Edge

Monitoring, data and automation,
running locally on site.

Explore Edge
The complete Edge application: the site and its buildings in the navigation, and a cold chain dashboard holding zone heating setpoints for three areas, three active alerts, a gauge and a live reading for the chill and freezer stores, a plan of the ground floor reading the temperature of the rooms that have a sensor in them, and seven days of both cold stores on one chart.
One dashboard on a demonstration plant, shown in the real application.

Where Edge runs

Edge runs on site, on an EpiSensor Gateway or on your own server. It records readings and runs automation there, so the site keeps working when the internet connection does not.

Platform
EpiSensor Gateway
Zigbee
Modbus
ZEM
ZDR
EpiSensor Zigbee devices
Third-party Zigbee devices
HVAC
Solar PV
Heat pumps
Battery storage
Meters
ZPC
BACnet
ZEM
Core
Wireless sensors and wired equipment connect to the Gateway. Edge runs locally on it.

  1. Runs on

    EpiSensor Gateway

    Ubuntu Core, with Edge installed.

    Meet the Gateway

    Your server or virtual machine

    Ubuntu Server on amd64 or arm64, down to a Raspberry Pi.

    Get System Manager

  2. On site

    Edge

    • Records readings to local history
    • Runs automation and calculations
    • Serves dashboards and the API

  3. Use it from

    • A browserAny browser that can reach the Gateway
    • The desktop appmacOS, Windows and Linux
    • The mobile appiPhone and Android
    Apps and downloads

Keeps running without the internet

Recording readings, automation rules, calculations, and dashboards and apps on the site network.

Needs a connection

Remote access, external notifications and connected platforms.

Available protocols and hardware access depend on the configuration you choose.

Your Gateways in your pocket

The Edge app for iPhone and Android is the application you use in a browser, laid out for a phone. Sign in to a Gateway with your Edge user and the site is with you: rooms and their readings, every device and its sensors, charts, the rules running on site, alerts, and the Gateway's own settings.

  • iPhone
  • Android
  • Sign in with your Gateway user, as in the browser

Ask for the mobile app when you request access, or contact our team.

Edge on a phone: the Production Hall home screen, its ground floor rooms with live temperature, humidity, lighting and door state, the mezzanine collapsed below them, and navigation for Home, Devices, Data, Automate and Settings.
Home Every floor of the building, and what each room is reporting now.
Edge on a phone: the device list, each row with the device name, its model and protocol, when it last reported and whether it is online. Electricity monitors, a Modbus bridge, climate sensors and a calculated device.
Devices Every device on the Gateway: model, protocol, whether it is online and when it last reported.
Edge on a phone: one climate sensor, with its temperature and humidity readings, actions to edit, sync, interview, check for a firmware update, export and delete, and its diagnostics below them.
One device Its identity, its live sensors and the commands it accepts.
Edge on a phone: 24 hours of a freezer store temperature, reading -19.4 degrees Celsius, with its minimum, maximum and 97 samples above the chart, and the time ranges from one hour to custom.
Data Any sensor over an hour, a day or a month, with its minimum, maximum and sample count.
Edge on a phone: the Cold chain dashboard, its active alerts first, each naming the device that raised it, what the rule saw, its room and building, how long ago and its severity.
Dashboards A dashboard stacked for a phone, in the order it matters on one.
Edge on a phone: four automation rules, each with its trigger and action, when it last triggered, and a switch to enable or disable it.
Automation The rules running on the Gateway, with their triggers, actions and last run. Switch one off from here.
Edge on a phone: eight alerts over a morning, seven of them active, each with a severity icon, the device that raised it, the rule that fired and the room it belongs to, with a resolved one at the foot.
Alerts What needs attention: the device, what it did, its room and how long it has been open.
Edge on a phone: the networking screen, with cards for Ethernet, Wi-Fi and cellular, and the interface list below them.
Networking Ethernet, Wi-Fi and cellular on the Gateway you are standing beside.
Edge on a phone: the settings screen, with a search field over the system and general sections, including hierarchy, zones, tariffs and notifications.
Settings The same settings as the browser, searchable rather than nested.
Edge on a phone: the assign devices screen, at the scan step, offering the barcode scanner or a field for the serial number.
Assign devices Commissioning: scan a barcode or type a serial, then give the device its room.

