Thing

The things are the virtual representations of your Internet-connected devices. We can see a thing connected to the Internet as a collection of resources.

Resource

Each resource can be seen as a timeline. The thing publishes or consumes these resources. For example, a thing with a temperature sensor publishes "temperature" and a thing that is an on/off switch consumes a resource called "turn" which can take the values "on" or "off". Everything can be a resource. The value of a resource is not restricted to being a string or a number it can be an array, a json object or even a binary.

Product

An IoT product is the blueprint that represents your physical devices. And it's where you define how your devices operates with thethings.iO Platform.

Activation Code

An activation code is a unique code that will enable your devices to be activated via the registration endpoint call. The purpose of this code is at the same time to identify you as the creator of the thing and when some day you start selling your awesome IoT product, to avoid that somebody can activate things in your name. As a result of this call your thing will receive a unique thing token that will identify your thing at thethings.iO platform. You can also activate your things manually at the Panel as explained on the getting started guide.

Thing Token

When you activate a thing, you will get a thing token. This token will enable you to make API calls to thethings.iO from your thing.

App

An IoT Application is the virtual representation at thethings.iO of an App. And it's where you define how your App operates with thethings.iO Platform and your IoT products.

Cloud Code

Sometimes you need to execute a part of your bussiness logic in a server. You can execute JavaScript code at thethings.iO cloud using the API of the cloud code sandbox. There are three types of cloud code: triggers, jobs and functions.

Job

Jobs are tasks executed once every hour or day. You can use the jobs to generate your own KPIs and analytics aggregating the data from the events.

Function

Functions are snippets of code executed when an API REST endpoint is called. They can also be called from other parts of the cloud code like triggers and jobs. They are useful to encapsulate business logic that you don't want in the devices.

Trigger

Triggers are snippets of code executed after an event happens like a thingWrite. You can use a trigger to send an alarm or generate an event to be aggregated later. Also you can call external web services.

Panel

theThings.iO platform provides you a device monitoring and App management Global Panel. Manage all your IoT products and applications in one beautiful Panel. Also provides powerful analytical tools that are fully customizable to deliver the information that you need to make decisions.

Dashboard

The dashboard will show you metrics of your apps and devices, and their activity. It presents you an overview of the status of your devices and your main products metrics.

Insight Dashboard

The Insight dashboard is a dashboard for one thing. It shows you the metrics and the status of this thing.