MobiusFlow® connects, controls and communicates with 1000s of sensors and control devices to provide actionable insights and automated responses. Developed and successfully deployed with many projects over the past 17 years by engineers with first-hand experience in project management and installation such as CBRE, Ingram Micro, TD Synnex and IBM.

Whether you are looking for a full walkthrough or just dipping in to get more information about a single topic, our documentation site is the perfect companion to the training courses on our main site.

3️⃣

We have rebuilt MobiusFlow from the ground up. MobiusFlow V3 has a bunch of new features and enhancements improving both performance and adding improvements to data handling, searching and customisation.

This section is dedicated to guides and technical knowhow related to version 3.

📖 User Guides

The user guides are instructional walkthroughs. Follow these guides from start to finish or jump to a section to learn how to perform specific tasks.

⚙️ Technical Docs

Looking for more detailed technical information? These articles dive deeper into the more technical aspects of MobiusFlow®, from Architecture to API details, ports, protocols, configuring services creating flows, and more.

MobiusFlow® is a middleware software application

MobiusFlow® connects, controls and communicates with 1000s of sensors and control devices to provide actionable insights and automated responses. Developed and successfully deployed with many projects over the past 17 years by engineers with first-hand experience in project management and installation such as CBRE, Ingram Micro, TD Synnex and IBM.

This feature is coming soon.

MobiusFlow V3 has been built from the ground up. We have listened to your feedback and added a host of new features to make MobiusFlow even more powerful and easier to use.

Tagging, we added it, custom object profiles, there too, and to make you even more productive we have added the ability for you to write your own data pre-processors and codecs. We are excite about these new features and are sure you will be too!

Engine and

Both the MobiusFlow Engine (the heart of MobiusFlow) and MobiusFlow Toolbox have been completely rewritten to be more efficient and easier to use.

Object profiles define the shape and properties of MobiusFlow objects. Before version 3 object profiles were built into each release and could not be easily created or modified by users.

Version 3 has redefined how object profiles work. Object profiles can now be freely created by users in a simple editor. In fact each new instance of MobiusFlow has no object profiles defined. Instead we have taken all of the object profiles from version 2 (and a bunch of new ones) and created object profile templates.

Object profiles can be created from scratch, from templates, or from any profile that you have already created and then customised to your application. This gives users full flexibility without adding complexity as new objects can also be added directly from templates and MobiusFlow will automatically create the profile for you.

Object profiles (along with their preprocessors, codecs and UI layouts) can be exported and imported allowing you to create your own library of profiles to be used on other projects.

Have you ever needed to modify data before it is written to a resource? Have you wanted to change from °C to °F on the fly as new data arrives? Was totalising energy readings from meters difficult?

Not any more as preprocessor functions will do that for you!

Each object profile can have a preprocessor function written in Typescript or Javascript which allow you to do just that, you can even write it directly in a built in IDE in MobiusFlow Toolbox.

Codecs make adding new decoders for raw sensor data a breeze. Instead of waiting for us to add new decoders for sensors like EnOcean, LoRaWAN, or Ingy, you can create an object profile and define the codec to decode the raw sensor telegram. As with preprocessors, these codecs can be written in Typescript or Javascript using the built in IDE.

Capturing default values such as sensor IDs when configuring objects is simplified by adding your own configuration UI in a simple JSON format.

The data stored in MobiusFlow objects can now be persisted between restarts of a service. No longer will temperate values drop to zero, people counts be lost, and energy readings disappear when services are restarted! Persistence can be configured on a service by service basis and values are included in backups

Powerful tagging features have been added to both objects and resources. Tags can be defined on object profiles so that they are automatically added to each instance of an object, and added to individual object instances.

You can use simple tags or add values to tags. Tags are included as metadata when reading values or receiving change-of-value events via the new API.

Preprocessors are run every time a new value is written to a resource. They are used to modify the value before it is written e.g. change from °C to °F, or update another resource e.g. update a message counter

Object Profiles describe the shape of Objects i.e. what properties (resources) an objects has, the data type of each property (resource), and metadata describing the object and it properties.

For more information on objects and resources read the MobiusFlow Architecture article.

Before creating objects you must first define an object profile. Profiles can be created from scratch, or based on a predefined template or existing object profile.

Profile IDs (PIDs)

All object profiles must have a unique profile ID or PID. This is a four digit hexadecimal number and can be any value from 0200 to FFFF as long as a profile with that PID does not already exist. The PID will form part of an object's URI identifying the object's type, and can be used when subscribing to object or resource COVs to filter by object type.

See MobiusFlow Uniform Resource Identifiers for more information.

Resources

All live data in MobiusFlow is stored in object resources. Each resource stores a single simple value of a specific type. These types include

When writing a value to a resource it should always be of the correct type although values will be coerced to the correct type if possible.

In addition to setting the data type for a resource you can also define some settings for each resource. These settings will depend on the type e.g. a string resource will have a setting for the maximum length and a number resource will have settings for the maximum and minimum value that can be stored.

For each object profile you can also define a , , and .

Value persistence ensures that objects keep their values between restarts.

In MobiusFlow versions before v3 any restart would cause all resources to be reset to their default values. This would often cause anomalies or loss of data such as all temperature values dropping to zero, meter readings being lost or people counts resetting.

