Soracom Flux

Overview

Soracom Flux is a low-code IoT application builder designed for advanced automation. Applications built with Flux are called Flux Apps.

The input data to a Flux App can take various forms, such as sensor data or camera images. In a Flux App, you can process or analyze this input data using AI and cloud services to generate output data. The output data can be used to directly control IoT devices via webhooks or send notifications via Slack, email or LINE Notify, or as input for additional Flux App components.

Use Cases

Flux can be utilized in a variety of ways across different industries. Examples include:

• Capturing images of analog sensors with a camera, analyzing them with generative AI to digitize the data, and sending an alert if the threshold is exceeded.
• Analyzing images captured by cameras with generative AI to detect anomalies in warehouses or factories.
• Acquiring household electricity usage from sensors and detecting and notifying of power interruptions.

Warehouse Monitoring

In this example, a camera detects motion and uploads a still image to Harvest Files. The Flux App is triggered by the image upload, analyzes the image using generative AI and simple object detection, and if an anomaly is detected, it can send an alert or trigger a Webhook.

Components

A Flux App typically consists of one or more Channel components that connect an Event Source component to one or more Action components. Event Sources define what events should trigger the Flux App to run and Actions define if and how to process these events. Using Channels you can further connect the output of one component to another to begin building more advanced Flux Apps.

Channel

A Channel is a component that connects an Event Source to one or more Actions. Multiple Actions can be set in a Channel, allowing the same data to serve as input for multiple Actions. For more details, see Create a Channel and Select an Event Source and Enable Republishing of Action Output.

Event Source

An Event Source is a component that defines what events will trigger a Flux App to run. Event Sources include:

• IoT device: The Flux App is triggered when an IoT device sends data to the Unified Endpoint.
• Soracom Harvest Files: The Flux App is triggered when a file is uploaded (saved, updated) or deleted in Soracom Harvest Files.
• Timer: The Flux App is triggered at regular intervals.
• API/Manual Execution: The Flux App is triggered when a request is sent to the API endpoint representing the Channel linked to the Event Source.

Action

An Action is a component that processes the data and executes specific operations. It can use an expression to determine if it should execute and can analyze input data using generative AI or simple object detection. Additionally, notifications via Slack, LINE Notify, or email are also performed by Actions. The following Actions are available:

• AI Action: Specify an AI model and prompt to instruct or ask questions in natural language about the input data.
• Republish Action: Transform the input data and send it to another Channel.
• Simple Object Detection Action: Perform simple object detection in a still image and extract objected-related information.
• Webhook Action: Send an HTTP request to a specified URL.
• Slack Notification Action: Send a message to the specified Slack Incoming Webhook URL.
• LINE Notification Action: Send a message to the specified LINE Notify URL.
• Email Notification Action: Send an email to the specified email address.

The output of each Action can also be sent to another Channel.

Message and Context

The event sent to a Channel by an Event Source consists of a Message and Context. Refer to indivudal Event Source documentation for details on the structure of the Message and Context. The Message and Context can also be viewed under the Execution History of a Flux App.

Execution History

You can view the execution history of a Flux App, the message history of Channels, and the run history of Actions. For more details, see View Logs.

Limitations

• You can create up to 3 Flux Apps per coverage type.
• Each Flux App can have up to 10 Channels.
• Each Flux App can have up to 10 Actions.
• Event messages are stored for up to 7 days.
• For a single event, messages can be sent to up to 10 Channels. If a message is sent to an 11th channel, the processing of that event will stop.