When you have a physical GPS tracker at hand, you can set it up to send data into flespi, properly organize the received data inside the platform, and use it in the solutions you are developing.

Here’s the basic sequence of steps you want to follow to have the data from your tracker available in the flespi platform. For demonstration purposes we are using Teltonika FMB002 here.

Channel

• Create a channel (open the flespi panel -> Telematics hub -> Channels -> "+" button) with the protocol corresponding to your device manufacturer:
  

• Point your tracker to the Host:Port of your newly created channel.
  
  You can do it via SMS or using a configuration tool provided by the manufacturer.

• When done, make sure your device is set to send its position and open the Toolbox tab for your channel to see if messages are coming:
  
  

Device

You don’t have to create a device in the flespi platform — for some applications, it’s sufficient to consume messages from the flespi channel.

You want to create a flespi device if you need 

(a) dedicated long-term message storage

(b) access to telemetry (last state of all parameters)

(c) over-the-air device configuration capabilities

(d) plugins to inject user-defined properties and fields. 

If you need at least one of the above, follow the steps below:

• Create a device (open the flespi panel -> Telematics hub -> Devices -> "+" button). Use the IMEI printed on the device case to populate the ident field.
  
  Or find it in the ident column of the Toolbox logs:
  

• Pick device type corresponding to your device model. Save.
  

• Open the Toolbox tab for your device to see if the messages from the tracker with the given ident (IMEI) successfully come to flespi:
  

Access to data

Once the data gets into flespi, you want to access it to use inside your solution. This can be achieved in three ways:

• REST API

  • For channels: https://flespi.io/docs/#/gw/!/channels
    

  • For devices: https://flespi.io/docs/#/gw/!/devices
    

• MQTT API

  • For channels: flespi/message/gw/channels/{channel_id}/{ident}

  • For devices: flespi/message/gw/devices/{device_id}

• Streams to specific platforms.