MobiusFlow 3 has solved this problem by adding optional value persistence. This can be configured on a service by service basis in the service settings. To access a service's settings follow the instructions here.

When a service starts it first creates all objects with their default values and then applies any persisted values before running.

Enabling / Disabling Persistence

You can enable or disable persistence on each service. Changing the persistence enabled state will affect all objects belonging to that service.

You can enable or disable persistence by clicking on the Enable Persistence switch in the service's settings.

Disabling persistence will also delete any persisted values. If you need to reset the persisted values you can disable and then re-enable persistence.

In order to lower CPU load values are only persisted at regular intervals and not on every value change. You can set this interval (in minutes) in the service's settings. Try to find a reasonable balance between saving the current values and load on the system. The more objects a service has, the greater the CPU load required to persist the values.

Services have persistence enabled with an interval of 5 minutes by default.

System Services are required my MobiusFlow to function correctly. Examples include the Engine API and Historian services.

MobiusFlow Engine API

The MobiusFlow Engine API service is a RESTful API used by MobiusFlow Toolbox, Flows, and user applications to both configure an instance of MobiusFlow and read and write data to MobiusFlow objects.

It is not possible to configure or stop this service from MobiusFlow Toolbox as this would prevent Toolbox from communicating with the MobiusFlow Engine.

More details about this API can be found here.

MobiusFlow Historian

MobiusFlow Historian is a time-series database for storing data generated and collected by MobiusFlow. This time-series data can then be used my MobiusFlow View to create dashboards or by external applications for data analytics and artificial intelligence.

The MobiusFlow Historian service pushes data whenever it changes to a MobiusFlow Historian database. More information can be found here.

Within a MobiusFlow system all hubs, services, objects and resources are identified by a unique address known as a Uniform Resource Identifier or URI. These URIs are hierarchical so given the URI for a Mobius resource it is possible to identify which object the resource belongs to, what the object type is, which service the object belongs to and which Mobius node the service is running on.

Mobius URI Definition

An object’s URI (or name) is defined in 4 parts, namely the hub ID (HID), service ID (SID), object profile ID (PID) and instance number (INS). A fifth part is added when accessing a specific resource, the resource ID (RID).

Each part of an object’s URI is a uppercase string of a defined length (as shown in the table below). The URI’s parts are separated with a forward slash (/).

A full URI is typically defined as HID/SID/PID/INS/RID.

It is possible to address any part of the system by only using the required parts of the URI. e.g. to address a service only the first two parts of the URI are used HID/SID and to address an object only the first four parts are used HID/SID/PID/INS.

An example of an object URI for an object of instance 1, profile 3A, created by service 1F connected to hub 1 is:

000001/01F/003A/0001

and if addressing resource 40 on that object the full URI would be:

000001/01F/003A/0001/40

Under certain conditions, such as subscribing to a resource’s change of value event, it is possible to use wildcards in the URI. These wildcards are described in the table below and follow the MQTT standard.

For most use cases, Deploying MobiusFlow in the MobiusFlow Cloud is simplest and most cost effective hosting option.

Customers can create new MobiusFlow instances themselves using the MobiusFlow manager platform. A full guide on how to use this platform can be found here.

When creating a new MobiusFlow instance using manager ensure the Host instance on MobiusFlow Cloud option is checked:

On creation, there are several options that must be populated:

Hostname

This is the URL the new MobiusFlow cloud instance will be hosted on. In the above example, Manager has automatically suggested average-pug-2488. As such, new Cloud instance will be accessible at the URL average-pug-2488.mobiusflow.io.

Build Type

This selects the version of MobiusFlow to use. If use for the MobiusFlow LoRaWAN LNS is required, ensure the MobiusFlow V2 with LoRaWAN Stack option is selected.

This specifies the region of the world the new Cloud instance is to be hosted on. It is recommended to host the instance as near to where it will be used as possible.\

Once a MobiusFlow Cloud hosted instance as online, an Environment is created, in-turn controlling how the instance can communicate with the outside world. A full article on this environment can be found .

The historian MCP is hosted as part of the Historian Data API on the following endpoint:

Please note that the server does not support connection via the deprecated STDIO standard.

Authentication works in the same way as all calls in the Historian Data API. You must include x-api-key as a header:

Keys can be managed via the MobiusFlow View application.

All tools are exposed when connecting to the MCP server. Currently available tools include:

• get-all-objects-name-uri-map

The MobiusFlow software has been developed as an MQTT object bus which normalises all device data into standardised MobiusFlow objects which allow interoperability between all devices either real or virtual in the field or Cloud.

MobiusFlow enables actuators, sensors & controllers to connect, control and communicate with each other and to the Cloud so that IoT solutions using scalable monitoring, visualisation and predictive analytics can provide valuable insights into your business and act upon them automatically.

• A complete control and communications platform

• Microservice based architecture

• Secure, open protocol based on MQTT

• Scalable to 1000s of devices

• Platform and language independent

• Does not depend on a network connection for local control

• Provides full discovery of nodes, objects and resources in all directions

• Pub / Sub change of value notifications

• All sensor and actuator data is normalised from any source such as / / / / LoRaWAN / Analog / Digital etc.

