Device Service - Device Definitions

Concept

In EdgeX parlance, "device" is used to refer to a sensor, actuator, or IoT "thing". A sensor generally collects information from the physical world - like a temperature or vibration sensor. Actuators are machines that can be told to do something. Actuators move or otherwise control a mechanism or system - like a value on a pump. While there may be some technical differences, for the purposes of EdgeX documentation, device will refer to a sensor, actuator or "thing".

Data about actual devices is another type of information and each device must have a unique name associated to it. The core metadata micro service stores information about a device. This information is used by other services (Device, Command, etc) to communicate with the devices. Each device is also associated to a device profile. This association enables metadata to apply knowledge provided by the device profile to each device. For example, a thermostat profile would say that it reports temperature values in Celsius. Associating a particular thermostat (the thermostat in the lobby for example) to the thermostat profile allows metadata to know that the lobby thermostat reports temperature value in Celsius.

Usage

How to start

You can define your device by creating device profile first and add your device based on the profile.

Provisioning

Some device service have the ability to discover new devices, see Provision a device and Device Discovery for more detailed information.