As previously announced on September 21, 2021, the following changes have now been applied to the Harvest Data "Download content as JSON" and "Download chart data as JSON/CSV" functions, which are available on the Harvest Data page of the Soracom User Console:

• Update date and time format
• Add Simple Location Tracking data
• Remove contentType property

For more details about these changes, please refer to the SORACOM Harvest Data Download format change notice.

When using SORACOM Harvest to capture and store data from your devices, you can easily view and download the data directly from the User Console. This update introduces several changes when downloading data in order to improve precision and support additional features.

This update will take effect on September 21.

Note that these changes apply only to the following options in the Soracom User Console:

• Downloading data using the "Download content as JSON" option
• Downloading data using the "Download chart data as JSON" option
• Downloading data using the "Download chart data as CSV" option

This update does not affect the response format returned when retrieving data using the Harvest Data APIs.

Date and time format

Currently, the date and time that corresponds to each data entry is output using the format Sep, 16, 2021 13:45, with minute precision.

With this update, the date and time format will be changed to the ISO 8601 format, and will include both millisecond precision and time zone information, in order to provide more precision and to be easier for various applications to process. The new output will use the format 2021-09-16T13:45:59.123-08:00.

An exception to this is the "Download chart data as CSV" option, where the original date and time format will also be included in order to maintain compatibility with spreadsheet applications:

• The __time column will follow the original date and time format, and will be updated to include second precision using the format Sep, 16, 2021 13:45:59.
• A __iso8601Time column will be added to the CSV and will use the ISO 8601 format of 2021-09-16T13:45:59.123-08:00.

Simple Location Tracking data

Simple Location Tracking (in Japanese) is an optional service for plan-KM1 SIMs that determines the approximate geographic location of a device based on its cellular connection, without the device needing its own GPS or Wi-Fi positioning functionality.

While the longitude and latitude data provided by Simple Location Tracking is automatically combined with other data uploaded by a device to Harvest Data (as well as other Soracom services), this location data was not included when using the "Downloading content as JSON" option.

With this update, the location data follow the same format as the Harvest Data API response format (in Japanese), and will be included as a metadata property for each data entry.

Remove contentType property

With this update, the contentType property previously included when downloading data using the "Download chart data as JSON" and "Download chart data as CSV" options will no longer be included.

Data format samples

When downloading data using the "Download content as JSON" option, the new format will look like this:

[
  {
    "resourceType":"Subscriber",
    "resourceId":"295050012345678",
    "time":"2021-09-16T13:45:59.123-08:00",
    "contentType":"application/json",
    "content":{
      "clickType":2,
      "clickTypeName":"DOUBLE",
      "batteryLevel":1,
      "binaryParserEnabled":true
      //...other data from device
    },
    "metadata":{
      "locationQueryResult":"success",
      "location":{
        "lat": "47.6062",
        "lon": "-122.3321"
      }
    }
  },
  // ...other data entries
]

When downloading data using the "Download chart data as JSON" option, the new format will look like this:

[
  {
    "resourceType":"Subscriber",
    "resourceId":"295050012345678",
    "time":"2021-09-16T13:45:59.123-08:00",
    "chartData":{
      "clickType":2,
      "batteryLevel":1,
      "$metadata.location.lat":"47.6062",
      "$metadata.location.lon":"-122.3321"
      //...other data from device
    }
  },
  // ...other data entries
]

When downloading data using the "Download chart data as CSV" option, the new format will look like this:

__resourceType,__resourceId,__time,__iso8601Time,$metadata.location.lat,$metadata.location.lon,batteryLevel,clickType
"Subscriber","295050012345678","Sep, 16, 2021 13:45:59","2021-09-16T13:45:59.123-08:00","47.6062","-122.3321","1","2"
...

Event Handler is a service that allows you to build automations that react to different SIM events. An event handler consists of a rule and one or more actions, which can be freely combined to fit a variety of situations, as well as variables which can be used to customize certain actions.

• Examples of rules that Event Handler can check:

  • Perform an action when a SIM is activated (its status changes to Active)
  • Perform an action when a SIM exceeds 1 GiB of data transfer within one month
  • Perform an action when a SIM's expiration date has passed

• Examples of action that Event Handler can perform:

  • Send a notification by email
  • Change the speed class of the SIM
  • Call an AWS Lambda function

Event Handler has been updated and now supports the following additional rules, actions, and variables:

New Rule: Match when a SIM status is changed to Standby

The Target Status property of the Sim status attribute and Subscriber status attribute rules can now be set to Standby. With this configuration, an Event Handler will run its actions when a SIM's status is changed to Standby.

