Automations

Automations are workflows that react to your devices — a sensor event or a schedule triggers a chain of conditions, commands, and waits, built visually in the automation canvas.

1. What an automation is

Every automation has exactly one trigger, followed by a chain of any number of conditions, actions, and delays, connected on a canvas. From a project, go to Automations → New Automation to open the builder.

2. Triggers

• Sensor Event — fires when any of the sensors you pick reports an event. Add as many sensors as you like; the automation fires when any one of them does.
• Schedule — fires on a recurring schedule you define (see Building a schedule).

3. Values

Conditions and actions both work with values, and a value can come from one of four sources:

• Trigger value — the value carried by whatever event fired this run.
• Sensor value — a sensor’s current value.
• Sensor aggregate — a statistical aggregate (average, minimum, maximum, or count) of a sensor’s readings over a time window you choose.
• Fixed value — a number, true/false, or text you type in directly.

The Trigger value option is offered regardless of trigger type, but it’s only meaningful for Sensor Event triggers — a Schedule trigger doesn’t carry a value of its own.

4. Conditions

A condition compares two values with one of: greater than, greater than or equal, less than, less than or equal, equal, not equal. Each condition has two outgoing paths — True and False — so you can branch your automation based on the comparison result.

5. Actions

An action sends a command to a device’s sensor. Only sensors set up to receive commands (Receive or Exchange data direction — see Device Provisioning) can be selected as an action’s target; a send-only sensor can’t be commanded. The command’s value is itself a value — a fixed value, a live sensor reading, an aggregate, or the trigger’s own value.

You can chain any number of actions, conditions, and delays together — an automation isn’t limited to one action.

6. Delays

A delay pauses the automation for a fixed amount of time before continuing — set in seconds, minutes, or hours.

7. Building a schedule

The schedule editor offers a guided picker:

• Every N minutes / Every N hours — pick how often.
• Daily — pick a time of day.
• Weekly — pick a time of day and which days of the week.
• Custom — write a cron expression directly, for anything the guided options don’t cover.

A live preview shows the resulting schedule as you edit it.

8. Before you can save

The builder checks for a few obviously broken states before letting you save, and shows exactly what’s wrong on the affected step:

• “Condition isn’t connected to True or False — it can never lead anywhere.”
• “Not connected to the trigger — this step will never run.”
• “This automation has no connected action — it will never produce an outcome.”

9. Managing automations

The Automations list for a project shows every automation’s name, an Enabled/Disabled state you can toggle, and its trigger type. Open one to edit its canvas, rename it, or delete it. Editing and deleting automations requires the appropriate permission on your account — if you don’t have it, you can still view an automation’s canvas and history, just not change it.

10. Execution history

Every automation keeps a history of its runs. Open View Execution History on an automation to see every time it fired, with status and timing. Open a single run to see a step-by-step timeline — each step you passed through shows whether it fired, was skipped, or hit an error, along with details — plus a replay of the automation’s canvas exactly as it was at the time of that run, highlighting the path it took.

11. Plan limits

Your plan includes a limit on how many automations you can have per account. Your current usage against that limit is shown on your account dashboard and in Settings → Plan.

Next steps

• Device Provisioning — sensor types and data direction, which determine what a device can trigger and receive.
• Telemetry — publishing and querying the sensor data your automations react to.
• Sending Commands — how a device receives and acknowledges the commands your actions send.