Hi, is there an existing or emerging standard for Downlink commands. I am looking ay a range of functions including change sleep time (internal function) or read or activate a connected I/O device (eg turn on or off one or more relays)
I’m referring to the Application Layer and not MAC commands
Not a standard but I use the same composable format for local and remote ports.
Essentially you assign a fixed type to an address. You then have a protocol to read/write these addresses by encoding command, register, address and type.
Done correctly you save a lot of time when it comes to adding/removing registers in future and you can do stuff like chain multiple read/writes in a single message. The best part is that you can write generic tools that work with all your stuff without ongoing maintenance.
Interestingly there is very little shared code on downlinks handling either, maybe others could share some best practice code on device downlinks handling/basic functions the device could need.
Hello Tony. It is an interesting area for discussion. On the commercial front, suppliers (and I say this as someone who sells commercial products) have a vested interest in keeping their message format privare. But there is obviously a lot to be gained from open format, which will make it easier to share and transfer information. Have you had a look at the OpenSensor protocol (https://www.mysensors.org/download/serial_api_20#serial-communication-examples)? It is bi-directional and could easily be expanded for new sensor types. The downside of any flexible protocol is that it adds overhead which means longer packets. But for me that is a small price to pay. Especially as the reality of LoRa WAN is turning out to mean more Gateways covering smaller geographic areas and smaller numbers of users/nodes than was originally touted. So the push to minimise packet length to maximise capacity is not as relevant.
Thanks Peter, I’ve had a quick look and that seems to be a great platform to work from. Better to use this than develop one more protocol, Will have a much deeper look over the next few days.