Device Administration

Device Administration is where hardware gets registered. Open Devices under System in the sidebar and you land on a set of typed lists: one for ControlCom Gateways, one for LoRaWAN Gateways, one for LoRaWAN Devices, and one for Generic devices. Each type has its own creation flow, its own required fields, and its own way of handing credentials to the hardware.

This page covers the lists and the creation flows. For what a Device actually is on the platform, and how Variables and Commands behave once data is flowing, read Devices first.

Overview

The page header reads Devices and carries a single action, New Device. Below it sit four tabs: ControlCom Gateway, LoRaWAN Gateways, LoRaWAN Devices and Generic. Each tab lists only devices of that type, so a device you created as a LoRaWAN Device will never appear on the Generic tab. Opening the section without naming a type lands you on the ControlCom Gateway tab.

The ControlCom Gateway and Generic lists show Name, Status, Location and Device ID. The LoRaWAN lists trade Location for the identifiers that matter on a radio network: LoRaWAN Gateways show Provisioning and Gateway EUI, LoRaWAN Devices show Provisioning and Device EUI. Every list has the same toolbar: a search box, a column toggle for hiding columns you do not need, a density toggle, and an export button that writes the current rows to a file.

Clicking a row opens the device. The row menu adds Open, Edit and Delete. Deleting is permanent and takes the device's stored data with it, so the confirmation asks you to type Delete <name> - <device id> before it proceeds.

Device Types

A device's type is chosen once, at creation, and cannot be changed afterwards. Only the name, description and Location stay editable. Pick deliberately.

Type	Runs the Edge Server	Use it for
ControlCom Gateway	Yes	Industrial gateways that talk to equipment over Modbus, OPC UA, BACnet, EtherNet/IP or MQTT. Also hosts the Edge HMI.
LoRaWAN Gateway	No	Radio gateways that pick up traffic from LoRaWAN end devices in range and forward it to a network server.
LoRaWAN Device	No	LoRaWAN end devices (sensors, meters) that join the network over the air using OTAA.
Generic	No	Anything you write the integration for yourself: custom firmware or an application pushing data over MQTT or HTTP.

If you are running the ControlCom Edge Server on a gateway, that gateway is a ControlCom Gateway. If you are writing your own client against the MQTT broker or the HTTP API, it is a Generic device. The two LoRaWAN types exist because a LoRaWAN gateway and the end devices behind it are separate records with separate identifiers.

Creating a Device

Click New Device. The Create a New Device page shows one card per type with a short summary of what each is for, and picking a card opens the matching form.

Three fields are common to every type:

Field	Required	Rules
Name	Yes	5 to 100 characters. Used to identify the device everywhere on the platform.
Description	No	Up to 500 characters. Notes to help identify the device.
Location	No	The physical site the device is installed at. Can be set later.

Next to the Location picker is an add button that opens a Create Location dialog, so you can register a new site without leaving the form. The new Location is selected automatically once it is created. See Locations for how sites are organized.

Names are unique within an Organization, and the 5 character minimum applies to renames as well as to creation.

ControlCom Gateways and Generic Devices

These two types share the same form: name, description, Location, then Create. Nothing else is asked, because everything specific to the device is configured after it exists.

The ControlCom Gateway form opens with a notice worth reading. Creating a gateway here works, but the recommended path is to onboard it from the gateway's own edge server, which registers the device and installs its certificates in one step. Creating it here means downloading the certificate bundle and installing it on the gateway by hand. The Edge Server getting started guide covers the onboarding route.

Saving either type provisions the device and opens Download Certificates & Secrets. The dialog offers five files: the device certificate, the public key, the private key, and the two Amazon root certificates (RSA 2048 and ECC 256). The private key is generated once and is not stored in a form the platform can hand back to you, so the dialog holds you there with an acknowledgement checkbox until you confirm you have saved the files. Losing them means generating a new certificate on the Certificates tab.

For a Generic device, the next step is pointing your firmware or application at the broker. See Sending Data for the MQTT and HTTP paths.

LoRaWAN Gateways

LoRaWAN Gateways are created through a three step wizard: Details, LoRaWAN Config, Review.

Details asks for the three common fields. LoRaWAN Config asks for the radio and hosting settings:

Field	Rules
Provisioning	ControlCom Cloud (managed network server) or ControlCom Gateway (on-device network server). Fixed after creation.
ControlCom Gateway	Only shown for on-device provisioning. Picks which existing ControlCom Gateway in your Organization hosts the network server.
Gateway EUI	Exactly 16 hexadecimal characters, printed on the gateway. Stored lowercase and unique across the platform.
RF Region	One of US915, EU868, AS923_1 through AS923_4, AU915, IN865 or CN470. Must match how the gateway hardware was provisioned.
Sub-band	Required for US915, where it must be 1 to 8. Optional for every other region.

The sub-band rule exists because US915 splits the band into eight non-overlapping 500 kHz blocks, and the network needs to know which block the gateway listens on. Submitting a US915 gateway without a sub-band fails validation with "Sub-band is required when RF region is US915".

