Overview

A gateway is a device that connects its client devices to ClearBlade IoT Core and performs several tasks on their behalf, such as:

• Communicating with ClearBlade IoT Core

• Connecting to the internet when the device can't directly connect

• Authenticating to ClearBlade IoT Core when the device can't send its credentials, or you want to add a security layer using the device and gateway’s credentials

• Publishing telemetry events, getting configuration data, or setting device state

• Storing and processing data

• Translating protocols

You can manage gateways like any other device: they can publish their telemetry data, report state, and receive configuration data.

ClearBlade IoT Core supports gateway connections and communication over MQTT and HTTP.

Key concepts

To understand gateways, you should be familiar with these concepts:

Bind/unbind: Create or remove an association between the device and gateway. Binding enables devices to access ClearBlade IoT Core through the gateway without providing their JSON Web Token (JWT). Binding is optional; see Non-gateway device authentication for more details. Enable or disable communication between an authenticated device and ClearBlade IoT Core through the gateway.

Setup

To use gateways with ClearBlade IoT Core:

1. Decide how to authenticate the devices to ClearBlade IoT Core through the gateway.

2. Create the gateway.

3. Configure the gateway and get state.

4. Optional: Create devices.

5. Use the MQTT or HTTP bridge to relay messages and configuration data between the devices and ClearBlade IoT Core.

End-to-end demo

Try a demo that walks you through creating a gateway and device, binding the device to the gateway, listening for configuration messages, and sending state data on the device’s behalf.

Pricing

Sent gateway messages are billed as normal device traffic. For details, see the Pricing documentation.