Relationship between sensors and assets

The Relynk system uses two core concepts to structure data, Assets and Sensors. These concepts represent the physical structure of your buildings and the devices that measure physical values within them. In this guide, we will explain how Assets and Sensors are related to each other and provide examples of how they are used in the Relynk system.

Introduction

The physical infrastructure of buildings, such as floors, rooms, and desks, are represented in Relynk as Assets. Each Asset can have metadata associated with it, such as an ID, name, and type (i.e., building, floor, room, etc.). Sensors, on the other hand, are devices that measure physical values like temperature and presence, these sensors are created and stored independently of assets. In the Relynk system, the relationship between Assets and Sensors is defined by the Asset Sensor Mapping, which links each sensor to the corresponding Asset.

Assets

Assets are represented as a nested list, meaning a building has children, for example floors, and floors have children, for example rooms etc.

Here is an example of an Asset structure:

• Demo Building
  • Floor 1
    • Room 1
    • Room 2
  • Floor 2
    • Room 3
    • Room 4

Sensors

Each sensor has metadata such as an ID, name, and measurements (i.e. temperature, humidity, presence, etc).

Here is an example of the sensors:

• Sensor 1 (Temperature, Humidity)
• Sensor 2 (Temperature, Presence)
• Sensor 3 (Temperature, Humidity, Presence)

Relationship between Assets and Sensors

The relationship between Assets and Sensors is defined by the Asset Sensor Mapping. This mapping links each sensor to the corresponding Asset. Lets say for example that Sensor 1 is placed in Room 1, Sensor 2 is placed in Room 2 and Sensor 3 is placed in Room 3.

Relynk will link these sensors to their respective assets by creating the following asset sensor mapping:

• Demo Building
  • Floor 1
    • Room 1 [Sensor 1]
    • Room 2 [Sensor 2]
  • Floor 2
    • Room 3 [Sensor 3]
    • Room 4

This means that whenever you query data from Room 1, you will get data from Sensor 1, similarly, you can query data from Room 3 to get the data from Sensor 3. This means that once Relynk has defined the relationship between assets and sensors, you can query data from assets and Relynk will automatically query the correct sensor.

caution

When querying for temperature data from Floor 1, you would get the average temperature of all sensors with temperature measurements that are linked to either Floor 1 or any of its children. In the above example this would mean that you would get the average temperature readings between Sensor 1 and Sensor 2.

This is by design, for more information on querying data in the Relynk system, please see the Querying data deep dive.