IoT Devices topics

Zigbee Dongle vs. Dedicated Gateway for Azure IoT: An Architecture Choice

DavidLu — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 07:38:13 GMT

Hello Azure IoT Community,

I'm deep into the architecture phase of a large-scale smart building project, using Azure IoT Hub as our central command. We're incorporating numerous Zigbee-based sensors and actuators for energy and environment monitoring. A critical debate has emerged: should we rely on a centralized Zigbee USB dongle, or deploy distributed, dedicated Zigbee gateways like the OWON SEG-X5?

This decision impacts system resilience, cloud integration efficiency, and long-term operational stability.

The Core Trade-off: Simplicity vs. Resilience

Option A: The Centralized Dongle Approach
This model uses a USB dongle connected to a gateway server, which becomes the sole coordinator for the Zigbee network before relaying data to IoT Hub.

The Appeal: Low initial cost and simplicity for prototyping.
The Scalability Risk: This creates a Single Point of Failure (SPOF). If the host server needs maintenance or encounters an issue, the entire Zigbee network—and all dependent automations—go offline. For a commercial building, this is a critical operational risk.

Option B: The Distributed Gateway Architecture
This model employs dedicated, standalone Zigbee gateways (e.g., OWON SEG-X5) deployed across different zones or floors. Each forms its own robust mesh and connects directly to Azure IoT Hub.

The Resilience Gain: Faults are isolated. One gateway’s maintenance affects only its zone.
The Edge Intelligence Advantage: Modern gateways can process data and execute rules locally. For instance, a gateway can directly process inputs from a Zigbee Door/Window Sensor (DWS 312) and a Multi-Sensor (PIR 323) to trigger a local light switch, all without a round-trip to the cloud. This aligns perfectly with the Azure IoT Edge paradigm, ensuring responsiveness and offline operation.
Streamlined Cloud Integration: Gateways like the SEG-X5 come with integrated MQTT API support, allowing them to send structured data directly to IoT Hub, simplifying device management and message routing in the cloud.

A Practical Insight from an ODM Case Study

Our experience as an IoT ODM manufacturer has shown this shift in practice. In a project akin to the Hotel Room Management case in our portfolio, the initial design using a central server with dongles presented reliability concerns. The final solution utilized distributed OWON SEG-X5 Zigbee Gateways in each hotel wing.

These gateways managed all in-room devices—from Smart Sockets (WSP 406 series) and Light Switches (SLC series) to Thermostats (PCT 504)—locally. They used their MQTT API to send consolidated occupancy and energy data to the building's cloud platform (integrated with IoT Hub). The result was a system where guest room automation remained functional despite network fluctuations, and maintenance could be performed per wing without building-wide impact.

Conclusion and Discussion

For proof-of-concepts, dongles are sufficient. For production-grade, scalable deployments where uptime is critical, dedicated gateways provide the necessary architectural foundation.

I'm keen to hear from the community:

In your Azure IoT solutions, how have you integrated non-IP protocol devices like Zigbee?
What strategies do you employ to balance edge processing with cloud analytics?
For those using gateway architectures, how do you handle device provisioning and security at scale?

If you're interested in the technical specifics of how Zigbee gateways interface with cloud platforms, including API structures and network design considerations, we've elaborated on these topics in a technical overview on our site: [Zigbee Dongles vs. Gateways: How to Choose the Right Network Coordinator

Looking forward to a fruitful discussion.

Routing on IOT Edge

Staffan01 — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 07:16:01 GMT

Hi, I have a problem that I have been dealing with for quite some time. Trying to put a "where" in a routing for AZIOT edge hub. have tested this which works. FROM /messages/* WHERE $connectionModuleId = 'noded' INTO BrokeredEndpoint("/modules/testjob/inputs/edgehub") . But what I want to do is a "where" against appProperties. I have tried every conceivable "syntax" for this?? Inserts an example message.

{
"message": {
"systemProperties": {
"contentType": "application/json",
"contentEncoding": "UTF-8",
"iothub-message-source": "deviceMessages",
"iothub-enqueuedtime": "2017-05-08T18:55:31.8514657Z"
},
"appProperties": {
"processingPath": "{cold | warm | hot}",
"verbose": "{true, false}",
"severity": 1-5,
"testDevice": "{true | false}"
},
"body": "{\"Weather\":{\"Temperature\":50}}"
}
}

Thanks for any help I can get. Can't find any documentation for this?

