Helium Dashboard

Helium Dashboard is a hosted web interface that allows you to visualize and manage your connected sensor deployments built on the Helium platform. Dashboard provides realtime visibility into the health of your IoT deployments and makes it easy to deploy and administer production Helium sensing applications at scale.

This guide covers the five major sections of the Helium Dashboard.

• Dashboard Home
• Atoms
• Elements
• Channels
• Team Settings

Dashboard Home

When you log in to Helium Dashboard, you'll be greeted wth a high-level snapshot of your deployment:

• System Status shows you how many of your Atoms, Elements, and Channels are offline.
• The Data Usage graph shows how many MBs of data have been sent and received by your Atoms over the last seven days. Hover over the graph to get the exact number of data points per day.
• Top Elements shows a map view of all your deployed Elements along side a list ranked by the number of Atoms connected to each Element.

Atoms

Atoms are are the basic unit of connectivity and security on the Helium platform. They allow an embedded device (e.g. mbed, Arduino, your custom sensor board) to connect and transmit sensor data to the Helium routing platform via a locally-deployed Helium Element.

The Helium Atom comes in two version: the Atom Prototyping Module and the Atom Surface Mount Module. Typically the Atom Prototyping Module is added to an adapter board then attached to an embedded device like a Raspberry Pi, Arduino, or mbed board for prototyping (though it can be used in production deployments). When ready to scale, the Atom Surface Mount Module can be soldered directly to any board of your choice.

• Activating an Atom
• Atom Details
• Atom Realtime Packets
• Atom Event Log
• Atom Debug Log
• Atom Configuration Variables
• Atom Data Usage
• Transfer Ownership

Activating an Atom

You need to activate each new Atom you deploy. Here's the quick process:

1. In Dashboard, click Add Atom (or click + in the navigation menu).
2. Give your Atom a name. This name does not need to be unique and can contain special characters.
3. Find and enter the last four digits of the Atom's MAC ID. This will be on the printed sticker.
4. Do the same for the four digit HVV code.
5. Add Tags (optional). Tags are useful for grouping or identification purposes. Tags can be for things like location, the type of sensor it’s attached to, or the owner. Later you’ll be able to use these tags to search. There is no limit to the number of tags.
6. Click Activate Atom to continue.

Deactivating and Reactivating Atoms

• Deactivating an Atom takes the Atom offline. This means data from your device will no longer be routed to your Channels. We only recommend this action if you’re not in active development or actively using the data. Once deactivated, this Atom will no longer send data to.
  
• To reactivate an Atom, navigate to its Details page and toggle the switch to On.

Atom Details

The Atom Details UI shows various pieces of Atom metadata.

Atom Realtime Packets

To make the prototyping process easier, Helium Dashboard provides a Realtime Packet visualization for each Atom you've deployed. If you have an Atom online and sending data, you should be able to quickly verify it using this interface.

• From Atom traffic is packets sent from the device to the Helium Dashboard.
• To Atom traffic is packets sent from the Dashboard to a device as downlink or control messages.
• Hover over any packet to view details on its size, the time it arrived at the Helium Dashboard (in UTC), and the name of the device that sent it.
• The y axis shows a packet's RSSI reading when it arrived at the Helium Dashboard. For RSSI, which uses dBm as units, higher is better. An RSSI of 0 would be near perfect; -110 is very poor signal strength.

Atom Event Log

Users can see a detailed history of an Atom's events in its Event Log. Logs can also be filtered via the search box in the top right corner.

Atom Debug Log

Helium provides a Debug Log for every Atom. Once enabled (via the Debug Mode toggle), Dashboard will inspect and display the contents of each packet.

Atom Configuration Variables

Configuration Variables enable users to update and report on known key/value pairs in their sensor's running code entirely over the air (OTA). This OTA update mechanism is extremely powerful for things like building control pipelines that are part of your application's logic and reporting on general device state.

A Configuration Variable deployed via the Atom's UI in Dashboard is known as a Global Configuration Variable. There are also Channal Configuration Variables which let users tie together the device state management system for a given Cloud Channel (Device Twins in Azure IoT, for example) with the Configuration Variables deployed to a sensor in the field. (Please see the Configuration Variables documentation for full details on these two types of Configuration Variables.)

To interact with the Configuration Variables that are part of your sensor's application logic, log in to Dashboard, select your target Atom, and the click the Config menu option to be taken to the UI. Here you can do two things

• Set the desired state of each Variable
• View the reported value for each Variable

To set a new value for one or several Configuration Variables, simply add them to the list of Key / Value pairs and click "Update Config". Once this is done, Helium will dispatch the updates over the air to the target devices. When the update is complete, the device will report its updated state and this will be reflected in the Reported Configuration section.