MobiusFlow has been designed from the ground up as a micro service based design with a simple but common set of API commands. All communication between micro services is performed using the MQTT protocol, ensuring that micro services can be written in any programming language and will run on any device capable of TCP/IP network communications. The only requirement for any MobiusFlow system is that it contains at least one Node. This Node consists of a MobiusFlow Hub which initiates and facilitates communication between micro services in a secure way. Micro services can run on the same device as the Hub, or on another device such as a temperature sensor, connected to the Hub via a connection capable of transmitting via TCP/IP (provision has been made for future expansion, by adding translation services, to allow micro services to communicate with the Hub over any transmission medium capable to transmitting binary data).

Each Node is typically a stand-alone island which does not require any connection to any other device in order to perform local control. Nodes can be connected together via secure MobiusFlow Routers allowing the creation of a network of interconnected Nodes. When used in this configuration, Nodes can share data with each other and influence the control algorithms running on any connected Node.

Vanilla MQTT has some limitations in its usefulness as a peer to peer messaging and control protocol. It is based around the Publish / Subscribe pattern which is ideal where multiple devices are sending data to a single end point for logging etc. MQTT can be used where devices or services need to have a two way peer to peer flow of communication but the different services need to be aware of each other at design time. MobiusFlow defines a protocol layer above MQTT which enables discovery of devices and services at runtime and then allows two way peer to peer communication to take place, ensuring that new devices and services can be added at any time without having any design time knowledge of the other devices and services in a system.

MobiusFlow Toolbox supports the latest versions of most modern web browsers. We recommend the following:

• Google Chrome

• Firefox

• Safari

This demo uses to exemplify use of this API.

To follow this ensure you download the relevant Postman Collection .

Here is a downloadable Postman Collection for this API:

To delete a service, first click on Services in the main menu and then find the correct service card.

In the service card toolbar click on the Delete button. A confirmation dialog will appear. Enter the text shown (you can click on the copy icon to save typing) and click Confirm.

This demo uses to exemplify use of this WebSocket.

This demo uses Postman to exemplify use of this API.

To follow this ensure you download the relevant Postman Collection here.

💥 Interactive Demo

Overview

As each application differs you will need to chose which services are required for your application.

To add a service, first click on Services in the main menu and then click on the Show Library button to show the list of available services, find the service you want to add, and click on the Add button for that service.

The service will get added to the configuration with the next available Service ID (SID)

You can click on the Hide Library button to hide the service library when you are done.

💥 Interactive Demo

The configuration page is used to create and configure the MobiusFlow configuration for a Mobius node (see ). The page is split into five main sections:

1. The main menu

2. The services palette

The full MobiusFlow Manager training course can be .

To create a copy of a service along with all of its settings and objects you can click on the Clone button on the service card of the service you want to copy. The new service will be given the next available . You can change the SID in the service's settings if required.

Configuring MobiusFlow for use with Connectors uses the MobiusFlow Connectors service. A full guide on how to use this service can be found .

After signing up to balenaCloud follow their instructions to create a fleet and add your first device. We have simplified the process so you will only need to perform some of the actions they list. The steps below outline the process but for more information see the balena.io documentation.

What You Will Need?

1. A balenaCloud account with Microservices access (this requires a paid account)

Creating a New Fleet

Navigate to your balenaCloud dashboard and login in

Navigate to the Fleets page

Click on the Create Fleet button

Enter a fleet name

Choose device type Raspberry Pi 4 (using 64bit OS)

Select fleet type Microservices

Click on the Create new fleet button

You have created your first balenaCloud fleet! Now go to to add a device to this fleet

To create a new profile open the Object Profiles page, make sure that the sidebar is closed, and click on the Create button. This will open the Create Object Profile wizard.

The wizard will have three starting point options. Selecting one of the options will change the steps required to complete the wizard.

If you choose to start with a blank profile and click Next, you will jump to the last step which is Finalise Settings

Choosing to start from a template or existing profile and clicking Next will require you to select either a template or existing profile. These are shown in a table, which can be filtered. Select one of the rows before clicking on Next to view the last Finalise Settings step.

Depending on your starting point, the Finalise Settings form will be blank or have some fields pre-populated by the template or existing profile.

Fill in all required fields and optionally add a description and before clicking on Create Profile.

A unique profile ID as a four digit hexadecimal number from 0200 to FFFF.

The group is used by MobiusFlow toolbox to aid in filtering the object profiles. You can select from an existing group or type in a new group name.

The profile name is used to help identify this profile. It normally starts with a lower case letter and does not contain spaces, but can containg underscores and dashes.

The user interface name is a human readable name normally used by MobiusFlow View to make selecting profiles easier for non-technical users.

BalenaCloud is a small device fleet management platform which simplifies the process of managing and maintaining 1000s of edge devices. It allows secure remote access and monitoring of each device and installing and updating product firmware of an entire fleet with a few simple clicks. See for more information.

We currently have software images for thee different device types for balenaCloud. These are:

The MobiusFlow RPI Connector works with the following Raspberry Pi types:

Here is a downloadable Postman Collection for this API:

All MobiusFlow® instances require a valid licence to run. Licences define the maximum number of MobiusFlow® objects that you can add to an instance. For more information about MobiusFlow® licences refer to the page.

