LNS: How to use
- Brent Meriwether (Unlicensed)
The following information will help you to use the LNS for “level 2” Support tasks. Use the IoT Console until/unless you require the advanced capabilities of the LNS for diagnosing or fixing problems.
Log In / Choose Environment
To login, proceed to http://lns.mydevices.com and login. Everyone has his/her own account for logging in.
Verify you are in the right Organization/Application
After logging in, the most important thing to verify is that you are looking at the correct environment. LNS is set up with various Organizations and sandboxed environments. This is similar to Staging, Production setups but also allows us even greater control such as being able to provide sandboxed testing environments to Manufacturers without allowing them access to our data.
To begin, make sure that you have mydevices-live selected in the dropdown. This Organization includes both IoT in a Box Staging & Production (and may include others such as Dev). A bit more information can be found in Find Application ID or Device Profile IDs.
Hardware Lookup
Look up specific hardware by its ID using the search field at the top.
Gateway Note: Gateways should not include the eui- portion. Although we include this moniker as part of our Device IDS, technically this is not allowed for ID nomenclature and Azure will not find the gateway if you include it. Just leave off the “eui-” part and use the remaining hex code ID.
Viewing Device Info
After looking up some hardware, clicking on its ID in the search list will drill down into device details.
Checking Device Online / Last Seen
The Last Seen information for sensors can be found directly on the top-level Details screen.
Checking Activation Status
Go to the Activation tab to check activation status. If the device has been activated, information will be displayed for the device here. Otherwise, you will see the message “Device has not (yet) been activated”.
Monitor for new Packets
Use the Device Data or LoRaWAN Frames tab to monitor packets in real-time. These screens operate in a similar manner as found on TTN - as new packets come in, entries will appear on this screen. You can then dig into each entry for the details.
Note: If you want the raw packet (which you can then decode in our Console, using Base 64), you can currently only grab this from the Device Data tab.
Which gateway sent the packet
Included in the information found on the LoRaWAN Frames is the information as to which Gateway ID transmitted the packet. This can be used in support troubleshooting if you need to find some more information as to how the device packet is being sent to us.
Viewing Gateway Info
Pulling up Gateway information works in the same way as for device hardware. Use the search field (remember to not include “eui-”) and then select the ID to pull up the details screens.
Checking Gateway Online / Last Seen
The Last Seen information can be found directly on the top-level Gateway Details screen. You can also use the Frames received / Frames transmitted charts shown on this screen to look for patterns of drop-off or interruption of the gateway traffic.
Monitor for new Packets
Similar to device monitoring, you can use the Live LoRaWAN Frames screen to monitor packets being transmitted using this gateway in real-time. This will give you another point to confirm whether or not the gateway is transmitting data.
Supporting new hardware profiles
Similar to usage on TTN, hardware models need to be fully defined in the LNS. This includes information such as the Class of LoRa hardware, Join methods supported, etc. You can find this information under the Device-Profiles section.
Reminder: Just to be clear, the LNS is similar to TTN where you are using the LNS to define models but we still continue to use our IoT Console to register individual pieces of hardware that then utilize these device profiles.
If you need to implement a new device profile to support a new class of hardware or a new manufacturer, be sure to first select the right Organization before creating a new profile. Refer to our proper guidelines for where to create test hardware profiles (e.g. sandboxing each manufacturer until it is ready to go to our -live environment).
After selecting the right environment, you can then create a new profile, specifying all the LoRa details to support the hardware. Any relevant additional tips or gotchas when doing so in the LNS can be added to our help articles to help out.