Fusion Connect is able to communicate with nearly any device that can get its data onto the internet. All that is required to get a device connected with Fusion Connect is direct or indirect Internet (that is, IP-addressed) availability of device data.
Direct internet access means that a device is connected to the internet by itself, such as through a SIM card, or through an internet gateway, to which the device connects physically or through a subnet. In contrast, Indirect availability means that device data are collected by some third-party software (usually provided by the device manufacturer), and then transferred to Fusion Connect.
Fusion Connect supports uni-directional communication with all devices, and bi-directional communication with a subset of those devices. The supported device communication patterns for inbound messages are as follows: Listeners–Fusion Connect listens for device messages sent directly to a certain address/port over protocols such as TCP, UDP, or HTTP. Publish / Subscribe–Devices publish messages to a message queue server, to which Fusion Connect subscribes. Call–Fusion Connect maintains a recurring timer, on which it reads device registers or calls API. A combination of the patterns listed above. A device makes a call to Fusion Connect’s Device API to post a message. Fusion Connect supports the following device communication patterns for outbound messages: Fusion Connect sends messages to an IP address or URL. A device opens a line of communication and Fusion Connect responses with a value or message after processing an inbound message. A device calls the Device API to fetch a directive. Using abstract adapters, Fusion Connect can communicate using a number of default protocols out of the box, to any devices using those protocols to send standard JSON-encoded data.
Fusion Connect also has a large library of standard device adapters that can communicate with known devices that require more advanced message parsing. This library is constantly growing; if a new type of IP-addressed device communicates over an open protocol, Fusion Connect can rapidly turn around a new device adapter to integrate the new device type into the system.
Finally, Fusion Connect has a Device API that allows clients to bypass the cloud adaptation layer entirely, to implement their own client-side device adapters that process data into a certain format and send them directly to Fusion Connect’s application server. The cumulative effect of these methods is that