1. A valid MobiusFlow® licence (licences can only be used on one device)

Licences are added to balenaCloud devices by setting a device variable. All required device variables are created automatically when you deploy MobiusFlow® to a fleet. For more information see .

Navigate to your

The service diagnostics and control page shows all of the configured services, their current status and controls to start and stop services.

The Run State column (2) shows the current run state of the services in a traffic light. The colours are defined as follows:

• Grey - Not running, never started

• Red - Not running, manually stopped

The about page shows you information about the connector. You can also update the connector's firmware by clicking on the Update Firmware button

Click on the Update Firmware button on the About page

Click on Choose File and select the firmware file you want to upload

Click on the Update button

After a few minutes the connector will reboot and start running the new firmware

Please see main MobiusFlow toolbox section . There are many Interactive Demos in these articles breaking down the fundamentals of MobiusFlow toolbox into bitesize chunks. Look out for the tag 💥 Interactive Demo to follow these.

Navigation

Navigating around the Toolbox UI is very simple. The key areas are as follows:

• The current user is shown in the top right of the window. You can click on this button to change your password or log out

• The collapsable menu on the left side of the window is a quick way to access your configured Services, Flows, Historian settings, Object Profiles and instance Settings. Clicking on the menu icon in the the top left corner will either collapse or expand the menu. As you add new services to your configuration they will shown in the menu under the Services heading

• With the exception of Flows, clicking on an item in the left menu will show the view for that selection in the main view. Clicking on Flows will open the Flows window in a separate browser tab, or navigate to that tab if it is already open

• Configuration of specific items such as services, objects and profiles will be shown in a pane to the right of the main view. This pane is only visible when a configurable item is selected

💥 Interactive Demo

Services can be started and stopped individually and if enabled, and set to run at start, will start automatically whenever the MobiusFlow instance is started.

Some services have which affect how they operate e.g. the ports used by the MQTT broker service. These settings are typically only loaded on service start so changes to these settings may require a service to be stopped and started before they take effect. If a service is running and any critical settings are changed MobiusFlow Toolbox will notify you that a restart is required.

In addition to service settings changes requiring a restart, changes to object settings will only take affect if a service is restarted or if a hot reload takes place. Any objects that have changes requiring a restart or hot reload are highlighted in the service's page.

The controls used to start, stop, and hot reload services are located on the service's card on the Services page and on the service's objects page. The buttons have the following icons (Start, Stop, Hot Reload).

MobiusFlow Objects represent real or virtual devices such as sensors, rooms, pieces of equipment, and machinery. All objects are based on an which describes the shape of the object i.e. what properties (resources) an objects has, the data type of each property (resource), and metadata describing the object and it properties.

For more information on objects and resources read the article.

Objects must belong to a . To add new objects or configure existing objects on a service open the Service's Objects page by clicking on the service in the main menu or clicking on the main body of a service's card on the Services page.

The Connector collects data from sensors and sends data to actuators via standard wireless sensor protocols such as EnOcean and Workplace Occupancy, and sends this data securely to a MobiusFlow using an MQTT based Protocol.

Once the data has been received by a MobiusFlow instance, it is decoded and the associated MobiusFlow object is updated with the latest sensor readings which can then be processed by the gateway.

A full guide on configuring MobiusFlow for use with Connectors can be found .

There are several hardware options for the MobiusFlow Connector software:

MobiusFlow® connectors send and receive data via MQTT. You need to configure the MQTT settings to match the configuration you set in the section of this guide.

You can choose any MQTT client ID but this must be unique for your MQTT broker. The default is the connector's serial number

Enter the IP Address or URL of the MQTT broker. You do not need to specify MQTT:// or MQTTS:// before the URL

Enter the MQTT Port number. This is normally 1883 or 8883 for TLS enabled connections

If required enter the MQTT broker authorisation Username

The Config Mode Password is used to login to the configuration pages of the connector. The default password is mobiusflow

You can change the password on this page

Click the Save button

Click the Home button on the settings saved confirmation page to return to the Home page

MobiusFlow has been containerised and is run via docker.

Mobius v1.X.X

Below is an example docker-compose.yml file you could use when running MobiusFlow. In this example, an online version of MobiusFlow 1.19.1 is used. Note that, as well as the MobiusFlow service (labelled simply 'mobius'), the file also containers a reference to an nginx and mongodb containers.

The nginx container is used for port mapping, and mongodb container used as a database. Neither of these are required to run MobiusFlow.

This file can also be downloaded here:

Licensing

It is important to include the correct licensing information within the environment variables of your docker-compose.yml file.

See the main article on licensing for a full explanation of what is required for online and offline licensing as well updating a given licence.

Tags are a powerful way to organise your objects and resources making it easier to find and group similar pieces of data.

Tags can be a simple key word or phrase (much like a hashtag in social media apps) or a keyword or phrase with an associated value.

Tags can be added to object profiles and individual object instances. Any tags added to an object profile will be automatically added to all objects created from that profile.

The process of managing tags on object profiles, objects, and their resources is the same. To view the tag editor select an object profile, object, or resource and the relevant sidebar will open showing the tag editor. Once the sidebar is open follow the steps below.

