Internet of Things

IoT Drivers allow any Odoo module to communicate in real-time with any device connected to the IoT Box. Communication with the IoT Box goes both ways, so the Odoo client can send commands to and receive information from any of the supported devices. To add support for a device, all we need is a [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference].

At each boot, the IoT Box will load all of the Drivers that can be located on the connected Odoo instance. Each module can contain a [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference] directory, whose content will be copied to the IoT Box.

Detect Devices

The [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference] file contains a Manager that is in charge of the devices. The Manager maintains a list of connected devices and associates them with the right Driver.

Supported devices will appear both on the IoT Box Homepage that you can access through its IP address and in the IoT module of the connected Odoo instance.

Driver

Once the Manager has retrieved the list of detected devices, it will loop through all of the Drivers that have the same connection type and test their respective [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference] method on all detected devices. If the supported method of a Driver returns [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference], an instance of this Driver will be created for the corresponding device.

Creating a new Driver requires:

  • Extending [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference]
  • Setting the [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference] class attribute.
  • Setting the [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference], [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference] and [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference] attributes.
  • Defining the [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference] method
from odoo.addons.hw_drivers.controllers.driver import Driver

class DriverName(Driver):
    connection_type = 'ConnectionType'

    def __init__(self, device):
        super(NewDriver, self).__init__(device)
        self._device_type = 'DeviceType'
        self._device_connection = 'DeviceConnection'
        self._device_name = 'DeviceName'

    @classmethod
    def supported(cls, device):
        ...

Communicate With Devices

Once your new device is detected and appears in the IoT module, the next step is to communicate with it. Since the box only has a local IP address, it can only be reached from the same local network. Communication, therefore, needs to happen on the browser-side, in JavaScript.

The process depends on the direction of the communication: - From the browser to the box, through Actions - From the box to the browser, through Longpolling

Both channels are accessed from the same JS object, the [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference], which is instantiated using the IP of the IoT Box and the device identifier.

var DeviceProxy = require('iot.widgets').DeviceProxy;

var iot_device = new DeviceProxy({
    iot_ip: iot_ip,
    identifier: device_identifier
});

Actions

Actions are used to tell a selected device to execute a specific action, such as taking a picture, printing a receipt, etc.

An action can be performed on the DeviceProxy Object.

iot_device.action(data);

In your driver, define an [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference] method that will be executed when called from an Odoo module. It takes the data given during the call as argument.

def action(self, data):
    ...

Longpolling

When any module in Odoo wants to read data from a specific device, it creates a listener identified by the IP/domain of the box and the device identifier and passes it a callback function to be called every time the device status changes. The callback is called with the new data as argument.

iot_device.add_listener(this._onValueChange.bind(this));

_onValueChange: function (result) {
    ...
}

In the Driver, an event is released by calling the [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference] function from the [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference]. All callbacks set on the listener will then be called with [UNKNOWN NODE title_reference] as argument.

from odoo.addons.hw_drivers.controllers.driver import event_manager

class DriverName(Driver):
    connection_type = 'ConnectionType'

    def methodName(self):
        self.data = {
            'value': 0.5,
            ...
        }
        event_manager.device_changed(self)