Atom Data Usage

This graphs shows the total amount of data sent to and from and Atom over the last seven calendar days. Hover over a data point to see exact numbers.

Transfer Atom Ownership

Dashboard users with Admin or Owner permissions are allowed to move Atoms to another Team in which they're also an Admin or Owner. To perform a transfer, select the Team from the dropdown and click the Transfer button to complete the operation.

Elements

Helium Elements create local, bidirectional wireless coverage for any number of Helium Atoms in range. There are two variations of Elements: Helium Element (Cellular Version) and the Helium Element (Ethernet-only Version).

• Activating an Element
• Element Info View and Map View
• Element Details
• Element Realtime Packets
• Element Location
• Element Event Log
• Connected Atoms
• Transfer Element Ownership

Activating An Element

You need to activate each new Element you deploy. Here's the quick process:

1. Click Add Element or (click + in the navigation menu).
2. Give your Element a name. This name does not need to be unique and can contain special characters.
3. Find and enter the last four digits of the Element's MAC. This will be on the printed sticker on the back of the Element.
4. Do the same for the four digit HVV code.
5. Add Tags (optional). Tags are useful for grouping or identification purposes. Later you’ll be able to use these tags to search. There is no limit to the number of tags.
6. Click Activate Element to continue.

Deactivating and Reactivating Elements

• Deactivating an Element takes the Element and cellular connectivity (if available) offline. Any Atoms connected to this Element won’t be able to route data to channels. We only recommend this action if you’re not in active development or aren’t using the data from these Atoms and Elements.
• To reactivate an Element, click its name to view the Details page and toggle the switch to On.

Element Info View and Map View

When you navigate to the Elements overview page in Dashboard, you're shown details for all your Elements in both a Info View and a Map View.

• Info View is a tabular representation of your Elements. From here you can click on any Element to get its specific details. You can also click on the number in Atoms column to be taken to a view of all the Atoms connected to that Element.
• Map View displays your team's deployed Elements on a map. Each marker denotes one Element. Hover over a marker on the map to view an Element's name and click on a marker to view that Element's complete details.

Element Details

The Element Details UI shows various pieces of Element metadata in one interface. To access an Element's details, click on its name anywhere it appears linked inside of Helium Dashboard.

Element Realtime Packets

Helium Dashboard provides a Realtime Packet visualization for each Element routing traffic to and from Atoms. If you have an Element online and creating network coverage, this visualization will show you, in realtime, which Atoms are sending and receiving data through it. This is extremely useful for prototyping, debugging, and production.

• From Atom traffic is packets sent from an Atom to the Helium Dashboard via this Element.
• To Atom traffic is packets sent from the Dashboard to a device as downlink or control messages via this Element.
• Hover over any packet to view details on its size, the time it arrived at the Helium Dashboard (in UTC), and the name of the device that sent it.
• The y axis shows a packet's RSSI reading when it arrived at the Helium Dashboard. For RSSI, which uses dBm as units, higher is better. An RSSI of 0 would be near perfect; -110 is very poor signal strength.

Element Location

Helium features two different ways to retrieve an Element’s location. Users can manually enter a physical address for their Element by editing its location or allow Helium to automatically geolocate the Element. By default, Helium will use the manually entered address. If no address is entered, Helium will attempt to automatically geolocate.

• To enter an address for the Element, select the Set Address option in the upper right hand corner of Location interface and follow the prompts.

Element Event Log

Here you can view a detailed history of an Element's logs. Logs can also be filtered by typing in the search box.

Connected Atoms

View a list of Atoms connected to an Element. Click on the name of an Atom to see full details.

Transfer Element Ownership

Dashboard users with Admin or Owner permissions can move Elements to another team if they're also an Admin or Owner of that team. To transfer the ownership of an Element, select the name of the target team from the dropdown menu and click Transfer.

Channels

Channels are secure, prebuilt connectors that route your data from devices to any cloud or private server. Helium has partnered and integrated with the best-in-class Cloud platform like Azure, Google Cloud IoT Core, and AWS IoT. Helium is the only connectivity solution that includes both hardware security and software security out of the box. Helium uses hardware secured keys to authenticate your device with the Cloud platform solution so your data integrity is never compromised.

What To Know About Channels

• Users deploy Channels in Dashboard and the references the name of that channel in their device code.
• Channel names must be unique across an entire Helium Team.
• Atom-based sensors can reference any number of Channels in their code and send data to any number of Channels in parallel.

