Setting Your Gateway Heartbeat to 0 Minutes to Transmit Sensor Messages Immediately
Configuring your gateway to transmit sensor messages as soon as they are received
With default configuration, gateway Heartbeats are set to occur on a schedule. This means that gateways receive sensor communications on the sensor Heartbeats, and queue the readings for delivery to the Monnit software on the gateway Heartbeat. There is a manner by which this behavior can be change so that the gateway transmits sensor readings to the Monnit software as soon as it is received by the gateway.
Setting your gateway’s Heartbeat to 0 minutes
Configuring your gateway’s Heartbeat to 0 will implement the operation by which it transmits sensor readings to the Monnit software as soon as the reading is received at the gateway. This does not change the sensor behavior or Heartbeat Interval, but it does result in sensor readings being more quickly viewable in the Monnit software. While the default configuration for a gateway is to immediately transmit Aware State messages to the Monnit software as soon as the readings are received at the gateway, this configuration will make it so all sensor readings are immediately transmitted to the Monnit software immediately when they are received.
Data limit consideration
It is important to consider any applicable data limits when implementing this configuration. For example, if you are using a cellular gateway, the standard cellular plan provided by Monnit is 1 MB per month. Therefore if you implement this configuration on a gateway receiving data from multiple sensors, it can be very easy to exceed the 1 MB monthly data limit. This should be a major consideration if you have any sort of data limit to the gateway’s data connection.
Default Heartbeat configurations for each gateway type
Note: It is worth noting that not all gateway types support a 0 heartbeat. If you find that the iMonnit UI does not allow you to set your gateway’s heartbeat to 0, it is not supported by that gateway.
It is worth noting the default Heartbeat configuration for each gateway type listed below.
Ethernet Gateway: 5 minutes
4G LTE Cellular Gateway: 15 minutes
3G Cellular Gateway: 60 minutes
2G Cellular Gateway: 60 minutes
Wireless Sensor Adapter/USB Gateway: 5 minutes
Why this might be useful
This configuration can be useful if your installation requires you to see standard sensor readings and Aware State readings without the delay of waiting for a gateway check in. An example of where this might be useful is when operating with WebHooks. Since WebHooks are triggered by gateway communication, there can often be JSON from multiple sensor readings delivered on each WebHook. Some customers find that parsing this data can be more challenging when there are readings from multiple sensors. Therefore, configuring your gateway’s Heartbeat to 0 will trigger a WebHook on each sensor check in, rather than including multiple sensor readings in one WebHook.
Note: while this is generally the behavior with a 0 minute gateway Heartbeat configuration, there can still be occasions where multiple sensor readings are transmitted in a gateway communication. Therefore it is important to plan for this in any code you write that parses the WebHooks.
Conclusion
In applications where retrieving all sensor data messages immediately when they are received by the gateway, this configuration can prove useful. If you have related inquiries, feel free to contact support@monnit.com.