April 14, 2020 · 4 min read
Blockbax Platform highlights
We 💚 fast data, but we also love fast and frequent releases. New features are added daily, and this blog series will showcase our favorite new features. This blog’s highlights:
- Dynamic location
- Redesign Explorer
- Select subjects based on a property
- Integrate over CoAP
- Pro-tip: Invite links
Dynamic location
Our web app has always provided the possibility to show the location of a subject on the map. This was based on a property, so a fixed latitude and longitude. This is still an option, but from now on it is also possible to use a dynamic location.
The dynamic location is a new type of metric built to show the last known location of a subject on the map. For example, a vehicle, container or pump that is sending its location every 15 minutes to the platform.
You can make use of the dynamic location by adding an ingested metric of the data type ‘Location’ to your subject type. Once you have an ingested metric for the location, you can check how to send measurements for the location over HTTP, MQTT or CoAP. The location of the subject on the map updates when the platform receives a new latitude and longitude.
Redesign Explorer
Last month we dedicated a blog to our redesigned Explorer. We received a lot of positive feedback and customers already found some interesting insights when they started to use this powerful and rich way to examine measurements and events. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it in our platform and read the Feature Spotlight blog about the Explorer for more details.
Select subjects based on a property
One of the feedback items that we received multiple times is about being able to select a group of subjects at once. Examples are cases where there is a need to show e.g. the average measurements over a group of subjects in e.g. a specific city or region. Another example would be how a specific subject compares to the average of all other subjects. We also wanted to make it possible to select a specific group of subjects when selecting the subjects an event trigger applies to.
In these cases, you want to select a group of subjects based on a property value. We made this available on the subject selectors throughout the platform. For example, when selecting subjects in the Explorer, configuring subject access for project members and access tokens, setting a webhook subject filter or when you select subjects for an event trigger.
The screenshot below shows an example where subjects that have the value ‘Rotterdam’ for the property ‘City’ are selected.
Integrate over CoAP
The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a popular protocol which enables low-power compute-constrained devices to send data to our platform using this very lightweight protocol. It is commonly used for remote sensors operating on a battery via cellular communication networks over LTE-M or NB-IoT. More information to publish measurements over CoAP can be found at the integrations part of our documentation.
By natively supporting this protocol, a lot more Internet of Things (IoT) use cases can be supported by our platform. We can imagine all the different technologies and protocols available in the cellular IoT landscape make you dazzle. To help you navigate this landscape we made the overview below for the common options in cellular IoT.
Pro-tip: Invite links
Do you want to invite colleagues for a project without knowing or typing in their e-mail addresses? This is possible by sharing an invite link. Colleagues that use the link will automatically get the observer role in the project.
Enjoy using all these cool new features and stay tuned for more editions of this blog series with more new features that we are currently developing!
Cheers,
The Blockbax Team.
