IoT devices
Deep dive into Kamea IoT devices concept and capabilities.
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In Kamea, a device is not just a physical object, it’s its digital representation. In practical terms, a device is any equipment capable of sending data to the cloud, either through its own connectivity or via a gateway.
This abstraction is essential: whether it’s a microcontroller running a real-time OS, an embedded Linux system, or even a Windows PC, Kamea is hardware-agnostic as long as the device can communicate with the cloud.
Why device abstraction matters
- Foundation for modeling: A device is the digital representation of a physical asset. Without this abstraction, large-scale management, monitoring, or automation is impossible.
- Data management: Devices are the entry points for data into the cloud. Understanding their role is key to structuring data collection, processing, and securing information through your platform.
- Security and compliance: Proper device identification is critical for enforcing security policies (authentication, certificates, updates) and meeting regulatory standards.
Device types to manage hardware diversity
In an IoT environment, devices are extremely diverse: microcontrollers, gateways, industrial PCs, specialized sensors… To handle this heterogeneity, Kamea introduces the concept of device type.
A device type is a technical category grouping common characteristics within a family of devices:
- Communication channels (HTTP, MQTT, LoRaWAN, etc.)
- Data formats (JSON, proprietary binary…)
- Firmware and application types eligible for updates
In practice, the device type acts as a technical template: it defines communication rules and shared properties for all associated IoT devices. This categorization enables efficient management of heterogeneous fleets while remaining generic and adaptable to any industry.
Add custom properties to your IoT devices via metadata
Every device manufacturer has specific needs, and imposing a single model for all equipment types would be unrealistic. A medical device doesn’t share the same attributes as a construction excavator, yet Kamea must handle both. To address this diversity, we designed a simple and extensible metadata system.
Metadata lets you add custom properties to your devices as key-value pairs. You freely define the attributes that matter to your business: location, serial number, operating mode, last maintenance date… This approach gives you full control over device descriptions without locking you into a rigid model.
The system is evolutionary: you can enrich or modify metadata at any time without impacting the overall structure.
It’s also interoperable, as these properties are exposed through Kamea APIs, making them easy to leverage in third-party applications for monitoring, maintenance, or analytics.
Templates
Kamea provides users with complete flexibility to define their metadata and configurations according to their needs.
But that flexibility can quickly turn into a headache: an operator doesn’t necessarily know they need to provide configurations A, B, or C, or that temperature_setpoint should be written in lowercase with underscores. We don’t want them wasting time reading documentation or risking a typo.
That’s where templates come in.
They allow us to set boundaries without locking things down: define expected names, specify whether they’re mandatory or optional, set default values, and define data types. In short, it is a clear framework for metadata and configurations, tied to the device type.
The result? When I define a device type for a crane, I can include descriptive metadata (height, boom length, max load) and associated configurations (motor speed, wind alert) with fixed rules so the user can enter only the type of values (for instance temperature_setpoint will be associated with number).
And we still keep the option to go further for advanced scenarios.
Templates guarantee that every device follows the right structure, without sacrificing flexibility.
Communication protocols and data formats
Within Kamea platform, the hardware type matters little. What counts is how the IoT devices communicate. A single device may use multiple protocols and data formats, and the platform is designed to handle this diversity seamlessly. We focus on protocols and formats, not physical components.
Kamea supports standards like MQTT and HTTP, often paired with formats such as JSON or proprietary binaries. This ensures that, regardless of your technology choices, your devices can interact with the cloud.
And because security is non-negotiable, we integrate the necessary mechanisms: secure protocol versions (e.g., MQTTS) and certificate management for authentication and encryption.
Extensibility
Needs evolve, and so do technologies. If tomorrow you need to integrate a proprietary protocol or a specific format, Kamea provides the extension points to do so quickly, with minimal effort.
With Kamea, the concept of a device is flexible, secure, and extensible. Whatever your industry or hardware, if your device can speak a cloud protocol, Kamea can integrate it.