Assets | OpenRemote

What is an asset?

An asset is the digital representation of a physical or logical thing (this is the “Thing” in Internet of Things). It can be a digital twin of something physical, like a building, a sensor, a battery or a solar panel. It can also be a digital source of data, like a weather forecasting model or dynamic energy price contract.

OpenRemote stores the current state of every asset in its database and works with it in rules and flows.

Asset types

Asset types are configurable which allow them to be modelled on the domain objects relevant for the specific use case (energy domain, smart city, etc.). These are the blueprints you define for asset instances.

The type is fully configurable, so you can model the domain objects that are specific to your use case, whether that’s an energy grid, a smart city or a fleet of equipment. Every asset you create is an instance of a type.

Attributes

An asset consists of a set of attributes. These are the values that describe the properties, state, or configuration of an asset. An attribute can be read from a device, like a temperature reading, or written to one, like a setpoint. In addition to its current value, an attribute can store historical as well as predicted data points.

Each attribute can also contain configuration items. These are settings that control how the attribute behaves: linking it to an agent so it can read from or write to an external system, setting constraints, or deciding whether historical values are stored.

Agents

Agents are a special kind of asset. They connect external devices and services to OpenRemote through a protocol such as HTTP or TCP. The agent holds the connection settings as attributes, and each agent runs one instance of its protocol. Once an agent is in place, you can link any attribute to it with an agent link, and that attribute then reads from or writes to the external system through that connection. Adding a new device or service is a matter of creating the agent and linking the attributes that need it.

The asset tree

Assets can be structured in a tree to define logical hierarchy for a particular use case (a city contains buildings, a building contains floors, a floor contains presence sensors). This is where you manage assets and their relationships.

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