Acquisition
One of the most important functionalities of a HEMS gateway is the ability to gather measurement information from a number of sources. ThereGate is the ultimate data logger because it can adapt to a wide number of different sensors, actuators and systems using different communication technologies. This is due to the Linux based open and layered architecture that provides the ability to abstract the underlying layers of technologies and protocols from applications. In fact this actually enables ThereGate based solutions to use any protocol and technology – any device or system – ever manufactured! It just needs the appropriate physical communications hardware to be added to the gateway, either externally by the USB ports, or internally to the PCB with extension slots. Device drivers and Technology Adapters need to be added on the software side. The communication methods and protocols can be both wired and wireless.
The following communication hardware and software are already implemented in ThereGate: Ethernet, WLAN, 3G, Z-wave and M-bus with a large number of measuring devices from different manufacturers tested and supported as parts of ThereGate solutions. These include:
- A number of three-phase electricity main meters
- Sub-metering equipment in many different forms
- District heat meters
- Water meters
- Temperature sensors
An important part of the data acquisition is the ability to store information either temporarily or in a more permanent fashion. So that it can be transferred to back-end servers or cloud services in the most effective way. ThereGate provides Gigabytes of non-volatile memory for this purpose in the form of both internal and external SD cards as well as a database for secure data storage.