Configure the Modbus Thing template with metric types that you want to collect, and add custom commands to send to your Modbus Thing device.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have:
  • Created a Liota gateway template on VMware Pulse IoT Center.
  • Enrolled a gateway using the Liota gateway template.

Procedure

  1. From the VMware Pulse IoT Center UI, go to Inventory > Device Templates.
  2. In the Inventory > Device Templates page, click CREATE.
    The Create Device Template wizard is displayed.
  3. In the Details step, enter the following information:
    1. Under Template Name, enter the name of your Thing template.
    2. In the Select Device Type drop-down menu, select Thing.
  4. Click NEXT.
  5. In the Properties step, click NEXT.
  6. In the Metrics step, click +Add to add a metric and enter the following information. In this example, we configure the metrics for a Modbus humidity sensor device:
    Note: Ensure that the metric name and value type that you enter in the Modbus device package matches with the information that you enter here.
    1. Under Display Name, enter the display name of the metric to collect. For example, Humidity.
    2. In the Value Type drop-down menu, select the metric value type. For example, Double.
    3. Under Unit, enter the unit of the collected metric. For example, Water vapor.
  7. Click NEXT.
  8. In the Connected Device Templates step, click NEXT.
  9. In the Commands step, click +Add to add a command. In this example, we add a command to set the humidity on your humidity sensor device. Enter the following information:
    1. Under the Type drop-down menu, select Client Command.
    2. Under Name, enter a name for your command. For example, set-humidity.
    3. Under Client Identifier, enter the client domain. For example, com.liota.modbus.
    4. Under Arguments, enter the following information:
      1. name - Name of the argument. For example, Humidity.
      2. addr - The unique entity, address, and type values. For example, {"entity": "HoldingRegister", "address": 1, "type": "float32"}.
      3. value - Enter the humidity value to be updated on the device.
      4. Click DONE.

Results

You have successfully created a Modbus Thing template to collect humidity metrics and have added a custom command to configure the humidity level.

What to do next

Add this Thing Template to the Liota gateway template that you have created.