What IoT Devices Is, and What It Is Not

IoT Devices links the smart-device accounts your organization already uses, such as the app or cloud account behind your locks, thermostats, lights, sensors, meters and vehicles, so that your team can see, control, share and automate them in one place. It does not sell, install, host or operate devices, and it does not replace the vendors' own apps: the devices stay with their vendors, and each link works through that vendor's official interface. In the menu it is Devices (IoT).

What you can do with it

• See every device you are allowed to see, by site and room, with its current state and its recent activity.
• Control the functions you have been given: turn a light on, set a thermostat, lock a door.
• Share exact functions of exact devices with a named person or through a time-limited link, and end the share at any moment.
• Automate: run an automation when a reading, a time or an event says so, and raise alarms that escalate until somebody acknowledges them.
• Let SI members help where you allow it. They see only the functions granted to them, limited to their supervisor's access, and security actions need their supervisor's approval by default.

What it does not do

• It is not an alarm-monitoring, emergency-response or life-safety system. Do not rely on it to protect life, health or property, or to detect fire, smoke, carbon monoxide, flooding, intrusion or a medical emergency. Keep independent, approved safety equipment in place. See IoT Is Not a Safety System.
• It does not record camera video. Live view is offered only where the vendor's own interface offers it.
• It cannot reach what a vendor does not expose. Some vendors offer no way to list devices, send commands or report history; Add a connection says so for each service.
• It does not decide who may operate your devices. You do, one function at a time. Owners and administrators manage access but operate devices only through the access they have been given.

Safeguards that are always on

• Access is granted per device function, so a team can see a lock's state without being able to unlock it. See Device Functions and Safety Classes Explained.
• Every command is recorded, and the record cannot be edited. See How to Read the Activity and Command Log.
• A command whose result cannot be confirmed is shown as uncertain and is never retried automatically. See What an Uncertain Command Means.

Where to go next

To start, read How to Turn On IoT Devices. To see which services you can connect, read Which Devices and Services You Can Connect.