ionware

A Quick Step By Step Tutorial To Connect Your Orion iBox Gateway Device To The Orion Cloud Platform

Introduction

We will assume you have a third party device, completed your Orion Signup here and, ordered your Orion Subscription Plan here and you have received your unique Orion Device Serial Number and Claim Code. 

 

Other Computer Device Systems

As long as alternative systems use MQTT, then they can communicate and use Orion. Example alternatives would be the Raspberry Pi range or similar.

 

Step 1. Adding your Device to Orion

Login to your Orion account, ‘add’ and name a new Workspace, navigate to Devices and click + Add Device Button as follows ..

where Pin Code is your unique device Claim Code received on your Orion Subscription Plan signup ..

 

Step 2. Adding a Field Datapoint in Orion

Scroll down to the Add Field Button and enter your unique Field datapoint parameters as follows ..

CPUT2 is reading the temperature of the Orion iBox CPU device as follows ..

and then navigate to the API section and take note of your API Token. You will need this for each MQTT datapoint in your Node-RED Flows.

 

Step 3. Take Note of Orion MQTT Publish Topics and API Security Token

Click the MQTT Configure Button and you will see the two topics to use in Node-Red to ‘Publish’ to Orion for each datapoint. Copy them for further use later in Orion iBox unit.

You will also need to copy your Orion API security token, so navigate to the top left hand corner and click on your workspace details, Edit Profile as follows .. 

Then into API and copy your token to a safe place .. 

 

Step 4. Node-RED MQTT to Orion Configuration 

The following Node-RED flow will illustrate the MQTT setup to communicate to your Orion field datapoints using CPUT2 as an example ..

Next, Double click on the cput2 MQTT Out node to edit the node Topic to your Orion device settings as follows ..

Topic = dtck-pub/YOUR DEVICE/YOUR – DEVICE-UNIQUE-SERIAL-NUMBER /CPUT2

Next, click on the Server edit button (pencil icon) and the input the Orion Server Connection details as follows ..

Server = orion.ionware.io.mqtt-server.com and Port = 1883     .. see as follows ..

Next, click on the Security tab and input your Orion API Token into both fields ..

Username =  YOUR ORION API TOKEN HERE   and  Password = YOUR ORION API TOKEN HERE  as follows ..

Then Update, Done and Deploy the Flow.

Repeat for the other MQTT Output Nodes in Node-RED and for your Orion iBox Device Fields.

 

Step 5. Check Datapoint Values are received in Orion

In Devices chose the Dashboard Tab add a Value Widget as follows .. 

We would advise rebooting your Orion iBox device and then activating the Inject Timestamp node for each datapoint to send values to Orion.

And that is all there is to it. 

You will find the Orion Platform very intuitive and easy to use with excellent reliability and security. 

Enjoy and have fun!