ThingsBoard getting started

ThingsBoard is an Open-source IoT Platform for Device management, data collection, processing and visualization for your IoT solution.

This guide describes how to setup ChirpStack Application Server so that it forwards device-data to ThingsBoard for processing and visualization.

Installing ChirpStack components

The installation of the ChirpStack components is not covered in this guide. The easiest option to get started is the Docker Compose, on which this guide continues.

Setting up gateway and device

To get started with your first gateway and device, please refer to the following documentation:

It is also recommended to setup a Payload Codec. A Payload Codec will decode the received payload into "readable" information like temperature: 21.5. This is important, as this is the information that will be forwarded to ThingsBoard. The Payload Codec can be set up in the Device Profile.

Before you continue, make sure everything works up to this point.

Install ThingsBoard

ThingsBoard can be installed in many different ways. Please refer to the ThingsBoard Installation Documentation for more information.

Docker Compose setup

When you have installed the ChirpStack stack using the Docker Compose guide, the easiest option to integrate with ThingsBoard is by adding the Thingsboard Docker container to the ChirpStack docker-compose.yml file.

After making the modifications mentioned below, ThingsBoard will be started together with all ChirpStack components when running a docker-compose up.

Note: The ThingsBoard server used in one of the next steps will be http://thingsboard:9090/.

Service

Add the following snippet under services:

  thingsboard:
    image: thingsboard/tb-postgres
    volumes:
      - thingsboarddata:/data
    ports:
      - 9090:9090

Your docker-compose.yml file now looks like:

version: "3"

services:
  networkserver:
    image: chirpstack/chirpstack-network-server:3
    volumes:
      - ./configuration/chirpstack-network-server:/etc/chirpstack-network-server

  [...]

  thingsboard:
    image: thingsboard/tb-postgres
    volumes:
      - thingsboarddata:/data
    ports:
      - 9090:9090

  [...]

Volume

Add the following under volumes:

  thingsboarddata:

Your docker-compose.yml file now looks like:

[...]

volumes:
  postgresqldata:
  redisdata:
  thingsboarddata:

Setup ThingsBoard

For getting started with ThingsBoard, please refer to the ThingsBoard Getting Started guide. The important thing is that you have created Device within ThingsBoard.

Integrate ChirpStack Application Server with ThingsBoard

Get Device Auth Token

In order to let ChirpStack Application Server push data to your ThingsBoard device, you need to obtain the ThingsBoard Device Access Token. Within ThingsBoard, open your Device and click the Copy Access Token button. This will copy the Access Token to your clipboard.

Set Device Auth Token in ChirpStack Application Server

Now open the ChirpStack Application Server web-interface and navigate to the Device. Click Configuration, then click Variables.

Add a variable named ThingsBoardAccessToken and with as value the content from your clipboard (containing the ThingsBoard Device Access Token). This step is also documented in the ChirpStack Application Server ThingsBoard Integration documentation.

Setup ChirpStack Application Server ThingsBoard integration

Still in the ChirpStack Application Server web-interface, navigate to the Application to which the Device belongs. Click Integrations, then click + Create.

Integration kind: ThingsBoard.io.
ThingsBoard.io server: Usually this is http://host:9090 (where host is replaced by the hostname of the server serving ThingsBoard). When you are using the Docker Compose instructions, set this to http://thingsboard:9090.

Validate integration

If you completed all the steps, then ThingsBoard is ready to receive uplink data (or telemetry) and ChirpStack Application Server is setup to forward data for your Device, using the Access Token for authentication.

The last step is to let your device send some data and validate that this data is received by Thingsboard. You will find this data under the Latest Telemetry tab when navigating to the Device within Thingsboard.