Connhex Fall '24 release: new OTA updates and edge rule engine

🍁 With summer definitely behind us, it’s time for an update on Connhex!

Welcome to the Fall ‘24 release for Connhex: in this post we’ll get through two big new features, plus a few minor improvements and additions.

OTA firmware update: enhancing device management

We’ve been extending our OTA firmware update procedure to include models and releases.

From Connhex Control, you can now:

• create models and assign them to one or more tenants
• upload firmware binaries
• create firmware releases and associate them to a model.

Releases also include all the logic necessary to move between versions: think of active and mandatory releases, min and max versions, release notes.

If you’re using Connhex Edge, the update flow is automatically managed - devices will be periodically requesting updates and their behavior¹ is configurable.

Or, it can be implemented on your own firmware logic following these steps.

A brand new Edge Rule Engine

We completely overhauled Connhex Edge’s rules engine: it now gives every user the ability to create custom rules through simple SQL statements.

The edge rules engine has two main uses:

• reducing data transfer to the cloud. In cases collected data is too big to be uploaded ², some pre-processing rules can be applied: for example, one could downsample or take the average across a configurable time window.
• applying local transformations when minimal latency is necessary. Think of showing a notification as soon as a door opens: this can be done locally, giving users immediate feedback.

Check out the docs for a more detailed description, plus a complete example.

Other improvements

We’ve added some use cases to further show how Connhex can be used: read here about smart homes, swimming pools, industrial machinery, HVAC and vending machines.

The integration between Connhex Core and IAM has been improved, with redundant checks removed. Connhex Control now allows you to create multiple connectables from a serial numbers’ list: expect further developments here, as we expand bulk handling strategies.

Client modules for Connhex Resources have been updated too. They are now part of a new library, ngx-admin-ui, including all of our Angular components: we’ll be sharing more about it in a dedicated post.

Last but not least, we’ve been performing our usual security audits and our vulnerability reporting procedure has been published.

That’s it for this release! A quick spoiler before leaving: there’s big new feature coming soon³. It goes without saying you can subscribe to our newsletter to be notified as soon as it’s out!