The Things Network

The Things Network & The Things Industries

About The Things Network

The Things Network is building a global, open, crowd-sourced Internet of Things data network which is owned and operated by its users. It is based on the technology called LoRaWAN which is perfect for the Internet of Things as it is low energy, long range and low bandwidth. The entire city of Amsterdam was covered with this network in less than 6 weeks and inspired hundreds of cities around the world to do the same.

Using The Things Network with Cayenne

Cayenne makes it easy to use your LoRa device and The Things Network. You will need to:

1. Create / Log into your account on The Things Network portal
2. Setup gateway device
3. Create Application and configure Integration
4. Register your device on The Things Network portal
5. Program/Flash your device
6. Add your device to your Cayenne dashboard

We will walk you through these steps in the following sections.

Create account

To create your account, visit The Things Network Sign Up page. From here you can enter in all the required details for creating your account.

Open The Things Network Console

Once you have your account and have signed in, you will want to access the Console which is where you can configure your Applications and Gateway devices. To access the console, expand your user menu and select the CONSOLE option. This will open the Console page.

Setup gateway device

In order for your LoRa technology devices to connect to The Things Network, you must have purchased and configured a gateway device. The Things Network has a Gateway page with information on hardware supported, including their own Gateway device (Coming Soon) that you can use.

Be sure that you have an appropriate gateway configured and working before continuing. Your devices will not be able to properly function without your gateway device in place.

Register gateway device

If you need to register aew gateway device, you can do so from The Things Network console. To begin this process, log into your account and open the Console page. Select the Gateways link to open the Gateways screen. From here, select the register gateway link to begin the process of registering aew gateway.

You will then be guided through setting up your gateway device.

TIP: The Things Network has in-depth documentation on registering your gateway available if you should need help with this process.

Create Application

In order for data from your device to reach Cayenne, you must configure your devices in The Things Network portal to forward data to Cayenne. The Things Network portal groups devices in what they call Applications. If you want to use a group of devices with Cayenne, you will need to configure your Application to use the Cayenne. You only need to perform this step once for each Application that you want to use.

To create an application, click add appliction in the console. The Add Application screen appears.

On the Add Application, fill in the required information to create your new Application.

Tip: If you need help with this part of the process, you can refer to The Things Network documentation on this step.

Once you have an application that you want to use, you can then proceed with configuring it to work with Cayenne.

Add Cayenne Integration

To configure your Application to forward data to Cayenne you will need to add an Integration. To add the Cayenne integration, perform the following steps:

TIP: If you need additional help with this step you can also refer to The Things Network Add an Integration documentation for generic help on adding integrations.

1. Open your existing Application in the console.

2. Select Integrations from the top-right menu.

3. Click the add integration link.

4. Click to select the Cayenne integration option shown in the list. A list of options for the Cayenne Integration will then be shown.

5. Configure the Cayenne integration by entering in a Process ID. This can be any string of text that you want, such as "cayenne-ID".

6. Complete the Cayenne integration by selecting the Access Key to be used for downlink commands. In most cases you will simply need to select the default key for your application.

7. Click Add Integration to complete the setup.

Your application is now configured to forward data to Cayenne. You canow proceed with adding devices that use the application.

Manually register device

Before you can use your device on The Things Network, it must be registered on the network. To accomplish this, devices must be added into an Application in The Things Network console. The following information will help guide you through this process.

1. In the Console, from the Application or an application’s Devices screen, click register device.

2. Fill in the required information for registering your device.

   TIP: If you need help with this part of the process you can refer to The Things Network . documentation.

3. Click Register to complete adding your device.

Programming the device

Some devices will come from your device supplier preprogrammed and ready to be used immediately. Other devices will require you to program the device manually. If your device is preprogrammed, it can now be deployed and connected to the network for usage.

If your device needs to be programmed, you shouldow proceed with programming/flashing the device. Because this process is different for each device, you should refer to the instructions for your device for any specific information you need to perform this step. If you need help, you can refer to the Supported devices section where you will find Product page, Datasheet and User Guides for your device.

NOTE: Be sure that your device is programmed and properly connected to the network at this time. Only after your device is programmed, online and properly forwarding data should you proceed with adding your device to Cayenne.

Add device to Cayenne

Once your device has been registered, programmed, configured to forward data to Cayenne and is online, you can proceed with adding the device in Cayenne so that it appears in your dashboard.

From the Cayenne Dashboard, click Add New > Device / Widget.

From the list of devices & widgets that appears, select the LoRa category and then The Things Network option to view a list of supported devices.

After selecting the device that you wish to add, settings for that device will appear. In the following section, we’ll walk you through the settings needed for adding a previously registered device.

Already Registered

If your device has been previously registered on The Things Network, it can be quickly & easily added to Cayenne. Once added, your device and all of its sensors will appear in your dashboard.

Items you will need:

1. Which LoRa technology device is being added?
2. Your device willeed to have been previously registered on the network. Refer to Manual device registration if you need help with manually registering your device on a network.
3. What is the unique DevEUI for the device being added?

To see how easy it is, let’s walk through an example of connecting an Adeunis Pulse which was previously registered under a The Things Network account.

1. Choose the Network

Make sure The Things Network is selected in the list of Networks.

2. Select the Device

Select your device from among the list supported The Things Network devices. In this case, we’ll select the Adeunis Pulse.

3. Enter Settings & Add device

In order to add the device, Cayenne needs to know some information about the device and how it will be shown on the dashboard.

1. Give the device aame. In our case, we’ll enter “LoRa Pulse” in the Name field.
2. Enter the DevEUI for this device into the DevEUI field.
3. Our device has been previously manually registered with The Things Network. Make sure “Already Registered” is selected in the Activation Mode field.
4. Click Add device.

The Pulse has been added to your dashboard and Cayenne will automatically add widgets for the sensors on the device. You can now track the location of your device as well as examine the current status of the water, gas, electricity & heat sensors on the device.