Updated Rule: Match source SIM status

In addition to configuring an Event Handler rule to run its actions when a SIM's status is changed to a specific status (such as when a SIM status changes to Active or Inactive), you can now also match a specific SIM status before the status change.

This gives you finer control over your devices, such as running different actions when a SIM changes from Ready to Active, than when it changes from Inactive to Active.

New Action: Suspend a SIM

You can now choose to suspend a SIM (change its status to Suspended) as an action to perform when an Event Handler's rule is matched.

• Note: A fee may apply

  Note that a suspension fee or a reactivation fee will apply when changing a SIM status to or from the Suspended status, respectively, depending on the subscription plan of the SIM. For more information, refer to the Pricing & Fee Schedule documentation.

New Variable: Coverage Type

Event Handlers only apply to the coverage type in which they are created. In other words, an Event Handler created for Global coverage will only apply to SIMs which are also managed in the Global coverage type, and likewise for Japan coverage. If you have configured Event Handlers in both coverage types, you can now use the ${coverage} variable in the Send email, Send mail to operator, Execute web request, and Invoke AWS Lambda actions to differentiate which coverage type the action is coming from. This variable will return the following values:

• When an Event Handler in Global coverage executes, ${coverage} will be replaced with g
• When an Event Handler in Japan coverage executes, ${coverage} will be replaced with jp

For more information, please refer to the Event Handler documentation.

SORACOM Arc, a secure link service that allows compatible devices to connect directly to Soracom using any standard Internet connection, now supports connectivity using IPv6.

When configuring Arc, configuration details will be issued, which your device can then use to connect to Soracom. These configuration details include a connection endpoint which consists of a domain name like *.arc.soracom.io.

With this update, when your device looks up the domain name specified by the connection endpoint, both IPv4 (A record) and IPv6 (AAAA record) addresses will be returned:

$ nslookup abc.arc.soracom.io
Server:         192.168.0.1
Address:        192.168.0.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   abc.arc.soracom.io
Address: 54.11.22.33
Name:   abc.arc.soracom.io
Address: 2406:d014:3333:4444:5555:6666:7777:8888

Your device can then use the IPv6 address to connect to Soracom.

Compatibility

In order for your device to connect using IPv6, both the device itself and all network elements between the device and Soracom must support IPv6. For example, if your device is connected via Wi-Fi to a router, the router must support IPv6 networking, and your Internet Service Provider must also provide you with an IPv6 address.

If you are using the soratun tool to configure and manage the SORACOM Arc connections on your device, you will also need to upgrade soratun to version 1.1.0 or later. You can check which version is currently installed by running soratun version.

SORACOM Funnel now supports transferring data from devices to SensorCorpus, an IoT platform from INFOCORPUS Inc.

For more information, please refer to the following pages (in Japanese):

• 指定のクラウドサービスに連携する「SORACOM Funnel」が、 インフォコーパスの「SensorCorpus」に対応 (SORACOM Inc.)
• ユニバーサルIoTプラットフォーム「SensorCorpus」が「SORACOM Funnel」のPartner Hosted Adapterに対応 (INFOCORPUS Inc.)

We are pleased to announce support for using IAM roles as the authentication method for executing AWS Lambda functions from SORACOM Funk.

SORACOM Funk (Funk) is a service that relays the execution of cloud functions from IoT devices. With Funk, you can easily configure a device to execute an AWS Lambda function by simply sending a request to Funk.

Until now, Funk required the use of IAM user credentials, consisting of an AWS Access Key and Secret Access Key, in order to authenticate with your AWS Lambda function. Registering and managing these credentials to your Soracom account so that Funk is able to perform authentication requires some additional and operational overhead.

With this update, Funk is now able to perform authentication using IAM roles, which has the advantage of simplifying the process of setting up authentication information on AWS and registering it to your Soracom account. This method also helps realize AWS best practices for credential management.

Although authenticating with IAM user credentials will continue to be supported, we strongly recommend transitioning to using IAM roles. Existing SORACOM Funk configurations can be easily switched to the IAM role-based method.

You can find more information about this update on the Soracom Official Blog.