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Getting started with Device Management

Device Management is the Kio Cloud app for managing your Kontakt.io device inventory throughout its lifecycle. From a single place, you can claim new Kontakt.io orders, manage device settings, monitor device status, schedule firmware upgrades, and organize both Kontakt.io and supported third-party devices.

Device Management works alongside other Kio Cloud apps throughout the deployment lifecycle:

  • Kio Setup Manager is the mobile app used to install and configure Kontakt.io Infrastructure devices onsite.
  • Smart Location stores the physical locations where Infrastructure devices are installed and provides location information throughout Kio apps.
  • Device Health monitors deployed devices and alerts staff when a device requires attention.

Together, these apps help you deploy, manage, and maintain your Kontakt.io environment.

The navigation menu gives you access to your device inventory, deployment tools, and firmware management features.

The menus and features available depend on the Device Management role assigned to your user profile. See About user access to Device Management for additional details.

Add Devices

The Add Devices menu is used to add devices to your Device Management inventory.

  • Claim Order: when you receive a Kontakt.io order, claim it to add its devices to your Kio Cloud account. Once an order is claimed, you can start to deploy and install the devices. See Claim and add devices with your Kontakt.io Order ID.

    Note: If your organization integrates with Cisco Spaces, your Kontakt.io orders are claimed from Cisco Spaces instead of Device Management.

  • Import External: import supported third-party devices alongside your Kontakt.io devices, giving you a single inventory of your deployed IoT inventory in one place. See Import third-party external devices.

Inventory menu

The Inventory menu provides different views of your device inventory.

  • Dashboard: view an overview of your deployed devices, inventory activity, and device health. See Device Management Dashboard.

  • Tags: view and manage all Kontakt.io Tag devices. Tags are moving devices — attached to tracked assets or worn by a people. See Tags settings and information.

  • Infrastructure: view and manage all Infrastructure devices, including Portal Lights, Portal Beams, Beam Minis, Anchor Beacons, Temp Monitor Pro, Temp Monitor Lite, and Dispenser Beacons. Infrastructure devices are stationary and stay in a fixed position in a location. You install them with the Kio Setup Manager mobile app and assign them to their location in Smart Location. See Infrastructure devices settings and information.

Settings

The Firmware Upgrades page lets organizations with a Portal Light infrastructure schedule managed firmware upgrades for supported Tag and Infrastructure devices.

Users with the Administrator or Firmware Manager role can enable managed firmware upgrades, define maintenance windows, and schedule firmware deployments. See Schedule firmware upgrades with Managed Firmware Upgrades.

Tags

Tags are the mobile Bluetooth devices that move throughout your environment.

Tags are either attached to tracked assets or are worn by people, depending on the Kio solution deployed. Examples include Asset Tags, Smart Badges, and other wearable or asset-mounted Bluetooth devices.

Their location is detected by nearby Infrastructure devices and made available in Smart Location and throughout Kio apps that use location information. Because Tags move between locations, they are not assigned to rooms or locations in Smart Location.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure devices are stationary devices that are assigned to their installation location. These devices can provide the Bluetooth infrastructure, BLE to Wi-Fi gateway infrastructure, or monitor fixed locations. They include Portal Lights, room sensors such as Portal Beams and Beam Minis, environmental monitors such as Temp Monitor Pro and Temp Monitor Lite, Anchor Beacons, and Dispenser Beacons. Supported third-party Wi-Fi access points, such as Cisco Catalyst access points, can also participate in the deployment by detecting Bluetooth devices and forwarding their data to Kio Cloud.

  • Deploy and install them with the Kio Setup Manager mobile app.

  • Assign them to their install location in your Smart Location topology — including the campus, building, floor, and room-level location.

Understand device information

Each device's details includes information about its communication status, deployment state, health, and configuration.

Device status

The Status field shows its connectivity status with Kio Cloud — Online if Kio Cloud has received data from the device within the last few minutes, Offline if no data has been received within the last 5 minutes. In the devices list, Status appears as a connection status icon (green for Online, grey for Offline). The list and the General tab also show Last Online, First Online, Battery, and Power source.

For what each of these fields means — including why a value can show Unknown, and how Status differs from the Synchronizing state — see About device status and connectivity.

Deployment Status

Deployment Status tracks where a device is in its lifecyle: To Be Deployed, Deployed, or End Of Life. It's separate from whether a device is Online. See Manage the Deployment Status of your devices.

If you use Device Health to alert staff when devices need attention, a device's Deployment Status must be Deployed — alerts don't apply to devices in any other state. See Getting started with Device Health.

Note: When you assign a Kontakt.io Infrastructure device to its location in Smart Location, or install it with the Kio Setup Manager, its Deployment Status is set to Deployed automatically.

Tags setting

The Tags setting lets you label devices to group or categorize them. You can then search for devices by their label instead of scrolling through the whole list.

Synchronizing

When you change a device's configuration in Device Management, the change waits until the device synchronizes with Kio Cloud. A tag, Portal Beam, or Anchor Beacon shows a Pending Update status until then, and the Synchronizing column shows Not Synchronized; once the device has synchronized and received the change, it shows Synchronized.

A device gets its pending changes in any of these ways. For additional details, see About synchronizing devices to receive pending configuration updates.

About managing devices

Here are some of the most common things you'll do in Device Management.

Schedule firmware upgrades

If your deployment includes Portal Lights, you can manage and schedule firmware upgrades remotely for both Infrastructure and Tag devices. See About managing device firmware.

Update many devices at once

To update the configuration of many devices at the same time, use the Export and Import CSV feature — also called a bulk edit or multi-edit. See Update multiple devices with a CSV file (bulk edit).

Choose which columns to show

In the Tags and Infrastructure lists, use Customize Table to add and arrange columns, so you see the device data that matters most to you.

Search and filter devices

Find a specific device, or filter the list to just the devices you're after.

Search for a specific device

Search by a device's Unique ID, MAC address, Tag (label), or Order ID.

This example searches by Unique ID.

Filter devices

Filtering helps when you want to see devices by one or more attributes, such as product model, firmware version, or Order ID.

This example filters the list to show only Asset Tag 2 devices, using the Product Model criteria.