  • Every Gateway in one list

    Keep the Gateways you work on together, in folders you name and colour, and switch between them with a tap.

  • Find one on the network

    Scan the local network for Gateways when you arrive at a site, or add one by scanning its QR code.

  • Commission in the field

    Scan a device's barcode or type its serial, put it in its room, asset or utility, and add a note and a photograph.

What you can do with Edge

Dashboards

Build a dashboard around the work you do. Combine live values, trend charts, gauges, equipment status and controls, then arrange and resize the widgets for your team or a shared display.

Explore the Edge apps
Illustrative Edge dashboard comparing mains and compressor power over 30 days, with a sustained compressor maintenance override, current readings, equipment status and energy totals.

Illustrative plant data in real Edge widgets. The sustained compressor load shows a maintenance override.

Everything a dashboard is built from

Place live values, charts, gauges, tables, alerts, controls and room overviews on a grid, and resize each one to the space it needs.

Freezer Store temperature, an Edge Single Value widget. One reading at full size over a sparkline of the last 24 hours.

Single Value

The one number a shift watches, large enough to read across a room, with the last day behind it.

Gateway, an Edge Info widget. A labelled table of fixed facts: firmware, platform, uptime, stored readings.

Info

The fixed facts about a unit, so nobody opens a terminal to check a firmware version.

Devices by room, an Edge Donut widget. Category totals as a donut, with the total in the middle and a counted legend.

Donut

How a total divides, for the times the split matters more than the trend.

Zone heating setpoints, an Edge Control widget. A setpoint slider over the three zones it writes to, each with the temperature it holds now.

Control

Send a command back to equipment that accepts one, beside the reading that prompted it.

Chill Store temperature, an Edge Gauge widget. An arc gauge with named colour zones, a live value and the room it came from.

Gauge

Whether a reading sits where it should, without anyone having to read the scale.

Cold chain, 7 days, an Edge Visualisation widget. Two rooms over seven days on one axis, so the difference between them is the picture.

Visualisation

Two quantities on one timeline, to see which of them moves first.

Refrigeration plant, an Edge Table widget. Rows the dashboard author writes, for a register that does not belong on a chart.

Table

An inventory that a chart would only flatten: rows, columns and a header.

Active alerts, an Edge Alerts widget. Alerts as they arrive, each with its severity, the room it came from and how long it has been open.

Alerts

What needs attention, filtered to the severity and the area that is yours.

Ground floor, an Edge Callout widget. Live readings labelled on a floor plan, each one leading to the room it was measured in.

Callout

Your own floor plan or photograph, with the points that matter labelled on it.

Rooms, an Edge Room Overview widget. Every room of the building as a tile, with occupancy and a status dot.

Room Overview

A whole building at once, so a cold room is obvious from the doorway.

Electrical single line, an Edge Image widget. A fixed picture beside the live ones: here, the drawing that says which board each meter is on.

Image

A diagram, a logo or a reference picture, where a screen needs context rather than data.

Devices

Edge presents wired and wireless devices through one data model. Monitor their sensors and create automation rules across protocols and physical connections, from a wireless temperature sensor to a Modbus meter or building controller.

Explore the hardware
An expanded EpiSensor meter in the real Edge inventory, with its product image, online status and individual phase energy and current readings underneath.

Expand a device to work with its individual sensors. Illustrative readings in the real Edge interface.

Automation

Respond to a threshold, a schedule or a change in equipment state. Notify the right people, call a webhook or control a device. The rule runs locally, on site.

Explore Demand Response
The Edge automation list: four rules with their on and off switches, trigger type, name, action, author, age and when each last fired. Three watch a reading against a limit and one watches for a meter that has stopped reporting; their actions are Send Email, Run on Device and Call Webhook.

Four rules on a demonstration plant. Two watch a reading against a limit, one watches for a meter going quiet, and one is switched off. Between them they email someone, run a command on a device and call a webhook.

