Overview

System Integrators, dealers, and advanced End Customers can extend Xyte with custom integrations to monitor hardware that doesn't have a native Xyte integration.

The pattern: the integrator builds an application that runs on a controller (Crestron, Extron, and similar) or on a regular Windows or Linux machine. The application talks to local hardware over its native protocol, pulls state, and pushes it to Xyte for centralized monitoring.

The application can speak any local protocol — BACnet, KNX, DALI, IP-based protocols, and so on — to collect data and forward it to Xyte. Two-way control is also supported: Xyte Commands can be relayed by the application to the underlying hardware, provided the local protocol supports it.

Main application loop

At a high level, the application:

1. Builds the list of monitored Devices, by either:
   • Scanning the local network, or
   • Reading a user-configured list of Devices.
2. Registers any newly discovered Devices with Xyte. See Registration.
3. For each monitored Device:
   1. Pulls the current state via the local protocol.
   2. Pushes that state as Telemetry. See Telemetry.
   3. (Optional.) Handles Commands relayed from Xyte. See Commands.

How to start

Building an integrator application is similar to writing Device firmware. The main difference is that the application discovers (or is configured with) the list of Devices it represents and continuously pushes their state to Xyte.

Read the Quickstart first — particularly:

• Registration
• Provisioning Servers
• Data Types
• Telemetry
• Flow diagram
• Hardware Keys

Suggested architecture

This pattern maps cleanly onto Xyte's parent/child relationship for Device Models.

Recommended setup:

1. Define a parent Device Model representing the application itself. Have the application register as a normal Device against this Model and send periodic Telemetry (I am alive, count of monitored Devices, available memory, and so on).
2. For each type of monitored hardware, define an additional Device Model. Use Register Child Device API to register each instance as a child of the parent Device.
3. Poll each child every ~5 minutes (or at whatever cadence makes sense for your protocol) and push the collected state via Send Child Telemetries API.

Next steps

Once you've worked through the guides, contact Xyte's customer success team to set up an onboarding call covering account setup and the core APIs you'll use: Register Device, Register Child Device, Send Telemetry, and Send Child Telemetries.

Reach us at [email protected].