The following list covers all the features and functionality shared across all Channels:

• Channels Overview
• Channel Details
• Channel Realtime Packets
• Channel Event Log
• Channel Code
• Channel Data Usage
• Transfer Channel Ownership
• Delete Channel

Channels Overview

When you first access the Channels interface in Dashboard you'll be presented with a list of available Channels, your deployed Channels, and a list of view of all your deployed Channels.

• To Create a New Channel, click on the name of the Channel you wish to create and follow the UI prompts.
• View details on any of your Active Channels by clicking a name.
• The All Channels list gives you a snapshot of all your deployed Channels. All these columns are sortable.

Channel Details

From the main Channels interface, click on a Channel name to view its details at a glance. Channel names are immutable to ensure client-side code linking the Atom to the Channel persists. In order to rename a Channel, create a new Channel with the new name and update the client-side code. Deactivate the old Channel if it’s no longer needed.

Channel Realtime Packets

Helium Dashboard provides a Realtime Packet visualization for all of your Channels ingesting traffic from Atoms. If you have a Channel deployed, this visualization will show you, in realtime, which Atoms are sending data to it.

• From Atom traffic is packets sent from an Atom to the Channel.
• To Atom traffic is packets sent from the Dashboard to a device as downlink or control messages via this Channel.
• Hover over any packet to view details on its size, the time it arrived at the Helium Dashboard (in UTC), and the name of the device that sent it.
• The y axis shows a packet's RSSI reading when it arrived at the Helium Dashboard. For RSSI, which uses dBm as units, higher is better. An RSSI of 0 would be near perfect; -110 is very poor signal strength.

Channel Event Logs

The Channel Event Log shows all activity that is routed through the that specific Channel. Each log will indicate who originated the message, the size, the date and time (in UTC), and whether the message was successfully transmitted.

The list of available event types is as follows:

Channel Code

When deploying a sensor to route data to a specific Channel, you must include the unique name of that Channel in the code that's deployed to the sensor. Helium Dashboard will generate the necessary code for you to include within the Channel Code section of each Channel for the following hardware platforms:

• Raspberry Pi
• Arduino
• ARM mbed

For example, if you're deploying an Raspberry Pi-based sensor to route data to a Channel called Google Cloud IoT Core, you'll include something like this in your sensor program.

from helium_client import Helium

helium = Helium("/dev/serial0")
helium.connect()

channel = helium.create_channel("Google Cloud IoT Core")
channel.send("hello from Python")

Channel Data Usage

This graphs shows the total amount of data sent to and from a given Channel over the 24 hours. Hover over a data point to see exact numbers.

Transfer Ownership

Dashboard users with Admin or Owner permissions are able to move Elements to another team of which they're also an Admin or Owner.

To Transfer a Channel to another Team, select the target team from the Drop Down and click the Transfer button to confirm the action.

Delete a Channel

Deleting a Channel hard deletes all event logs and credentials for the Channel. Deleting a Channel should only be done if you're confident the Channel is not used by any Atom and you no longer need the Channel's metadata. If you want to stop data from routing to the cloud platform but keep event logs and credentials, we recommend deactivating the Channel instead.

Team Settings

Teams are the top level organization for Atoms, Elements, Channels, and Users. Each Team has its own setting. Atoms, Elements, and Channels can only belong to one team.

• Team Access
• Creating a New Team
• Inviting a New Team Member
• User Roles and Permission
• Managing User Prefences

Team Access

When you first access the Team Setting interface, you'll be shown an overview of all the team members on a given team along with their roles, the date and time they joined (in UTC), and actions you can take (depending on your permissions).

• To remove a team member from a specific team, click the Revoke Access option under the Actions list in the Access and confirm the action.
• To change a team member's role, click the Role drop down next to their name in the Access view and select the desired level of permissions.

Creating a New Team

Every Dashboard account comes with a Personal Team that contains only one user: you. To collaborate with others, you’ll need to create a new Team (or be invited to another team). To create a new team:

1. In the left navigation menu, click Personal at the top. A dropdown will appear that shows what team(s) you’re a part of.
2. Click the + icon that appears at the bottom of this list.
3. In the form that appears, give the team a unique name.
4. Click Create a New Team to complete.

Inviting a New Team Member

To invite a new member to your team, select the Invite Member option from the top right corner on your team's Access overview. In the UI prompt, supply an email, select their permission level, and click Invite. They will then get an email with instructions on how to confirm their account and join your team.

User Roles and Permissions