Devices

Here we are going to describe the basic concepts about devices. Although, we suggest you to master the concepts described in this page, we understand that you are not interested in details and are impatient to use your first device. In this case go directly to our Getting Started tutorial.

What is a device?

Every system (hardware or software) able to send events to AI-DashPro is a Device. Examples of device are:

• Cameras running A.I.Tech plugins.
• AI-Appliance devices or Servers: in this case every virtual stream configured on AI-Appliance is considered as a different device.
• Third part devices sending events to AI-DashPro (e.g. Wisenet LPR Cameras).

A device is uniquely identified by its name. Therefore, two or more devices can not use the same name. In the case more devices have the same name, only one device will be attached to AI-DashPro.

Device states

A device can be in the following states:

• Detached: a device that is unknown by AI-DashPro, because no events have been received from it.
• Attached: a device that is known by AI-DashPro, because it has sent at least one event.
• Connected (Alive): an attached device that is regularly sending events to AI-DashPro (Yes, it is alive!).
• Disconnect (Dead): an attached device that has been connected, but is not sending events anymore (Does it die?).

A device becomes attached and connected the first time it sends an events.

It will become disconnected if it does not send any event during the last 30 minutes.

An attached device can become detached only if the installer or the administrator removes it from the table of devices.

Device Page

The Device Page allows you manage the attached devices to AI-DashPro, so those have sent at least one event.

The devices you are able to see and manage are limited by the role of your user. Read User page for more details.

The Device Table shows you the information about the devices in the following columns:

• Image: image associated to the device.

  • By default, you will see a black camera, but you can change it with other images.
  • We suggest to use PNG images, AI-DashPro will resize the image to fit the table.

• Device: Name and network address

  • They are automatically detected from the events.
  • You will not be able to change it from AI-DashPro, the only way you can change the name of a device is through the installed plugin.

• Sensors: The list of all the sensors configured on the device that have sent events to AI-DashPro.

  • This list is automatically filled by AI-DashPro on the base of the events received from the device.
  • You are only allowed to delete (red button) or sync (blue button) a sensor. Note that deleting a sensor will delete all the events AI-DashPro have received from it.

• Last Detection: The timestamp of the last event received.

  • A green chain will confirm you that the device is connected and is sending events to AI-DashPro, but a red broken chain will notice a device that is not connected.
  • Read the timestamp to check the time of the last received event.

• Location: The company branch where your device is installed.

  • Devices without the location are visible to the administrator only. (See the Users page for more details).
  • If the location is set. Company managers of the company the branch belongs and site managers of the branch will be able to see the device. (See the Users page for more details).
  • Read the Getting Started tutorial to learn how to configure the location.

• Operations: The operation you are allowed to perform on the device.

  • The blue button allows you to edit the device.
  • The red button allows you to detach (delete) the device. Be aware, detaching a device cause all the events sent by the device are removed from AI-DashPro.

Edit a device

The Edit Device Page allows you:

• to insert the company and the branch the device belongs to
• to upload an image to be used for the device
• to insert the information required to perform the resync procedure

Communication Protocols

Device communication protocol

In most of the cases, a device communicate with AI-DashPro through the HTTP 1.1 protocol. All the plugins delivered by A.I. Tech use this mode. Nevertheless, AI-DashPro is able to receive events through low level transport protocols such as TCP or UDP.

All the plugins delivered by A.I. Tech allows you to test if a device is able to send events to AI-DashPro, follow the Getting Started tutorial to learn how to use the test event.

If the test event has not been received by AI-DashPro go to Where is my device?

Hearth beat protocol

Since it is not possible to know when an event will happen, all the plugins delivered by A.I. Tech realize a hearth beat protocol to notify they are alive.

They send a periodic event, called Still Alive event, to AI-DashPro. In this way is possible to check if the device is still connected.

The still alive event is sent every minute until the plugin is properly working.

The still alive event is not related to any sensor. The plugin will send the still alive event even if no sensors have been configured on it.

The devices that do not support a hearth beat protocol are considered as ghost devices because they can be attached to AI-DashPro and send events but it is not possible to detect if the are alive or not.

Device sync procedure (Resync)

Have you lost some events? AI-DashPro allows you to manually sync the events lost. You can sync one sensor per device at a time.

The sync procedure requires that AI-DashPro is able to contact the device. This situation is verified if:

• The device and AI-DashPro are working in the same local network.
• The device is publicly accessible on Internet.

Be aware, even if the device is sending event to AI-DashPro, it does not guarantee that AI-DashPro is able to contact the device.

To start the sync procedure click over the sync button (see Section Device Page) and select the time range of the events you wish to receive from the device, than click "Sync".