Adding tags

Adding a simple tag

In the Add a tag textbox type in the tag name and press Enter

The new tag will appear in the tag list

In the Add a tag textbox type in the tag name followed by = and then the value e.g floor = 1

Press Enter and the tag will appear in the tag list

Tags with values will show the first five characters of the value but you can hover over the tag to see the full value

To modify the value of a tag or add a value to a simple tag just re-enter the tag name and value

To convert a value tag into a simple tag re-enter the tag name with no value

To delete a tag click on the X to the right of the tag in the tags list

All access to MobiusFlow Toolbox and the MobiusFlow Engine API requires a valid username and password. Adding, deleting, and modifying users is done on the User Management tab on the Settings page.

The User Management page shows a list of all users with their roles, whether they are active or not, and an Actions button for additional user management.

User Roles

There are three user roles, Viewer, Editor, and Administrator.

Viewers

• View services, objects and live data

• View flows

• Add, edit, and delete services, objects and live data

• Start and stop services

• Add, edit and delete flows

• Add edit and delete object profiles

• Add, edit, and delete services, objects and live data

• Start and stop services

• Add, edit and delete flows

• Add edit and delete object profiles

Click on the Add User button to view the Add User dialog

Enter a Username, select a role, and enter the user's initial password. Users can change their own password later

The new user will appear in the users list

Click on the Action button (three vertical dots) next to a user to open the user management menu

Change the password of an existing user. This is useful if a user forgets their password or you want to change the password of a

Change the role of an existing user

Users are active by default but can be activated or deactivated. Deactivated users will no longer be able to log in.

Permanently delete an existing user. You will need to confirm your action before the user is deleted.

Access to the requires a valid user with the correct role.

We recommend creating service account users with the Editor or Viewer role for API access. You should consider a separate account for each service that requires access as revoking access to a specific service can be as simple as deactivating that service account.

Overview

The Data Agent introduces an agentic / chat style interface to interact with your MobiusFlow data. The enables tasks such as:

• Reporting what data exists

• Summarising data, both present and historical

• Making data comparisons between multiple data sets

• Drawing conclusions about the nature of data

• Making suggestions about changes which could be made to improve real-world systems

In the near future it will also allow:

• Generation of alerts

• Generation of graphs / cards to supplement data reports

The Data Agent can accessed via MobiusFlow View. The agent invokes the tools provided by the , whilst being powered by an OpenAI LLM.

The Data Agent only knows about the data within MobiusFlow Historian. It does not know anything about the underlying MobiusFlow Engine or its configuration (i.e. the plumbing behind the data). As such, it cannot do the following:

• Reporting of current MobiusFlow Engine configuration

• Reporting of service statuses

• Reporting / advising why a specific device / service is not connecting / not functioning as expected

• Making engine configuration changes such as populating a service or updating an object

Most of the above tasks can achieved via using the instead.

The agent uses an OpenAI LLM backend. MobiusFlow does not currently manage token usage of this LLM and as such, it is left to customers to manage this themselves.

This means an account on the is required. Once created, ensure some credit is added to the account so tokens can be consumed by the agent.

The MobiusFlow Data Agent is linked to your OpenAI Platform account via and OpenAI API token. This token can be created on the OpenAI Platform website . Once created, this key must be copied and pasted into the Data Agent when prompted:

If a key is already set but needs to be updated, the key button next to the chat bar should be used:

The Home page has the following buttons

Configure Network

Configure the wired or wireless Ethernet network settings

Manage Certificates

Manage all certificates for TLS connections. The default certificates are for MobiusFlow® cloud hosted instances but you can add your own if required

Configure MQTT

Configure the connection to the MQTT broker you chose when configuring MobiusFlow® for connectors

Set Config Mode Password

Change the configuration mode password

About

See information about the connector such as the software version, serial number, andwhich modules are installed

You can also update the firmware on this page

Reboot the device to exit configuration mode and use the new settings

1. A balenaCloud account with Microservices access (this requires a paid account)

2. A balenaCloud Raspberry Pi 4 Fleet (see )

3. A

Open the Object Profiles page and click on the profile you want to modify. The Object Profiles sidebar will open on the left of the window.

At the top of the sidebar is the object profiles settings toolbar. You can use this toolbar to switch between the four sidebar modes and to delete the profile if it is not being used. Use the X to the right of the toolbar to close the sidebar.

Below the toolbar are the Undo and Save buttons. Clicking on the Undo button will revert any changes and clicking on Save will save the changes.

The four sidebar modes are shown in the table below. Click on the links for more information.

You can choose to use a wired or wireless (2.4GHz WiFi) connection to connect a connector to your MobiusFlow® instance

Select your network type using the Connect Via dropdown. The page layout will change depending on the option selected

When using a wireless connection you need to enter the WiFi network's SSID (name) and password. You can click on the Scan WiFi Networks button to get a list of available WiFi networks

You can set a connection timeout in minutes. If the connector fails to connect to a network within this time it will reboot and try again

The Administration page covers user management, backup and restore, licence settings, security as well as setting the node's Hub ID. The page is divided into corresponding tabs accordingly.

Users can be added, modified and deleted from within the User Management Tab on the Administration page.

Backup and restore functionality is accessed via the settings tab on the Administration page. A full article covering backup and restore can be found .

