How to Monitor your Computer with uBeac

Our computers are very powerful and complicated machines that have improved the efficiency of everyday life. If you take multiple computers, such as a laptop and a desktop, and connect all three together, you can obtain a system that can perform countless tasks of varying difficulties.

However, if one, or all of these computers stop working, then serious problems arise for the people running the service, and for the many others who may be using it. Luckily, if you monitor all these systems, then finding the problem should be simple. This surveillance could also produce preventative solutions such as sending notifications about a potential issues before they occurs.

All of this monitoring can be done through uBeac using their simple, easy-to-use IoT services. uBeac is a versatile IoT platform for centralized digital transformation, data integration, and visualization. uBeac’s IoT hub allows you to connect, process, and visualize real-time data in a secure way. Using uBeac as a monitoring system for all of your computer devices will make running your services feel effortless.

Step 1: Signing up with uBeac

Signing up with uBeac is easy. You just need to add your email and create a password to get started. Next, you must create a team. This is also very simple, involving just a name for the team, a code name, and an address. Once you have finished this, you will arrive at a blank homepage for your team.

Step 2: Setting up uBeac

Now that you have your team set up, you need to create a gateway to connect all of your devices. From the uBeac homepage, click on the Gateways module and add a new gateway. Under the General tab, assign a UID and name for your gateway. For your purpose of this tutorial, select uBeac Multiple Devices to be your gateway. Next, under the HTTP tab, there will be two gateway URLs: one HTTP and one HTTPS. These will be used to connect to your computer. Click submit to add the gateway.

Step 3: Setting up your Computer

Access uBeac’s GitHub Here and select OSMonitoring. Inside is a Python program that will conduct OS monitoring when run on your computer. Download this folder and follow the instructions on the README.md.

Note that there are two versions: one for Windows and one for Linux! If all goes well, your main.py code should look something like this (with possibly a different Gateway URL, Device Friendly Name, and Sent Interval).

Step 4: Debugging

Go back to uBeac and select the Gateways module to see that a device has been added to the gateway. If you click your gateway, you can see all the HTTP POST requests that your computer is sending to uBeac. If you select the Devices module and click on the newly added device, which is your computer, you can find all the data that each sensor is sending to uBeac.

Step 5: Update the Sensors

Following the README.md from the OSMonitoring folder, you should update the details for each sensor, such as it's type and unit. Go to the Devices module and click on your device. Next, click on your Settings tab to make edits to your device. You will see two tabs present: a General tab and a Sensors tab. Click on the Sensors tab to edit each sensor.

For each sensor, you can select the Sensor Type (temperature, voltage, GPS, etc.) and the Unit (Celsius, Volts, Latitude, Longitude, etc.), along with with the optional values of the Prefix (centi, mili, mega, giga, etc.) and the Precision of each sensor (1 decimal value). Most of the correct units can be found in the OSMonitoring folder, in the _const file as comments. After you edit each sensor, remember to click the update button to save your progress. Once this is done, you can start making your dashboards.

Step 6: Creating the uBeac Dashboard

Having a dashboard to visualize your incoming data is really useful, especially if you want to analyze and utilize the data afterwards. First, you must setup the dashboard. Go to the Dashboards module and add a new dashboard. Pick a name for the dashboard then click submit. A blank dashboard will appear, which you can customize however you want. On the top right corner of the dashboard page, click the clipboard icon to start editing the dashboard.

You can select widgets such as indicators, charts, and device tracker to help you visualize your data. For example, if you were to make an indicator for the computers CPU Temperature sensor you would first drag and drop the indicator widget onto the dashboard. Next, you would click the “connect to data” button to edit the widget's settings. This includes changing the display icon, selecting the device to collect data from, and other features that are unique to each widget. Once you are satisfied with your widget, save your progress. You can continue doing this for as many widgets as you would like.

Below are some examples of dashboards that you can make with just the sensors on your computer.

Step 6.5: Changing Colours

The default colour for sensors is green, but uBeac offers a wide pallet of colours to help you visualize the status of your sensors. Go to the Sensors tab in the Devices module and click on the sensor you wish to edit. At the bottom of each sensor, there is a green circle next to the number '0', and a grey circle next to the number '100'. This indicates that between the values of '0' and '100' the sensor on the dashboard is green.

Click on the green circle to change that sensors colour. If you click the (+) button in between the two number values, a number in between the first and last number appears with a new colour. You can do this for as many specific values as you would like and change their colours too. Finally, you can change the range of values that your sensor will indicate by clicking and overwriting the indicator numbers. An example is shown below.

Step 7: Revisiting History

While the dashboards display your live sensor activity, it does not show your previous data. That is kept in the Reports module. There, you can find all historical records of your sensor data, dating back to when you would have installed the sensor. You can also get reports from your entire gateway. These data can be filtered by date, time range, device, and sensor. Finally, if you need to use this data for another project, you can export it in JSON or in CSV.

This is how you can use uBeac to create a monitoring system for all of your computers. You can have a monitoring system for each device, or you can add all of your computers into one dashboard. However you want to monitor your devices is completely up to you when you use uBeac.