Data

Compare sensors and time periods in one workspace. Choose a date range, show or hide series, and adjust each chart’s axes and presentation. Send a useful view to a dashboard or export the selected data to CSV.

Explore Energy Management
The Edge Data workspace in the app, with its sidebar, date range and comparison controls, a 24-hour battery and solar chart, and the Active Series table. Illustrative readings.

Illustrative battery and solar data over 24 hours. Positive battery power is discharge; negative power is charging.

Buildings and assets

Organise a site into buildings, floors, rooms and assets, then read live conditions in their physical context. A room shows what the devices standing in it are reporting, so a floor tells you its own state without anyone opening a chart.

Explore the application guides
The six ground-floor rooms of a demonstration plant in Edge, each card reading its temperature, humidity and, where the room has them, its lighting and door state, with the room's name, device count and whether it is occupied.

The rooms of a demonstration plant, in the app. Each card reads from the devices standing in that room, and the count beside the name is how many Edge has placed there.

Calculated sensors

Combine sensor inputs into calculated values. Use them in dashboards and automation, just like physical readings, then share the data through authenticated APIs and open export formats.

Explore the documentation
The Edge calculated device editor on its Calculations step: an Average operation over two climate sensors on the production floor, each matched by device and sensor, with the live preview resolving both readings and their mean.

A calculated sensor averaging two climate sensors, in the real Edge editor.

Protocols Edge supports

One Gateway speaks to the equipment already on your site. Each protocol is an extension you enable in Settings and configure per connection.

Read the extension guides

Reading from equipment

  • Zigbee

    EpiSensor electricity monitors, pulse counters, sensors and relays join the Gateway's 2.4 GHz mesh, as do supported third-party Zigbee devices. Each arrives with its measurements and commands named.

  • Modbus TCP and RTU

    Read coils and registers from meters, inverters, PLCs and controllers over Ethernet or RS-485, and write to them where the device allows. Map each register to a named sensor with its data type.

  • BACnet/IP

    Discover controllers on the network and read the present value of analogue, binary and multi-state objects. Write to output and value objects when a control sequence needs it.

  • OPC UA

    Connect to an opc.tcp endpoint with the security mode and identity it requires: anonymous, username or certificate. Read variables by NodeId on a schedule, and write to the ones you mark writable.

  • IO Board

    IO at the Gateway itself, with no separate IO module. The ZGW-20's optional boards add two 4-20 mA inputs, two pulse counters and two relay outputs. Each channel appears in Edge as a sensor, and the relays can be switched from Edge.

  • Cameras

    A USB camera and a vision model on the Gateway turn what the camera sees into readings: a dial read as a number, objects counted, a state classified. Captures run on a schedule you set.

Serving equipment on site

  • Modbus server

    Expose readings as registers and coils through the API, and a SCADA or building management system polls them from Edge over Modbus TCP.

Everything Edge sends outward, over MQTTS or HTTPS, as files or through its API, is in Platform integrations.

Adding a device

Every connection starts the same way. Choose the family, and Edge asks for what that protocol needs: a network and a unit ID, an endpoint and its security, a serial port, or the sensors a calculation reads.

Whatever a device speaks, it lands in the same inventory, with the same status, sensors, history, automation and licence as every other device.

The Add Device dialog: Zigbee, Modbus, Calculated, Camera, BACnet and OPC UA switched on, each with a line describing what it connects, and LoRaWAN and KNX marked coming soon.
The Edge device inventory on a Gateway set up to show every kind of connection: a BACnet controller, a calculated sensor, Zigbee meters and climate sensors, a Modbus meter, an OPC UA PLC and a camera, each with its model, type, online status, power source and tags.
One inventory, six kinds of connection. Illustrative devices on a Gateway set up to show all six; the plant elsewhere on this page runs more.

What each protocol asks for

The wizard is the same shape every time: the connection, what to read, what to call it in Edge, and how often to report it.

  1. Modbus

    Give each register its address, name it, and choose its data format: a 32-bit float, an unsigned integer, read-only or read/write. The Mapping step that follows sets the function code, the precision and the sensor each register becomes.