All Mobius nodes are identified by their hub ID. This is a six character hexadecimal number and should be unique within any group of Mobius nodes. See and for more information about Hub IDs.

Page coming soon. Please contact support@mobiusflow.com to arrange a support call on this topic.

COMING SOON

Part Numbers

It is possible to have up to two radios for wireless sensors in a single connector. This is useful when you have combination of sensors using different protocols.

The current options are EnOcean and Workplace Occupancy using either 868MHz for the EMEA region of 915MHz for the USA and Canada.

If you forget your connector's Config Mode Password or want to fully reset all settings to the factory default follow the procedure below

1. A SIM card removal tool, large paper clip or pin to push the configuration mode button

Using a pin hold in the configuration mode button (inside the small hole to the right of the USB connector) on the front panel for 10 seconds

While you are holding the button in the green LED will start to flash rapidly and after 10 seconds the connector will reboot. Once you see the power on LED sequence release the configuration mode button

MobiusFlow with LoRaWAN Stack

It is optional to include the LoRaWAN Stack when specifying the hosting type on instance creation. This Stack will grant the ability to use the MobiusFlow LoRaWAN LNS.

If included, an instance of Chirpstack and it associated infrastructure will be hosted in the background. Accessing this is not necessary to use the LNS, however it is accessible if required. Full details can be found within the LNS Service documentation.

Port Mappings (Simple)

The table below shows a simple overview illustrating how the ports are mapped. This is a simple overview suitable for most users.

Different parts of the MobiusFlow solution run in different docker containers. These communicate via docker routing. Docker routing allows container names to be resolved in the Host OS, for example, to refer to the Mobius Engine API from the Host OS or a container that is not the mobius container, one could use mobius:8442 (container name followed by Host OS Port).

This means that, if communication between containers is required, the Host OS port and container is required. As such, these are included in the advanced port mappings table below.

The table below gives a full description of the port mappings a MobiusFlow Cloud hosted environment is subject to.

What You Will Need?

1. A device with a web browser such as a laptop, tablet or smart phone, capable of connecting to a 2.4GHz WiFi access point

2. A SIM card removal tool, large paper clip or pin to push the configuration mode button

3. A powered MobiusFlow® connector

4. The connector's Serial Number

The connector's configuration mode can be enabled in two ways:

Using a pin hold in the configuration mode button (inside the small hole to the right of the USB connector) on the front panel for 2 seconds

Release the button and the green LED will flash rapidly

Using your laptop / tablet / smartphone look for a WiFi network with the same name as the connectors serial number

Connect to this network and enter the connector's Config Mode Password. The default is mobiusflow

Open a web browser on your laptop / tablet / smartphone and enter http://192.168.4.1 into the browsers address bar and hit enter

The web browser will show the connector's configuration Home page

Make sure that the connector and your laptop / tablet / smart phone are connected to the same Ethernet network

Open a web browser and browse to <your connector IP address>:8080 e.g. 192.168.1.20:8080

You will need to enter a user name and password. The user name is admin and the password is the same as the connector's Config Mode Password. The default is mobiusflow

After a short delay the web browser will redirect to the connector's configuration Home page

balenaCloud devices can run multiple microservices in separate Docker containers. Deploying MobiusFlow® to your device will create three microservices. You can start, stop and view logs for each service on the balenaCloud device summary page.

mobius

This microservice runs the MobiusFlow® application.

manage

Manages network interfaces. See Configure Networks for more information

mongodb

A full version of MongoDB which you can use to store / retrieve data in flows.

The default settings are

Object Profiles Page

To open the Object Profiles page click on Object Profiles in the main menu.

The object profiles table shows a list of all of the profiles that exist on this instance of MobiusFlow. Any profiles that have not been used to create objects, and therefore can be deleted are shown with a greyed out PID and icon.

Above the table is a toolbar with options to

• Create a new profile

• Filter the list by profile group

• Search for a profile - this filters by PID and profile name

• Import and export profiles

• Set the density of the grid

Clicking on a profile in the table opens the Profile Settings Sidebar. The width of the sidebar can be changed by dragging on the vertical splitter.

A Raspberry Pi is required. Currently supported Raspberry Pi models include:

• Raspberry Pi 4

• Raspberry Pi 5

An SD card for each Raspberry Pi is required to store the connector image. We recommend a minimum storage of 8GB.

Most protocol types require specific hardware to translate that protocol to the Raspberry Pi.

To update a service's settings, first click on Services in the main menu and then find the correct service card.

On the service card toolbar click on the Settings button to open the service settings dialog.

The service settings dialog is shown above. All services have these default settings, but some services may have additional service specific settings. It is beyond the scope of this article to describe any service specific settings, please see the article for that specific service type for more information.

General Settings

SID

The SID or Service ID is a three digit hexadecimal number. It forms part of a MobiusFlow Uniform Resource Identifier.

When a service is added it is given the next available SID, but this can be changed if required. SIDs must be unique within a MobiusFlow instance so you cannot assign a service an existing SID.

Name

The service name can be freely assigned. It has no relevance within a MobiusFlow instance and is just used in MobiusFlow Toolbox to make it easier for you to distinguish between your services.

Services can be Enabled or Disabled. Disabled services do not run at startup and cannot be manually started.

