The Kio Cloud Device Management app is where you will manage your Kontakt.io device inventory. Additional Device Management apps include the Kio Setup Manager mobile app for onsite set up and installation of your Kontakt.io Infrastructure devices, and the Device Health that provides alerting capabilities to notify staff when devices may need attention.
In this article, you'll learn about the Device Management app features and get an introduction to key concepts and terminology.
Topics include:
From the left menu, you can access options to view and manage your device inventory, including claiming Kontakt.io orders, managing your device inventory, obtaining insights into device statuses, and more!
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Below is an overview of the left menu options available in Device Management. The menus and features available are dependent on the Device Management role(s) assigned to your user profile.
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Claim order: when you receive a Kontakt.io order, you'll need to claim the order to add the order's devices your Kio Cloud account. Once an order is claimed, you can begin to deploy and install the devices.
Learn more about claiming an order to add devices to Kio Cloud.
Important
If you are integrating with Cisco Spaces, your Kontakt.io orders are claimed from Cisco Spaces.
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Import External: where you can import external third-party devices. By importing external devices, you can incorporate other IoT devices into Kio Cloud, alongside Kontakt.io devices, for a comprehensive view of your deployed IoT device inventory.
This menu provides details of all your device inventory - from insights into their statues and the details of each device.
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Dashboard: where you can get a quick overview of the status of your deployed devices and data activity.
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Tags: where can view and manage your Kontakt.io devices categorized as Tags. Tags are those moving devices either attached to an asset or some other object being tracked or a wearable worn by people.
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Infrastructure: where you can view and manage your Kontakt.io Infrastructure devices, which include Portal Lights, Portal Beams, Beam Minis, Anchor Beacons, and Dispenser Beacons. Infrastructure devices are stationary, maintaining a fixed position within a given location. Unique to Infrastructure devices, they are installed with the Kio Setup Manager mobile app and assigned to their install location within Kio Cloud Smart Location.
Learn more about Infrastructure devices settings and information.
The Firmware Upgrades menu applies to managed firmware upgrades available to those with a Portal Light infrastructure. Managed firmware upgrades provides the capability to schedule firmware upgrades for both Tag and Infrastructure devices. From the Firmware Upgrades menu, those assigned to the Device Management Administrator can enable or disable upgrades and set a firmware upgrade window.
Unique to Kio Cloud Device Management, there are concepts and terms used throughout the app that we recommend to be familiar with. This will aid in managing and monitoring your Kontakt.io devices.
Devices are categorized as Tags or Infrastructure devices that represent the Kontakt.io ecosystem of IoT devices and their use within Kontakt.io solutions.
Tags are devices that are moving and being tracked by some type of Infrastructure device.
These devices are not assigned to a room location within Kio Cloud Smart Location. Although, their real-time tracked location is available from Smart Location.
The following displays examples of Kontakt.io Tag devices.
Infrastructure are those devices that are stationary, maintaining a fixed position within a given location.
. Unique to Infrastructure devices:
Required to be deployed and installed using the Kio Setup Manager mobile app.
Assigned to their room installation location within Kio Cloud Smart Location.
The following displays examples of Kontakt.io Infrastructure devices.
A Portal Beam or Beam Mini may also be referred to as a room sensor.
An Anchor Beacon as a reference beacon. Alternatively, Anchor Beacons can be deployed as a "tag" affixed to an asset for tracking solutions, but will always be categorized as an Infrastructure device withing Device Management.
The following highlights common terminology that is specific to Device Management.
Behind the scenes, Kio Cloud is continuously receiving data from your deployed devices and logging and monitoring their activity with Kio Cloud.
Within Device Management, Portal Lights have a connectivity status that indicates if they are Online or Offline which is determined by their Last Seen timestamp.
Online
indicates the Portal Light has connected to Kio Cloud within the last 5 minutes.
Offline
indicates the Portal Light has not connected to Kio Cloud for 5 consecutive minutes.
