Access tokens
A new level of integration for the platform
The server update of April 2017 released a new feature, called Access Tokens, which controls access to Thinger.io resources from the REST API.
It is quite similar to the Identity and Access Management (IAM) of Amazon Web Services: you specify what kind of resource and what action you want to grant access to. This feature opens the platform to a new level of integration, and this post shows a new use case: integrating Sigfox devices.
This is the method from before the Sigfox plugin. Since 2020 the Sigfox Integration Plugin handles large networks with auto-provisioning and downlinks; the callback described here still suits a single device.
How Sigfox works
Devices that are not connected to the platform
Sigfox devices by nature are not directly connected to the platform, like any other device such as an Arduino or a Raspberry. Instead, they send a few short messages a day.
The Sigfox network
- Uplink messages
- Up to 140 a day
- Uplink payload
- 12 bytes
- Downlink messages
- Up to 4 a day
- Downlink payload
- 8 bytes
- ISM radio band
- 868 MHz Europe · 902 MHz US
- Radio
- Ultra narrowbandLPWAN
Payload sizes exclude the message header and the transmission information.
For this task Sigfox employs a proprietary technology that communicates over the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) radio band, at 868 MHz in Europe and 902 MHz in the US. It uses a wide-reaching signal that passes freely through solid objects, called "ultra narrowband", and requires little energy, hence the term "Low-power Wide-area network" (LPWAN).
The integration
Callbacks, a data bucket and an access token
The messages received by the Sigfox platform can be retransmitted to other platforms through what Sigfox calls callbacks.
A Sigfox callback
A data bucket
An access token for that bucket
The whole process is documented in the Sigfox guide of the documentation: take a look at it if you want to create real-time dashboards for your Sigfox devices.
The result
A real-time dashboard for a Sigfox device
A dashboard monitoring temperature and humidity from the SmartEverything device.
Create real-time dashboards for your Sigfox devices
A callback, a data bucket and an access token: the Sigfox data on a live dashboard.