IOT device event twin change

Bhavin163884 — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 12:18:09 GMT

What are the ways to catch IOT device event twin change in azure? I want to send notification or execute something like function app, when device twin event occur and reported property get change. I am using .net 8 and azure.

let me know all possible ways.

Thanks,

Bhavin Bhesaniya.

Detect IOT device twin report property and execute notification

Bhavin163884 — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 08:55:34 GMT

Hello Community,

I am seeking for the help to achieve one functionality for my IOT device. I have crated one Azure IOT device under azure IOT hub.

Now on the device twin whenever my device report property get change( any property), It should send some event notification to the end user.
What is the best way to achieve this? I want to use Azure event grid but the template is not available in message routing you can see below.

If i use Event Hub then there is a risk to increase latency.

let me know if there is any other way to get this with lowest latency.

Thanks,

Bhavin Bhesaniya.

CNCF project Akri usage survey and latest update

hschang — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 14:53:14 GMT

We are looking to improve Akri and want to learn more about your experience with it! Please help us with a 3 minutes survey if you have tried/evaluated Akri for leaf device discovery.

For more information about Akri, visit the Akri GitHub or check our presentation at KubeCon 2024. To learn what’s new for Akri, check our latest release: v0.12.20.

Problem with running Azure spatial-analysis container

Richard270 — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 22:55:11 GMT

Hi,

I need to create and run Azure spatial analysis container on my desktop machine. Everything should be running fine according to IoT Hub. But i'm not getting any output and when looking to logs of the spatial-analysis module i saw this error a lot:

2024-03-06T19:46:45.429562642Z <warning> 93 [VIDEO_INGESTER-cognitiveservices_vision_spatialanalysis_1.store.spatialanalysisgraph.videosource] cognitiveservices_vision_spatialanalysis_1 Error: Failed to allocate shared buffer. Skipping frame. 
2024-03-06T19:46:45.501593175Z <warning> 93 [VIDEO_INGESTER-cognitiveservices_vision_spatialanalysis_1.store.spatialanalysisgraph.videosource] cognitiveservices_vision_spatialanalysis_1 Failed to get CUDA handle: cudaIpcGetMemHandle failed with error 2 
2024-03-06T19:46:45.502484545Z <error> 93 [VIDEO_INGESTER-cognitiveservices_vision_spatialanalysis_1.store.spatialanalysisgraph.videosource] cognitiveservices_vision_spatialanalysis_1 Cannot create cuda shared buffer. Size: 6684672

I have no idea what to do also this is report from nvidia-smi:

Thanks in advance for your help!

I just received my Vision AI DevKit camera but failed to complete initial onboarding.

kclubb — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 02:49:56 GMT

The camera boots up solid red then blinking green indicating it is on my wifi network. But I do not see anything that is familiar. How do I restart the onboarding or how do I reset the camera.

Getting started with Zephyr RTOS on the MXChip IoT DevKit

kartben_ — Fri, 05 May 2023 14:47:34 GMT

Zephyr RTOS now has support for the very popular MXChip AZ3166 IoT DevKit!

I have just posted the following short video on my YouTube channel, and I encourage anyone interested in trying out Zephyr RTOS on the MXChip DevKit to watch it and give the Zephyr Getting Started a try 🙂

Note: The Wi-Fi chip isn't supported yet, but contributions are welcome 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiDsMlRipJY

Firmware update MS Azure IoT Starter kit

christtz — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 21:15:32 GMT

Hi!

I am trying to download the firmware for the Vision AI Microsoft Azure IoT Starter Kit, but I get an error when trying to download the firmware from https://store.altek.com.tw/downloads/Azure-IoT-Starter-Kit - anyone else that has problems downloading the firmware?:

This item might not exist or is no longer available

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Learning resources IoT

TomClaes — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 13:52:24 GMT

Hi all,

Does someone have any recommendations on learning resources regarding IoT Hardware (kind of devices, sensors), networking, protocols, security etc. Paid or free, both are ok.

Thanks in advance,

Active community here?

FAyoungwha — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 02:44:05 GMT

I'm wondering whether this community is active or not.

View counts even slowly, but no answers or comments.

Did MS discard this developer kit?

Azure Vision AI developer kit issues

FAyoungwha — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 07:20:48 GMT

Very weird it is!