Last Seen is a timestamp value of when Kio Cloud last received data from a device. The definition of Last Seen depends on the device type.
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Tags: Last Seen timestamp identifies when data for the device was last received by Kio Cloud.
Kio Cloud receives Tag data from some type of Infrastructure device, which can be a Kontakt.io Portal Light or BLE enabled Wi-Fi Access Point such as a Cisco Catalyst Access Point.
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BLE-only Infrastructure devices (Beams and Beacon models) Last Seen timestamp identifies when data for the device was last received by Kio Cloud.
Kio Cloud receives data from some type of Infrastructure device, which can be a Kontakt.io Portal Light or BLE-enabled Wi-Fi Access Point such as a Cisco Catalyst Access Point
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Portal Light (Infrastructure device): Last Seen timestamp identifies when a Portal Light last connected to Kio Cloud.
A Portal Light connects to the local Wi-Fi network to send and download data from Kio Cloud. The data sent to Kio Cloud by a Portal Light includes data from tags, Portal Beams, and Anchors Beacon that are within Bluetooth range of the Portal Light.
A Not Synchronized status indicates that either the data for a device is not available or the data is insufficient or when device has a pending update that requires synchronization.
The following details a little more about the Not Synchronized status.
Data type |
Description |
Not Synchronized indicates... |
|---|---|---|
Battery |
Battery levels are calculated locally by a battery-powered device every hour. Battery level data is received by and sent to Kio Cloud by some type of Infrastructure device. |
Battery data has not been received. |
Last Seen |
Timestamp of when Kio Cloud last received data for a device. |
Data has never been received for the device. |
Synchronizing |
When a configuration update is made to a device from Device Management, the device must synchronize to receive and apply the update to its local configuration. |
Currently, the device has a pending configuration update that has not yet been synchronized with its local configuration. |
The Deployment Status setting allows you to manage the current state of your devices, indicating whether they are deployed and in use, waiting to be deployed, or have reached their end of life. Learn more about the Deployment Status.
If you use Device Health to alert staff when devices need attention, a device's Deployment Status must be set to Deployed. If a device is not set to Deployed, alerts are not activated for the device.
Note
When Kontakt.io Infrastructure devices are assigned to their installation location within Smart Location or during install using the Kio Setup Manager, their Deployment Status is automatically set to Deployed.
The Tag setting provides a method to virtually label your devices as a way to group or categorize them within Device Management. This allows you to easily search for and locate devices based on their assigned tag, rather than having to manually sift through a list of devices.
When a setting update is made to a tag, Portal Beam, or Anchor Beacon device model, the device is set to a Pending Update status and the device must synchronize with Kio Cloud to receive and apply the configuration update.
A device can be synchronized by either of the following methods. For complete details, see About synchronizing devices to receive pending configuration updates.
From an in-range Kontakt.io Portal Light.
Locally from the Kio Setup Manager app.
From a third-party app integrated with Kontakt.io SDKs.
The following highlights some of the most common device management actions.
Kio Cloud Device Management empowers those that have a Portal Light infrastructure to remotely manage and schedule firmware upgrades for both Kontakt.io IoT Infrastructure and Tag devices.
When you have a few to hundreds of devices, you can use the Export and Import CSV feature to update the configuration of multiple devices at the same time. This feature is also commonly referred to as a bulk- or multi-edit.
For instructions, see Update multiple devices at the same time.
From the Tags and Infrastructure list views, the Customize Table feature allows you to add and arrange the columns displayed. This is helpful to view the device data that's most important to you.
You can quickly find a specific device or apply filters to view the devices you're looking for by setting criteria unique to your needs.
Search is great when you need to find a specific device by its Unique ID, MAC address, Tag (label), to an Order ID.
The below example shows how to search for a device by its Unique ID.
Filtering is helpful when you want to view specific devices by one or more attributes. You can set the filter criteria to product model, firmware version, Order ID, and more!
The below example shows setting a filter to view only Asset Tag 2 devices by use of the Product Model criteria option.