If a service is enabled and it is set to Run at Start the service will be automatically started when the MobiusFlow instance starts. If Run at Start is switched off for a service it will not start automatically but can be started manually by clicking on the service's start button.

Value persistence ensures that objects keep their values between restarts. Please see the article for more information.

A service and its underlying connection to the rest of the instance (the spoke) each have their own logging levels. Currently these logs are only visible in the terminal on the computer running the MobiusFlow instance and are not visible in Toolbox. We aim to make this available in a future version for developers.

The default logging levels are set to Info. Please do NOT change these unless instructed by a MobiusFlow engineer during a support incident as excessive logging could cause significant additional CPU load.

Some services have their own service specific settings. The exact settings will depend on the service type. These are shown at the bottom of the service settings dialog. An example for the MQTT Broker service is shown below.

MobiusFlow Services are the starting point for any configuration. They are typically device drivers for a specific protocol or provide protocol interfaces such as an MQTT broker.

The main services page shows an overview and status of each service that has been added to the configuration. You can interact with services in a number of ways, including configuring a service, starting and stopping a service, or adding and configuring objects belonging to a service.

The main services page shows an overview of all services that have been added to an instance. Each service is represented by a card which provides status information and allows you to interact with the service.

As new services are added cards will appear on this this page. The service list is also visible in the main menu below the Services menu item.

The service library is a list of all possible services that can be added to MobiusFlow. You can show and hide the library by clicking on the button in the top left of the page.

The MobiusFlow software has been developed as an MQTT object bus which normalises all device data into standardised MobiusFlow objects which allow interoperability between all devices either real or virtual in the field or Cloud.

MobiusFlow enables actuators, sensors & controllers to connect, control and communicate with each other and to the Cloud so that IoT solutions using scalable monitoring, visualisation and predictive analytics can provide valuable insights into your business and act upon them automatically.

• A complete control and communications platform

What You Will Need?

1. A balenaCloud account with Microservices access (this requires a paid account)

2. A compatible balenaCloud fleet (Up Board, Intel NUC or Raspberry Pi 4)

Deploying from balenaHub

Navigate to your balenaCloud dashboard and login in

Navigate to balenaHub to select which version of MobiusFlow® to deploy

Navigate to the Apps page

Search for MobiusFlow

Select the correct device type

Click on the Deploy button

Balena will switch to your balenaCloud dashboard

You can create a new fleet here or deploy to an existing fleet. If creating a new fleet refer to the section for details on what settings are required

If you already have a new fleet or want to upgrade the MobiusFlow® version on existing devices, select Use an existing fleet instead

Select the fleet from the drop down and click on the Deploy to fleet button

After a few seconds you will see the new release being built for your fleet

This will take a minute or two. Once the build is complete you will see the release on the dashboard. All devices, which have not been pinned to a specific release, in your fleet will automatically start to update to the new release.

You can also view the release history in the Releases page of your fleet.

Click on a device Summary to see which release it is running. You can also pin device to specific releases on this screen

This section covers different methods on moving your data from MobiusFlow to somewhere else. These methods include via MQTT, via REST and via WebScocket. Pick whichever method best suits your application / integration.

Engine vs Historian

If using REST or WebSockets for data extraction, both Engine and Historian are suitable. Here is a comparison so you know which one to use in any given situation.

Engine API / Engine WebSocket

• Contains telemetry as well as detailed information about MobiusFlow objects relating to MobiusFlow Engine.

• Historical data not available, only current data / live updates.

• Deeper granular control of which updates to subscribe to when using WebSocket

• Data is telemetry / MobiusFlow resource value updates only. No extra engine data.

• Full historical data available.

• WebSocket allows subscription to all updates only, no granular control

balenaCloud devices are configured using Device Variables. When deploying MobiusFlow® to a balenaCloud fleet a number of Device Variables are created with default values. These are defined at the fleet level but can be overridden at the device level. More information about working with balenaCloud Device Variables can be found .

The image below shows the Device Variables created when MobiusFlow® is deployed to balenaCloud.

Expand the items below for detailed information on each Device Variable

The configuration of the network interfaces of a MobiusFlow® balenaCloud device is handled by the manage microservice. All configuration is stored in a JSON file which can be updated by plugging in a properly configured USB memory stick or through the balenaCloud device terminal.

Navigate to your and login in

Navigate to the Device Summary page of the device you want to configure

Open a terminal in the manage microservice

If the Connector is hosted via BalenaCloud and has an internet connection, the configuration can be accessed anywhere via the BalenaCloud Public Device URL.

If the connector is hosted by MobiusFlow, please contact support to receive the Public Device URL.

The BalenaCloud Public Device URL can be found by Navigating to the connector device on the BalenaCloud fleet.

By default, the MobiusFlow connector will broadcast a WiFi access point, the name of which matches the connector's serial number (in the form of MF_XXXXX). Connect to this access point on a computer or mobile device. Then the configuration window is accessible by browsing to 10.42.0.1.

If the connector is connected to a local network via Ethernet or WiFi (with a known IP address) and you're able to also connect to this network using a computer or mobile device, then simple browse to the local IP of the connector.