    The Registers step of the Modbus device editor: ten registers of a three-phase meter in a four-column table, each with its register address, the name it takes in Edge, its data format and a row of actions.
    Ten of the 32 registers a virtual Modbus device can hold.

  2. BACnet/IP

    Scan the network, pick the controllers you want, then map their objects to sensors with their units and precision. Analogue, binary and multi-state inputs, outputs and values.

    The Discovery step of the BACnet device editor: an air handling unit and a chiller plant controller on the network, each listing the objects it exposes, with the air handler selected.
    Discovery: the controllers on the network and what each one exposes.
    The Mapping step of the BACnet device editor: seven objects of an air handling unit, analogue inputs, analogue outputs, a binary input and an analogue value, each mapped to an Edge sensor ID with a name, unit and precision.
    Mapping: each object becomes a named Edge sensor.

  3. OPC UA

    Address each variable by its NodeId, set its data type and unit, and choose how often Edge reads it. Endpoint security and identity are set on the connection.

    The Mapping step of the OPC UA device editor: six node IDs from a packing line PLC, each with its Edge sensor ID, name and data type of Float, UInt32, Double or Boolean.
    Six of the nodes one OPC UA device can carry.

  4. Cameras

    Pick the vision model, and its outputs become the device's sensors. Set how often a frame is captured and how confident the model has to be before it reports.

    The Configure step of the Add Camera Device wizard: a detection model with three sensor outputs, a binary detection, a count and a confidence percentage, with Snap to Clock reporting every 15 minutes and a confidence threshold of 0.75.
    A frame every 15 minutes, read by a model on the Gateway. The frame is discarded; the reading is kept.

Where a reading goes

Edge draws this live for each Gateway. Every installed source feeds the proxy, which writes readings to local history, runs the calculations and rules, and holds anything a platform has not yet received in a replay queue. What waits there is sent with its original timestamps when the connection returns.

The Edge flow diagram: Zigbee, Modbus client, BACnet, OPC UA client, IO, camera, HTTP API and calculated sources all feed the proxy, which has local history and local processing enabled. The proxy writes to the timeseries database, holding 13.9 million points for 30 days, and to an empty replay queue, and sends readings on to the Core client, JSON HTTP and Modbus server. A panel beside it reports the data rate and free disk space.
The flow diagram in Settings, on a demonstration Gateway with every source installed.

Running the Gateway

Edge manages the computer it runs on as well as the data on it: the packages installed beside it, the networks it sits on, and the firmware it hands out to devices. All three are in Settings, on the Gateway itself.

Meet the Gateway

Ubuntu Core, and snaps beside Edge

The Gateway runs Ubuntu Core, and Edge is a snap on it: epi-edge, beside the ones doing the rest of the work. The Zigbee bridge, the MQTT broker, time sync, the certificate signer and the network manager are all snaps, and the Snaps page lists every one with its publisher, version, channel and state. Start, stop, restart or remove one from the same row.

Search the Snap Store from Settings and install anything else you need on the same box: a broker, an agent, a database, your own packaged software. It installs on the channel you choose, and the page reports each step as snapd runs it.

Updating Edge is a snap refresh on an approved channel, or an approved release installed from the desktop app. Edge and the snaps the operating system is made of cannot be removed from here.

The Add Snap dialog, searching the store for mqtt: the EpiSensor Zigbee bridge and MQTT broker marked installed, and Mosquitto, Node-RED and Telegraf available, each with its publisher, channel, version and an Install button.
Searching the Snap Store from Settings. What is already on the Gateway is marked installed; anything else installs on a chosen channel.
The Edge Snaps page listing nine installed snaps, each with its own store icon, publisher, active status, version, channel and description: the Edge runtime, Zigbee bridge, MQTT broker, time daemon and certificate signer from EpiSensor, and the network manager, snapd and two runtime bases from Canonical.
Every snap on a Gateway, EpiSensor's and the operating system's.

Networking, in the app

Ethernet, Wi-Fi and cellular, with the interfaces, their traffic and their saved connection profiles on one page. Scan for a Wi-Fi network and Edge fills in the profile. Put in the APN for a SIM, and unlock it when it asks.

