ThingsBoard IoT Gateway
The ThingsBoard IoT Gateway is an open-source, Python-based application that enables seamless integration of legacy and third-party devices with the ThingsBoard IoT platform. It serves as a protocol adapter that collects data from external sources and publishes it to ThingsBoard via a unified format.
📖 What is ThingsBoard IoT Gateway?
💡 New to ThingsBoard? Learn what ThingsBoard is
🚀 Getting Started
Curious how the ThingsBoard IoT Gateway works in action?
➡️ Follow our Getting Started Guide to:
- 🚀 Run the gateway in minutes using pre-configured demo servers
- 🔄 Simulate device data collection and processing workflows
- 🧪 Explore telemetry, attributes, and RPCs without real devices
- 🖥️ Test integration with ThingsBoard Community or Professional Edition
💡 Ideal for evaluation, proof-of-concept, and learning how the gateway processes and routes data.
🔌 Gateway Features
ThingsBoard IoT Gateway supports a wide range of industrial and IoT protocols out of the box. Each connector enables collecting data from external systems, transforming it into a unified format, and forwarding it to ThingsBoard.
📟 Industrial & SCADA Protocols
- Modbus – Integrate with Modbus TCP/RTU devices like PLCs and energy meters.
- OPC-UA – Connect to industrial automation systems using the OPC-UA protocol.
- CAN – Communicate with devices over the Controller Area Network (e.g., automotive, industrial equipment).
- ODBC – Retrieve telemetry from SQL-compliant databases.
🌐 IoT & Networking Protocols
- MQTT – Subscribe to external MQTT brokers and ingest messages.
- REST API – Push data to REST endpoints created by gateway.
- Request Connector – Periodically pull data from HTTP(S) APIs and ingest response payloads.
- FTP – Read files from FTP/SFTP servers for batch data ingestion.
- Socket – Request data via raw TCP/UDP socket connections.
- SNMP – Poll SNMP devices to collect MIB data from routers, switches, sensors.
- XMPP – Receive telemetry from XMPP-based chat/device networks.
📡 Smart Energy & Charging
- OCPP – Integrate EV charging stations using Open Charge Point Protocol.
🏠 Smart Building & Home Automation
- BACnet – Gather building automation data (HVAC, lighting, fire systems).
- KNX – Interface with KNX-based building automation systems.
- BLE – Scan and connect to BLE-enabled devices (e.g., beacons, wearables).
🧩 Extensibility
- Custom Connectors – Build your own protocol handlers using Python to support any proprietary system or emerging protocol.
✨ All connectors support flexible configuration, data transformation, and integration with the ThingsBoard platform's device model.
🧰 Core Gateway Capabilities
In addition to multi-protocol support, the ThingsBoard IoT Gateway includes robust features for reliability, remote management, and automation:
🔒 Reliability & Resilience
- Data persistence – Buffers telemetry locally to prevent data loss during network or system outages.
- Automatic reconnection – Automatically restores connection to the ThingsBoard cluster after temporary failures.
🔄 Unified Data Processing
- Data mapping engine – Transforms raw input from devices into ThingsBoard’s unified data format using customizable converters.
🛠️ Remote Management & Control
- Remote configuration – Update and manage gateway configuration directly from the ThingsBoard web UI.
- Remote logging – View and stream logs remotely for troubleshooting and monitoring.
- Gateway service RPC methods – Interact with the gateway using platform-initiated RPC commands.
- Remote shell access – Run shell commands on the gateway host via the ThingsBoard platform.
🔄 Device Lifecycle Handling
- Device rename/removal detection – Automatically synchronizes device renames and deletions to keep the platform device list up to date.
🏗️ Architecture Overview
The IoT Gateway is implemented in Python, allowing powerful extension and customization. It follows a modular architecture resembling microservices.
- Custom connectors let you interface with new devices or services.
- Custom converters allow transformation of incoming messages to a ThingsBoard-compatible format.
- The Gateway provides simple integration APIs, and encapsulates common ThingsBoard related tasks: device provisioning, local data persistence and delivery, message converters and other.
Ideal for edge use cases where flexibility and protocol diversity are key.
💬 Support & Community
Need help or want to share ideas?
- 💬 GitHub Discussions – Ask questions, propose features, or share use cases.
- ❓ StackOverflow – Use the
thingsboard-gateway tag.
🐞 Found a bug? Please open an issue.
⭐ Contributing
We welcome contributions! Feel free to fork the repo, open PRs, or help triage issues.
⚖️ License
This project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.
🌟 Don't forget to star the repository to show your ❤️ and support!
