Explained! How are Streams counted?

[jessica_smith]

Since Autodesk Tandem’s release of our Facility Monitoring capabilities, one of the questions that we have been asked is, what is counted as a Stream? I’m here today to clarify that! 

Before we deep-dive into this, what this forum describes assumes that a user has already started building their digital twin and has some basic knowledge and understanding of setting up an IoT device in Tandem. When applicable, additional resources will be referenced. 

Under the Streams Tab for a facility, users are presented with a list of Connections¹, which are receiving data from an IoT device at a regular time interval. The data being received is aggregated accordingly and will appear in a list under the Connection. This list of variables (aka custom parameters²) is the list of Streams. 

Example 1: 

In this example, we have a heat recovery unit that receives data for airflow, humidity, and temperature. These are the variables or custom parameters mentioned above. These variables are the Streams of data. 

So how many Streams are there? What’s the Stream count? By only looking at HRU102 and ignoring everything else, there are three streams. The picture below for reference. 

Example 2: 

Now when you have two streams with different or similar data being received, how are those Streams counted? In the picture below we have just that. Between the Connections, there are five Streams with the same name and unit of measurement. With each Connection in Tandem being unique and independently recognized, each Stream that has received data is counted. In this example that means that the Stream Count is 15; six streams being received by the Space Mini Connection and nine Streams being received by the View Plus Connection. 

Example 3:

Taking this a step further, what if we have multiple Connections that are the same type? That is, they are similar devices (in this example, we have Heat Recovery Units), are classified the same, and are reading the type of data; Air Flow, Humidity, and Temperature. How are those counted? Each connection in Tandem has its own unique URL, making each connection different from the others, even though they may appear to be the same, in the list of Connections. In the picture below, we have three Connections: HRU102, HRU105A, and HRU105B. Under each Connection, you’ll see three Streams. Three Connections, with three Streams each, brings the Stream count to nine. The only time that a Stream is excluded from being counted is when it has never received any data. 

For more information on Stream count and why this is important to understand, please visit the Pricing page on our website at intandem.autodesk.com/pricing/. 

¹ Please see review Streams Highlight - Setting up a Connection in Tandem and Tandem’s Create Connections page on AKN 

² Please review the Parameters page on Tandem’s AKN site