Each profile carries a priority and a route metric, which is how a Gateway is told to prefer the site network and fall back to Wi-Fi or a metered SIM. The connectivity checking that decides when to fail over is set on the Gateway itself. WireGuard links are recognised and charted with the rest.

Before a change that could cut the path you are managing it on, Edge checks the active connection, the default route and what is left if it goes, and asks you to type the confirmation.

The Wi-Fi networks dialog, scanning on wlan0: four networks with their security, band, channel and signal strength, and an option to connect to a hidden network.
A scan from the interface's own menu.
The Edge networking page: cards for Ethernet, Wi-Fi and cellular, then five interfaces with their type, status, traffic, connection profile, role and priority, and a chart of 24 hours of transfer on the interfaces that moved any.
Five interfaces on a demonstration Gateway: a site uplink, a plant network, a WireGuard link for remote support, a Wi-Fi fallback and a metered SIM.

Device firmware, over the air

Upload firmware images to the Gateway and it keeps them in a catalogue: Zigbee over-the-air images for third-party devices, a binary image for the IO Board, and EFR32 images for EpiSensor devices. Each one is checked as it arrives, down to the chip it is built for, and listed with its manufacturer, model, version and size.

The over-the-air path is the Zigbee one. From a Zigbee device that reports over-the-air support, check whether an update applies, schedule one for the device's next request, or send it now. The update crosses the mesh and takes ten to twenty minutes, so a fleet is sent with a delay between devices rather than all at once.

The IO Board is flashed from the IO extension's own settings, over the Gateway's link to the board rather than over the air. EFR32 images are stored and catalogued for service use. Edge itself updates through its snap channel or the desktop app, not from here.

The Update firmware dialog: the device's serial and firmware type, a warning that an over-the-air update can take 10 to 20 minutes and the device may reboot, the chosen image, and its manufacturer, model, version and size.
Only images already uploaded and checked can be sent.
The Edge firmware page: six stored images with their filename, type, manufacturer, model, version, the date they were added, their size and whether they are valid. Two EFR32 images for EpiSensor devices, an IO Board image and three Zigbee over-the-air images for third-party devices.
The images stored on one Gateway, ready to send.
A device's actions menu open on the Firmware submenu, offering check for update, schedule update, unschedule update and update firmware.
The same four choices for one device or for a selection of them.

Platform integrations

Keep the analytics, reporting and trading platforms you already run. An integration flow on the Gateway decides what leaves the site, what shape it arrives in and where it goes.

An integration flow on the Edge canvas, in four labelled groups: read equipment, a Modbus meter read every minute and Zigbee sensor reports, each scaled by a function node; transform, one node building the platform message; deliver to platform, a switch sending it to an MQTTS publish node, an HTTPS POST node or a held-for-review node; and handle errors, a catch node logging any delivery error.
One flow, end to end: a Modbus climate sensor read every minute and every Zigbee report, mapped into one platform message, delivered over MQTTS and HTTPS, with delivery errors caught rather than lost.

An editor, not a settings page

Edge's backend is a flow editor built on Node-RED, served by the Gateway. Drag nodes from the palette, write JavaScript in a function node, reshape a message with a JSONata expression, and watch the real messages your flow produces in the debug panel as you build it.

Modbus, OPC UA, serial, SQLite and MQTT nodes are on the Gateway already, so a flow can reach most equipment without installing anything. Flows are packaged and installed from Settings, whether EpiSensor built them, a partner did, or you did.

  • The editor's node palette, filtered and grouped: subflows, then the common group with inject, debug, complete, catch, status, link in, link call and link out nodes.
    Start from the palette Every node the Gateway has installed, grouped and searchable. Drag one onto the canvas and wire it into the flow.
  • The debug panel holding a message the flow has just built: the site, the source, the device name, a timestamp, and an array of two readings with their names, values and units.
    Watch the real messages The debug panel, showing what the flow actually produced: the site, the source, the device and its readings, as the platform will receive them.
  • A function node open in the editor's code editor, with the JavaScript that turns Modbus register values into named readings with their units.
    Write the logic A function node, where the message is reshaped in JavaScript: here, Modbus register values become named readings with their units.
  • The JSONata expression editor: the expression that builds the platform message above, an example message below it and the result of running one against the other beside that.
    Shape the payload A JSONata expression, tested against a real message as you write it, so the platform gets the field names it expects.
  • The MQTT broker configuration opened from the publish node: the broker host, port 8883, and TLS switched on with a TLS configuration selected.
    Publish over MQTTS The broker, its port and its TLS configuration, the way Core and the platforms EpiSensor connects to are reached.
  • The HTTP request node: a POST to an HTTPS endpoint, TLS enabled with a TLS configuration, a JSON content type, and non-2xx responses passed to the catch node.
    Or POST over HTTPS Your endpoint, your headers, certificate checking on, and anything that is not a success handed to the error branch.

