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Getting Started with Volt

Introduction

The goal of this tutorial is to demonstrate the basic usage of the most popular Volt features. You will learn how to:

  • Connect devices to Volt
  • Push data from devices to Volt
  • Build real-time end-user dashboards
  • Push notifications about new alarms over email, sms or other systems.

We will connect and visualize data from the temperature sensor to keep it simple.

Prerequisites

You will need to have Volt server up and running. The easiest way is to use Live Demo server.

The alternative option is to install Volt using Installation Guide. Windows users should follow this guide. Linux users that have docker installed should execute the following commands:

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mkdir -p ~/.mytb-data && sudo chown -R 799:799 ~/.mytb-data
mkdir -p ~/.mytb-logs && sudo chown -R 799:799 ~/.mytb-logs
docker run -it -p 9090:9090 -p 7070:7070 -p 1883:1883 -p 5683-5688:5683-5688/udp -v ~/.mytb-data:/data \
-v ~/.mytb-logs:/var/log/thingsboard --name mytb --restart always thingsboard/tb-postgres

These commands install Volt and load demo data and accounts.

Volt UI will be available using the URL: http://localhost:8080. You may use username tenant@thingsboard.org and password tenant. More info about demo accounts is available here.

Step 1. Provision Device

For simplicity, we will provision the device manually using the UI.

  • Login to your Volt instance and open the Devices page.
  • Input device name. For example, “My New Device”. No other changes required at this time. Click “Add” to add the device.
  • Now your device should be listed first, since the table sort devices using the time of the creation by default.

We will connect and visualize data from the temperature sensor to keep it simple.

  • Bulk provisioning to provision multiple devices from a CSV file using UI;
  • Device provisioning to allow device firmware to automatically provision the device, so you don’t need to configure each device manually;
  • REST API to provision devices and other entities programmatically;

 

Step 2. Connect device

To connect the device you need to get the device credentials first. Volt supports various device credentials. We recommend using default auto-generated credentials which is access token for this guide.

  • Click on the device row in the table to open device details
  • Click “Copy access token”. Token will be copied to your clipboard. Save it to a safe place.

Now you are ready to publish telemetry data on behalf of your device. We will use simple commands to publish data over HTTP or MQTT.

HTTP

Linux, macOS or Windows

MQTT

Linux or macOS

MQTT

Windows

CoAP

Linux or macOS