1. FW version: v0.5370

2. module twin described at https://azure.github.io/Vision-AI-DevKit-Pages/docs/Deploy_Model_using_Module_Twin/ does not work to me

3. I recovered it from a brick yesterday, but stuck today again.

Very simple actions, rebooting couple of times via adb during module twin.

4. very hard to boot at bootloader for fastboot

Any good ideas or pick my mistakes?

Thanks,

custom vision cannot choose object deteionc + compact domain for VAIDK

FAyoungwha — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 08:21:32 GMT

I'm testing CustomVision with VAIDK as following "https://azure.github.io/Vision-AI-DevKit-Pages/docs/Tutorial-HOL_Using_the_VisionSample/".

Image Classification project does not problem at all.

But when it comes to object detection, I cannot choose compact domain for VAIDK.

Found this page:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/custom-vision-service/select-domain

Cannot run VAIDK + object detection with custom vision here?

Thanks

Factory reset eInfochips Vision AI devkit

FAyoungwha — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 06:12:34 GMT

Newly installed this devkit.

And while testing custom model, I need to restore factory reset image.

- 5 secs power button and 'factory reset', failed.

- 12 secs power button someone said as a hint, failed

Any ideas about it?

Thanks

--------------

After lots of try, I did FW updating!
However, during the job, by some failure devkit was stuck.
It does not boot anymore.

lsusb return "Bus 001 Device 071: ID 05c6:900e Qualcomm, Inc."
But adb cannot detect anything.

At windows, some device is detected as QUSB_BULK_SN:9Fxxxx .

Anyway to initialize this developer kit?

Thanks,

IoT edge package on linux

Tiaan-S — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 08:11:45 GMT

I am having issues installing the IoT edge runtime on a linux debian device. I followed the microsoft docs guide to install IoT Edge runtime and managed to install the "packages-microsoft-prod.deb". However, when I tried to run "sudo apt-get install aziot-edge defender-iot-micro-agent-edge", it gave me an error that both packages were not located. Could it be that I am still missing a resource?

Public preview: Azure Percept DK June (2206) software update

James_Hsiao — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 07:19:19 GMT

New OS/firmware over the air (OTA) package and USB cable update image are in public preview. Review the update strategy guidance before choosing between the two update methods. Updates are highly recommended in order to keep your device up to date with latest fixes and features. Learn more in the release notes.

For latest container updates, please refer to the container release notes and follow the instruction there to update the container through Azure Percept Studio.

Public preview: Azure Percept DK May (2205) software update

James_Hsiao — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 03:03:04 GMT

New OS/firmware USB cable update image are in public preview. Review the update strategy guidance. Updates are highly recommended in order to keep your device up to date with latest fixes and features. Learn more in the release notes.

For latest container updates, please refer to the container release notes and follow the instruction there to update the container through Azure Percept Studio.

Support needed - VisionAIDevKit device remains offline repeatedly after 1st successful connection

PrasadJaywant — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 17:06:03 GMT

I could configure Vision AI DevKit and could see Webstream successfully only ONCE. For past 3 days, I'm not able to connect to Wi-Fi again. The steps followed and results are as follows;
1. Plugged in the VisionAIDevKit in the USB port.
2. All LEDs turn stable RED.
3. After 5 minutes, all LEDs turn stable GREEN.
4. Status shown: This device is offline.
5. As the device is not flashing RED, tried pressing the power button for 5 seconds to turn on the VisionAISDevKit hardware access point, nothing changed. Then pressed for 10 seconds and LEDs turned all stable RED.
6. After 2-3 minutes, LEDs turn stable GREEN, no status change, shows Offline.
7. After safely removing from USB, LEDs remain GREEN.
8. After about 3 minutes the camera turns Power Off mode (LEDs Off).

I'm not able to proceed. Please can you help.
Thanking you in advance,
Prasad Jaywant

Grid-Eye Eval Kit bootloader

Omidrb — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 08:29:41 GMT

I have an issue with Grid-Eye Eval Kit (Panasonic production). I could not connect it to the PC with USB port. The PC cannot recognize it to perform the application and also COM port. I have installed USB driver, but no reaction from PC! It seems to have a bootloader on the MCU but I don't know how to solve it. Anybody has solution for this problem ? Thank you for helping me.

Azure Percept DK March (2202) software update is available

James_Hsiao — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 03:17:18 GMT

For latest container updates, please refer to the container release notes and follow the instruction there to update the container through Azure Percept Studio.