1.2 IoT Device Simulation

Create the Simulated Device

Make sure you are logged into the IoT Device Simulator web application from the previous section.

You are going to create a virtual device fleet to simulate household electric power consumption. You can get more information about the data simulated in the UCI Machine Learning Repository.

  1. On the left menu, navigate to Modules -> Device Types -> Click Add Device Type
  • Device Type Name: smart-home
  • Data Topic: smarthome/house1/energy/appliances
  • Data Transmission Duration: 7200000 (120 minutes)
  • Data Transmission Interval: 3000 (3 seconds)
  • Message Payload: Click Add Attribute and add the following attributes:
Attribute Name Data Type Float Precision Integer Minimum Value Integer Maximum Value
sub_metering_1 float 2 10 100
sub_metering_2 float 2 10 100
sub_metering_3 float 2 10 25
global_active_power float 2 1 8
global_reactive_power float 2 5 35
voltage float 2 10 250
timestamp UTC Timestamp (Choose Default)

  1. Once the sample message payload shows all the attributes above, click Save

  2. Navigate to Modules -> Widgets -> Add Widget

  • Select ‘smart-home’ as the Device Type
  • Number of widgets: 1 -> Submit

We have now created a simulated smart home device which is collecting power usage data and publishing that data to AWS IoT Core on the ‘smarthome/house1/energy/appliances’ topic.

Verify that the data is being published to AWS IoT

Note: You will use the AWS console for the remainder of the workshop. Sign-in to the AWS console.

We will verify that the smart home device is configured and publishing data to the correct topic.

  1. From the AWS console, choose the IoT Core service

  2. Navigate to Test (On the left pane) and select MQTT Test Client

  3. Under Subscribe to a Topic input the following:

  • Topic Filter: smarthome/house1/energy/appliances

  • Click Subscribe

    Architecture Overview

After a few seconds, you should see your simulated devices’ data that is published on the ‘smarthome/house1/energy/appliances’ MQTT topic.

Architecture Overview

Your IoT smart home data are being simulated