

-> Login to your account,

-> Go to sensors section and create sensor,

-> Give it a name and select a sensor type,

-> Provide the location if you want,

-> Save it and done!

After saving it will generate a unique id and a access key. These will be needed while sending data to the sensor.

Send values to the sensor¶

Post your data to the following endpoint http://<api_end-point>/sensors/<sensor_id>/values. Normally your <api_end-point> will be <hostname>/api. Send the sensor key in header X-Sensor-key and your data in body. Check the REST api docs for more details. For example if your api end-point is is 127.0.0.1/api then here is a python example to send sensor values.

Shell cURL Example:

curl --request POST \
--url http://127.0.0.1/api/sensors/<sensor_id>/values \
--header 'accept: application/json' \
--header 'cache-control: no-cache' \
--header 'content-type: application/json' \
--header 'x-sensor-key: a1ea4f206acfab65b7b63e4dda608a14' \
--data '{"cpu": 33.3, "temp": 45.0, "memory": 68.4}'

A python example which will read cpu details and then post the values to sensor:

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 #!/usr/bin/python3
 import requests
 import psutil
 import json

 # Change sensor_id with your sensor id and use key in headers.
 url = "http://127.0.0.1/api/sensors/<sensor_id>/values"
 mem = psutil.virtual_memory()
 temp = psutil.sensors_temperatures()
 payload = {
     "memory": mem.percent,
     "cpu": psutil.cpu_percent(interval=1),
     "temp": temp['k10temp'][0].current
 }
 print(payload)
 headers = {
     'x-sensor-key': "a1ea4f206acfab65b7b63e4dda608a14",
     'content-type': "application/json",
 }
 response = requests.request("POST", url, data=json.dumps(payload), headers=headers)
 print(response.text)

Observer sensor data on Web UI¶

Once you posted data the sensor data, it will be available on the Web UI on sensors page.

Go to the sensors page you will see the latest data here.

You can see the sensor data history and graphs by clicking on sensor name.

Create alerts¶

Alerts or triggers are a key part of any monitoring system and Swarmsense IoT platform makes it really easy. To create a new alert

• Go to alerts section,
• Create a new alert
• Give it a name and select a type
• Select the sensor type and a field which you want to monitor
• Add email and time duration
• Save and you are done.

Publish Sensor Data with MQTT¶

MQTT is one of the most used communication protocol in IoT devices. With Swarmsense IoT platform it really easy to use it. let’s do it.

First of all create a sensor. Follow the above guide to create a sensor. Please notedown the senosr id and key. It will be used to authenticate and send values. By default your MQTT port is 1883 and host is your server name. To authenticate with server, username will be sensor_<sensor_id> and password will be the sensor key. To send the data, publish json encoded string in body on sensors/<sensor_id>/values topic. Hear is a simple example in python to publish sensor data with MQTT. It will publish every minute. Here we are using paho mqtt client.

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 #!/usr/bin/python3
 import psutil
 import json
 from paho.mqtt.client import Client
 import time

 mqttc = Client()

 # Change HOST with your hostname
 HOST = 'localhost'

 # Use your sensor id. Here it is 1a43s13sz
 USERNAME = 'sensor_1a43s13sz'

 # Sensor key as password
 PASSWORD = 'a1ea4f206acfab65b7b63e4dda608a14'

 if USERNAME:
     mqttc.username_pw_set(USERNAME, PASSWORD)

 mqttc.connect(HOST, 1883)

 mqttc.loop_start()
 while True:
     try:
         mem = psutil.virtual_memory()
         temp = psutil.sensors_temperatures()
         payload = {
                 "memory": mem.percent,
                 "cpu": psutil.cpu_percent(interval=0),
                 "temp": temp['k10temp'][0].current
             }

         rc, mid = mqttc.publish('sensors/1a43s13sz/values', json.dumps(payload), qos=0, retain=False)
         if rc != 0:
             print(rc)

         time.sleep(60)
     except KeyboardInterrupt:
         break

 mqttc.loop_stop()
 mqttc.disconnect()

What Next?¶

Explore more features of SwarmSense IoT:

• Create Dashboards
• Add alerts
• Manage sensor networks
• Add other users to your company