A DPS system works well if all products are almost always connected and data flows to and from the system without interruption or loss.
The Connection Index of a connected product is a numerical value that measures the reliability of the connection between the product and the DPS system.
There are a number of factors that can affect connection index, including:
- Connectivity type: Wi-Fi or Mobile.
- Device location: some locations may have a bad internet coverage, even if Wi-Fi or Mobile. Incorrect location of the device can cause continuous reconnection, and thus even if mostly connected, there could be data loss. Also in the case of cellular connection, the continuous reconnections, could have an effect on the costs related to data consumption.
- Product status: in some cases, it is not possible to distinguish between a turned-off and an offline product. To mitigate this problem, a good approach is to turn off the product with a specific procedure, informing the cloud that the product is about to be turned off, or use a gateway that remains connected even if the product is turned off.
Inputs
The Connection Index insight takes as input the standard Connection Status metric, available by default on each product registered in the DPS.
Help Center: Connection Status
Outputs
This insight provides the following output information:
- Connection Index
- Online Time Percentage
- Disconnection Time
- Offline Time
Connection Index
This is the main indicator of the connection insight, it is a percentage value (0-100%) describing the quality of connection. A high percentage indicates that the product is able to communicate with cloud reliably. Conversely, a low connection percentage indicates that the product is prone to connection problems.
This value is calculated based on a number of factors, including:
- Disconnection frequency;
- Offline time.
A product that is always OFFLINE has an index of 0%, while if it is always ONLINE without disconnections the index is 100%.
Online Time Percentage
The Online Time Percentage measures the percentage of time a product is ONLINE. It is calculated by dividing the total time the product is on by the total time it is connected to the cloud.
A high value indicates that the product is mostly connected, but this does not automatically indicate a good connection, as the product may be subject to constant reconnections.
Disconnection Count
The Disconnection Count measures the number of times the product disconnected from the cloud. This data is used to double check the reliability of the connection together with online time.
Offline Time
The Offline Time is the time spent in OFFLINE. This information allows to quantify for how much time the product is unreachable.