You have three options to power the connector

Mobius system

A typical MobiusFlow system consists of a single or multiple MobiusFlow nodes connected together via a TCP/IP network. Each node is capable of operating independently of the rest of the system, but nodes can interact with each other to form a complex system. All node interaction takes place through one or more brokers via a node’s router.In a multi-node system, the location of the broker is not important. It can reside on the same device as one of the nodes or on an independent device.

Each node is classed as, and exhibits the behavior of, an edge computing device. In this context edge devices are not only field devices but could also be on the edge of a server or cloud server providing the server with connectivity to all of the true edge or field devices.

Mobius nodes

A Mobius node consists of a central Mobius hub, one or more Mobius services and optionally one or more Mobius routers.

Services contain the service logic and an object data store. Connections to sensors, actuators and other communication interfaces such as Modbus or BACnet can be added depending on the service’s purpose and controlled through the service's logic.

The object data store models the physical or virtual connections and provides a standardised method for services and other nodes to communicate and share data with each other through Mobius objects.

All of the communications between services through the hub or nodes through routers and brokers is based on the MQTT protocol. The MobiusFlow protocol has been defined on top of this MQTT protocol providing a well-defined API enabling different physical devices and protocols to communicate with each other in a consistent way.

Mobius nodes follow the microservice architecture pattern, where each service is a stand-alone process capable of communication with other microservices creating a large application from small manageable pieces.

Routers are used to cross node boundaries. They provide a secure mechanism for nodes to share data using the MobiusFlow protocol.

The logical structure of a node is detailed below. This diagram shows the hierarchical relationship between all of the parts which make up a node and how objects contain resources, services contain objects and hubs connect to services and routers.

The Mobius URI structure allows addressing any part of a node at any depth.

A Mobius hub is the foundation of a node. At its heart, a Mobius hub is just an MQTT broker which manages and links Mobius services and Mobius routers. Hubs are responsible for ensuring that all services and routers are valid members of a node by verifying their pre-shared authentication key on connection.

Each hub within a Mobius system is given a unique ID. This is a six digit hex number which forms the first part of the Mobius URI hierarchy. When referencing a hub, for example during a discovery process, this unique ID must be used (see ).

When service or router connects to a hub, and has been validated, the hub provides it with a copy of the Mobius object profiles and pre-shared keys files, ensuring that all services and routers connected to the hub are able to communicate and understand one another.

Mobius services are the engines which drive MobiusFlow. Each service is essentially a microservice performing a specific task and possibly acting as an interface to a piece of hardware or a 3rd party service such as Microsoft's Azure platform or the IBM Cloud.

All services MUST implement the full MobiusFlow protocol to enable them to connect to hub and communicate with other services. In addition to implementing the MobiusFlow protocol, services can create Mobius objects to store and share data and can also contain service specific logic to perform the task that they are designed for. When creating services, try an keep them focused on one task and create additional services to perform other tasks. This ensures that services are reusable and Mobius systems can be configured to only contain the logic that they require.

Each service within a Mobius node is given a unique ID. This is a three digit hex number which forms the second part of the Mobius URI hierarchy. When referencing a service, for example during a discovery process, this unique ID must be used.

Mobius routers control all MobiusFlow communication into and out of a node. This ensures that nodes are secure and allows nodes to discover each other within a MobiusFlow system.

Routers are split into two parts, one side of the router communicates internally with its associated hub and all of the services within a node, while the other side of the router communicates externally through a 'no-mans' broker to other routers on other nodes. All external communication is done using MQTT over the WebSocket protocol. This could be done over a secure or non-secure connection (ws:// or wss://).

Routers are capable of routing messages between services belonging to different nodes, essentially allowing a service on one node to read, write and subscribe to change-of-value events on objects in another node.

The key to the MobiusFlow system is Mobius objects. These objects typically model real-world objects and provide a mechanism for sharing data and storing state in a consistent way. Each object has a unique identifier or which can be discovered and used by any part of the MobiusFlow system.

Mobius objects are predefined in an object profiles file which is passed to a services by the hub when a service connects.

Each object within a Mobius node is given a unique ID. This ID consists of two parts and is made up of the object profile ID (PID) which describes the object's type, and the object's instance number (INS). The PID is a four digit hex number which forms the third part of the Mobius URI hierarchy and the INS is a four digit hex number which forms the fourth part of the Mobius URI hierarchy. When referencing an object, for example during a discovery process, this unique ID must be used.

Mobius objects contain one or more resources. It is these resources which are used to define objects that mimic or represent real-world objects. An example of a single object is a room temperature sensor. This object may have resources which define the sensor’s name, location, asset reference, engineering units, set point and actual measured value.

Each resource is capable of storing a single value which can currently be of type Boolean, Number, String, DateTime or TimeSpan. Resources also store meta-data about the value. The actual meta-data depends on the value type chosen. Resources can be read only or read/write. Read only resources have their values set when they are created.

Each resource within an object is given a unique ID. This is a two digit hex number which forms the fifth and final part of the Mobius URI hierarchy. When referencing a resource, for example during a read, this unique ID must be used.

Resources store their values in a priority array. This priority array works in a similar manner to a BACnet priority array. The array has 16 possible locations with location 1 being the highest priority and location 16 being the lowest priority.

When reading the value of a resource the actual value is returned in the PV(present value) property. The PV is always equal to the value of the highest active (non null) priority in the resource's priority array.