In this document you will learn the basics of how to connect your networked devices to thethings.iO with UDP.

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Before you start learning how to use our platform to connect your devices, we recommend that you read first our Getting Started guide in order to create your Account and set up the platform.

Getting Started

In order to send messages from your devices to thethings.iO using the protocol UDP, first you have to create a UDP product, as you can see in the image below.

Here you can find a guide of how to connect and construct the messages. You can also find examples in different programming languages in our GitHub repository.

Connection parameters

Format is HEX String.
UDP thethings.iO gateway IP: 104.199.85.211
The port is: 28399

This is the structure of the message:

TTIO_HEADER | PAYLOAD | HMAC-SHA1(PSK, PAYLOAD)

Note that each byte is represented by two characters (e.g number 1 (dec) is 0x01 (padded hex)). Then, the whole string must be an even number.

thethings.iO header

To be able to communicate with our UDP service, you first have to add a header to your UDP data. At this moment we provide two possible headers to best adapt to your use case.

Using your own deviceId.

You don't have to activate the things. They will be activated automatically once you send first message

Byte	Value	Description
Byte 0	0x00	Header type: deviceId
Byte 1	Number (hex)	Length of the idProduct value
Bytes 2 to 2+(idProduct length)	Number (hex)	idProduct Value.
Bytes 2+(idProduct length) to 16+(idProduct length)	String (hex)	idProduct Hash string
Byte 16+(idProduct length)	Number (hex)	deviceId Length
Bytes 17+(idProduct length) to 17+(idProduct length)+(deviceId Length)	String (hex)	DeviceId String

Using our thingToken

Things must be activated before you send first message.

Byte	Value	Description
Byte 0	0x01	Header type: thingToken
Bytes 1 to 43	String	thingToken

Payload

Once you have the header you have to concatenate it with the payload. The payload consists on a hex string. The whole string must be an even number.

This payload will be sent as a hex string to a cloud code function which will parse the payload sent by your devices. This cloud code function is created automatically when you create a new UDP product.

HMAC-SHA1

This part of the message is optional. By default isn't enabled, so we have to configure manually to be ready to work. Contact us in case you want to use this feature

You can concatenate an HMAC-SHA1 hash at the end of the message. To generate the hash you have to use your payload and share with us a generated PSK (Pre-Shared Key): HMAC-SHA1(PLAIN_MESSGAGE, PSK)

Cloud Code Function

The last step is to use our Cloud Code service to code a JavaScript function to parse the payload sent by your devices.

You have to edit the function 'udp_parser' that was created automatically once your product was created.

This function has two parameters, params and callback. The params, contains the deviceId and the payload. And callback, it's used to sent the result of the parse function to our platform and store the values with our JSON formatting.

/*
params = {
  thingToken: thingToken,
  deviceId: deviceId,
  data: hex payload
};
*/
function main(params, callback){
    var result = [
      {
          "key": "temperature",
          "value": parseInt('0x'+params.data.substring(0,2))
      }
    ]
    callback(null, result); 
}

As a result you have to return an array of objects with this structure:

[ {"key": temperature, "value": 21}, {"key": humidity, "value": 50} ... ]

Status code

When sending messages, you will receive a status code back indicating if the message was received correctly. In case it wasn't, the error code will indicate what is wrong.

In case you don't know how to fix the issue, we kindly ask you to contact us indicating the problem

Status code	Meaning	Observations
0x20	OK. Cloud function was called successfully	It means that the message is correctly formatted and the function udp_parser was called. However, it doesn't ensures that the result of the function was successful
0x00	Internal error	Please contact us
0x01	Invalid protocol	You are using a protocol different from 0x00 or 0x01
0x02	Invalid product Id	The product doesn't exist.
0x03	Invalid product hash
0x04	Thing not found
0x05	Message or Key length incorrect
0x06	Invalid HMAC-SHA1 hash
0x07	Product organization id is wrong
0x08	Organization has no subscription plan
0x09	Subscription Plan is expired
0x10	Insufficient Activation Codes	You have reached the number of things of your plan. Please get more activation codes
0x11	Error when activating a new a thing
0x12	Error when setting thing's name
0x13	Thing token not found