Provisioning decides where the LoRaWAN Network Server runs. ControlCom Cloud means the gateway forwards packets to ControlCom for decryption and routing, which suits deployments spread across several sites. ControlCom Gateway means the network server runs locally on one of your ControlCom Gateways and traffic stays on site, which suits offline-capable or air-gapped installations.

The Review step lists everything back to you and warns that Gateway EUI, RF Region and Sub-band cannot be changed after creation. They are bound to the physical hardware at provisioning time. Create Gateway submits.

Cloud-provisioned gateways finish with a Download LoRaWAN Gateway Credentials dialog holding the four BasicStation files (lns.trust, cups.trust, client.crt and private.key) along with the LNS and CUPS server URLs to put in the gateway's BasicStation configuration. As with the certificate bundle, this is the only time the files are offered.

LoRaWAN Devices

LoRaWAN Devices use a four step wizard: Details, Profile, LoRaWAN Keys, Review.

Details adds a Provisioning field to the three common ones, with the same two options as a gateway. Choosing ControlCom Gateway (on-device network server) reveals Host ControlCom Gateway, where you pin the device to the gateway that runs its network server. Cloud-provisioned devices need no host: any gateway in range can relay their uplinks.

Profile is optional. Selecting a Device Profile attaches the vendor's codec so uplink payloads are decoded on arrival, and when the profile has a linked template it also provisions the device's Variables and Commands for you. The card underneath shows the vendor, model, codec version and template that the selected profile brings with it.

LoRaWAN Keys holds the OTAA credentials the device was manufactured with:

Field	Rules
DevEUI	Exactly 16 hexadecimal characters. The device's unique identifier, provisioned into its firmware.
AppEUI / JoinEUI	Exactly 16 hexadecimal characters. Identifies the application the device joins.
AppKey	Exactly 32 hexadecimal characters. The root key used during the OTAA join. Treat it as a secret.

All three are case-insensitive on entry and stored lowercase. Getting one wrong does not fail loudly: the device simply never completes a join, so check them against the label or the manufacturer's shipping file before you submit. The Review step repeats the warning that DevEUI, AppEUI and AppKey are immutable after creation, because they are provisioned into the firmware rather than assigned by the platform. Create Device submits.

Device Detail Tabs

Opening a device shows its name in the header, editable in place, with the device ID underneath. Which tabs appear depends on the type:

Type	Tabs
ControlCom Gateway	Details, Settings, Variables, Commands, Certificates, Edge Server, Edge Logs, Edge HMI
Generic	Details, Settings, Variables, Commands, Certificates
LoRaWAN Device	Details, Health, Settings, Variables, Commands
LoRaWAN Gateway	Details, Settings

Details is the read-only summary. For a ControlCom Gateway it shows the connection facts the edge server needs (broker, port, topic, client ID and the device shared secret) alongside health tiles and an activity timeline. For a LoRaWAN Device it shows the identifiers (Device EUI, App EUI, App Key) and the provisioning model. For a LoRaWAN Gateway it adds the radio settings and the LNS and CUPS endpoints.

Settings is the small editable slice: description and Location. Variables and Commands are where the device's data points live.

The Variables table shows the name, current value, topic property and flags for each data point. New Variable adds one by hand and Import brings in a set from a file. The row menu edits a variable, toggles logging, opens it in Platform Explorer, sends a test value, or deletes it. Variables can be grouped into folders and exported. See Variables for what each field does and how Virtual Variables are calculated.

LoRaWAN Devices get an extra Health tab covering signal quality and the gateways that witnessed the device's uplinks. ControlCom Gateways get Edge Server, Edge Logs and Edge HMI, which are covered in the Edge Server web interface documentation.

Certificates and Credentials

ControlCom Gateways and Generic devices authenticate to the MQTT broker with mutual TLS, and the Certificates tab is where those certificates are managed. A device can hold two certificates at a time, which is what makes rotation possible: generate the second, install it on the device, confirm it connects, then deactivate and remove the first.

Generate new certificate creates one and opens the same download dialog you saw at creation. The row menu views the certificate, copies the certificate ID or the PEM, and downloads the PEM. Deactivating or removing a certificate is a step-up action: the platform sends you a verification code and asks for it before the change goes through. An active certificate cannot be removed, so deactivate it first. The tab also links the two Amazon root certificates, which the device needs in order to verify the broker.

LoRaWAN hardware does not use this tab. Gateways carry the BasicStation credential files issued at creation, and end devices carry the OTAA keys burned into their firmware.

Keeping credentials per device rather than sharing one secret across a fleet is deliberate: revoking one device never affects another. Security covers the transport and authentication model in full.

Where This Fits

Registering hardware is the Connect stage of the ControlCom Connect data workflow. Nothing downstream works until it is done, because every Variable, Alarm, Dashboard and report is anchored to a Device record.

From here, the path depends on the type you created. ControlCom Gateways continue in the Edge Server getting started guide, which covers deploying the server and pointing it at your equipment, then Creating a Variable for the Collect stage. Generic devices continue in Sending Data, which covers the MQTT and HTTP paths. If you are still deciding between the two, ControlCom Edge Solution and Bring Your Own Device compare them.

Once data is arriving and Stored, Platform Explorer is where you Analyze it, and Dashboards and Diagrams are where you Visualize it.