Connect an MXChip IoT DevKit device to your Azure IoT Central application (preview features)

• 12/03/2019
• 3 minutes to read
• • 
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This article shows you how to connect an MXChip IoT DevKit (DevKit) device to an Azure IoT Central application. The device uses the certified IoT Plug and Play model for the DevKit device to configure its connection to IoT Central.

In this how-to article, you:

• Get the connection details from your IoT Central application.
• Prepare the device and connect it to your IoT Central application.
• View the telemetry and properties from the device in IoT Central.

Prerequisites

To complete the steps in this article, you need the following resources:

• A DevKit device.
• An IoT Central application created from the Preview application template. You can follow the steps in Create an IoT Plug and Play application.

Get device connection details

1. In your Azure IoT Central application, select the Device Templates tab and select New. In the section of Use a preconfigured device template, choose MXChip IoT DevKit from the list. And choose Next: Customize and Create.

   

2. Select Devices tab, in the devices list, select MXChip IoT DevKit and select New to create a new device from Device Template.

   

3. In the pop-up window, enter the Device ID as SampleDevKit and Device Name as MXChip IoT DevKit - Sample. Ensure Simulated option is off. Then select Create.

   

4. Click the device you just created and select Connect. Make a note of the ID Scope, Device ID and Primary key.

   

Prepare the device

1. Download the latest pre-built Azure IoT Central Plug and Play firmware for the DevKit device from GitHub.

2. Connect the DevKit device to your development machine using a USB cable. In Windows, a file explorer window opens on a drive mapped to the storage on the DevKit device. For example, the drive might be called AZ3166 (D:).

3. Drag the iotc_devkit.bin file onto the drive window. When the copying is complete, the device reboots with the new firmware.

   Note

   If you see errors on the screen such as No Wi-Fi, this is because the DevKit has not yet been connected to WiFi.

4. On the DevKit, hold down button B, push and release the Reset button, and then release button B. The device is now in access point mode. To confirm, the screen displays "IoT DevKit - AP" and the configuration portal IP address.

5. On your computer or tablet, connect to the WiFi network name shown on the screen of the device. The WiFi network starts with AZ- followed by the MAC address. When you connect to this network, you don't have internet access. This state is expected, and you only connect to this network for a short time while you configure the device.

6. Open your web browser and navigate to http://192.168.0.1/. The following web page displays:

   

   On the web page, enter:

   • The name of your WiFi network (SSID).
   • Your WiFi network password.
   • The connection details: enter the Device ID, ID Scope and SAS Primary Key you made a note of previously.

   Note

   Currently, the IoT DevKit only can connect to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, 5 GHz is not supported due to hardware restrictions.

7. Choose Configure Device, the DevKit device reboots and runs the application:

   

   The DevKit screen displays a confirmation that the application is running:

   

The DevKit first registers a new device in IoT Central application and then starts sending data.

View the telemetry

In this step, you view the telemetry in your Azure IoT Central application.

In your IoT Central application, select Devices tab, select the device you added. In the Overview tab, you can see the telemetry from the DevKit device:

Review the code

To review the code or modify and compile it, go to the Code Samples.

Next steps

Now that you've learned how to connect a DevKit device to your Azure IoT Central application, the suggested next step is to learn how to set up a custom device template for your own IoT device.