How Edge sends data out

MQTTS
Publish readings to a broker over TLS, with the certificate or credentials that identify this Gateway. It is how Core and the flexibility platforms EpiSensor works with are connected.
HTTPS
Send readings to an endpoint as Edge JSON or in your own shape, with your headers, batching and delivery counters. Certificate checking is on by default.
The API
Everything the Edge apps do, published as an OpenAPI contract and reached with a token: devices, sensors, history, configuration and the audit trail.
Files
Where a platform takes files rather than messages, a flow writes them: CSV to object storage for a reporting platform, or the Gateway's own scheduled export to FTPS or SFTP.

Where sites already send their data

EpiSensor maintains integration flows for the platforms its customers run on. Everywhere else, a flow is built for the platform the project needs, and the Gateway can reach anything that takes MQTTS, HTTPS, files or an API.

Maintained by EpiSensor

  • Enel XFlexibility programmes
  • IBM EnviziSustainability reporting

Built per project

  • IoT servicesAWS IoT, Azure IoT
  • Reporting and analyticsGrafana, Power BI
  • Time-series storesYour own database

The second group is illustrative, not a list of ready-made connectors. A connection may use an API, a cloud service or an intermediate data platform, with the authentication and configuration that platform requires.

Managing multiple sites

Core brings remote Gateways and their devices into one Edge workspace. Check the health of every site, and work with devices, automations and snaps across the fleet.

Run Core on a Gateway or a central server. Each site keeps its own Edge.

Explore Core
The Core Gateways register: six Gateways across a demonstration food group, each with its serial, online status and sync interval, Edge and Core client versions, processor, memory and disk use, uptime, device count, tag and data transferred. One reports a disk-usage warning, one has been out of contact for 27 hours, and one is still being commissioned.
Every site in one register, with the health of each. Two Gateways are offline, and Core reports their processor, memory and uptime as unknown rather than as a misleading zero.

Applications

Edge is the site layer behind both of EpiSensor's main applications.

Energy Management

See where energy is used across buildings and equipment, and give operators and energy software the measurements they need.

Explore Energy Management

Demand Response & VPP

Connect controllable assets to flexibility services, with site measurement, local automation and platform integration in one system.

Explore Demand Response

Edge pricing

Edge comes with every EpiSensor Gateway. You only pay for devices from other manufacturers, or to run Edge on hardware of your own.

On an EpiSensor Gateway

IncludedEdge comes pre-installed

Every EpiSensor Gateway ships with Edge installed and licensed for commercial use.

Configure a Gateway

EpiSensor devices

IncludedNo device licence needed

Connect as many EpiSensor devices as your Gateway supports, usually up to 250.

Browse hardware

Third-party devices

€6per device / month

Billed annually

or
€199per device, once-off

No recurring fee

For Zigbee, Modbus, BACnet and OPC UA equipment from other manufacturers.

Choose device licences

Your own hardware

€499standalone licence, once-off

Install Edge on your own server, a virtual machine or a Raspberry Pi.

Try it first. Edge includes one third-party device licence for evaluation and non-commercial use.

Prices exclude VAT. Subscriptions are billed once a year. Volume pricing applies up to 100 devices; about larger quantities.

Third-party device licences

A subscription or a once-off licence for each device from another manufacturer. They go in the same cart as your hardware.

Let's connect your site

Tell us about your equipment, your platform and what you want to do. We'll help you work out how Edge fits.

Read the documentation