InitialState Integration

Overview

InitialState is a real-time IoT visualization platform that lets you stream data into customizable dashboards. On an ALPON X5 AI or ALPON X4 the ingestor runs as a container deployed through ALPON Cloud, so device data is sent and monitored continuously without touching the device by hand.

This guide builds a simple InitialState data ingestion container and deploys it on the ALPON through ALPON Cloud. The steps are identical on ALPON X4 and ALPON X5 AI. For more details on InitialState, visit the InitialState documentation.

1. 1

   Create an InitialState bucket

   Before deploying the container, set up a data bucket in InitialState to receive your data. Log in to your InitialState account, then from the dashboard click the plus (+) icon in the top left to create a new data stream bucket.

   

   In the New Stream Bucket dialog, enter a name (for example Sample Stream Bucket) and click Create.

   

   Your new bucket appears in the left panel. Click the gear icon next to it to open its settings.

   

   In the Data tab of the settings window, copy the Bucket Key and Access Key. You will need both later as environment variables.

   

2. 2

   Build the container

   You will now create a container that sends simulated IoT data to your InitialState bucket. It consists of a Dockerfile and a single main.py script.

   Create the Dockerfile

   Dockerfile

   FROM python:3.11-slim
   
   WORKDIR /app
   
   COPY main.py .
   
   RUN pip install --no-cache-dir requests
   
   CMD ["python", "main.py"]

   Create main.py (data ingestion logic)

   The script reads the ACCESS_KEY, BUCKET_KEY, and DATA_PREFIX environment variables, then sends a random reading to the InitialState events API every 5 seconds.

   python · main.py

   import os
   import requests
   import time
   import random
   from datetime import datetime
   
   url_base = "https://groker.init.st/api/events"
   
   # Get environment variables
   access_key = os.getenv('ACCESS_KEY')
   bucket_key = os.getenv('BUCKET_KEY')
   data_prefix = os.getenv('DATA_PREFIX')
   
   if not access_key or not bucket_key or not data_prefix:
       raise ValueError("ACCESS_KEY, BUCKET_KEY, and DATA_PREFIX environment variables must be set.")
   
   data_types = ['temp', 'humidity', 'pressure', 'motion', 'light']
   
   print("Starting data transmission to InitialState...")
   
   try:
       while True:
           # Select a random data type and generate a random ID for variety
           data_type = random.choice(data_types)
           random_id = random.randint(1, 100)
           value = random.randint(10, 500) # Random value for the data point
   
           # Construct the data stream name using the prefix, type, and ID
           data_name = f"{data_prefix}_{data_type}_{random_id}"
   
           # Manually create the query string for the GET request
           full_url = (
               f"{url_base}?accessKey={access_key}"
               f"&bucketKey={bucket_key}"
               f"&{data_name}={value}"
           )
   
           response = requests.get(full_url)
           print(f"Attempting to send: {full_url}")
           print(f"[{datetime.now().strftime('%H:%M:%S')}] Sent: {data_name}={value} | Status: {response.status_code} {response.reason}")
   
           time.sleep(5) # Wait for 5 seconds before sending the next data point
   
   except KeyboardInterrupt:
       print("\
   Data transmission stopped by user.")
   except Exception as e:
       print(f"An error occurred: {e}")

   Build the image

   Open a terminal on your development machine and navigate to the folder containing your Dockerfile and main.py. Build the image for the data ingestor; build for linux/arm64, which is the architecture of the ALPON.

   bash · build the image

   cd <your-folder-containing-Dockerfile-and-main.py>
   
   docker buildx build --platform linux/arm64 --load -t initialstate-ingestor .

3. 3

   Push the image to ALPON Cloud

   Log in to ALPON Cloud and open the Sixfab Container Registry page. Click + Add Container and follow the prompts to push the initialstate-ingestor image to the Sixfab Container Registry.

   Deploy Applications

   Visit the Deploy Applications page for all the necessary details on pushing your container image to the Sixfab Container Registry.

4. 4

   Deploy the container on ALPON

   Go to the Applications section of your asset on ALPON Cloud and click + Deploy. In the Deploy Container window, use these settings:

   Container Name initialstate

   Image The initialstate-ingestor image and tag you pushed to the Sixfab Container Registry.

   Environment Click + Add More in the environment section and add the three variables in the table below.

   Key	Value
   ACCESS_KEY	YOUR_INITIALSTATE_ACCESS_KEY
   BUCKET_KEY	YOUR_INITIALSTATE_BUCKET_KEY
   DATA_PREFIX	alpon_device (or your desired prefix)

   Use the Access Key and Bucket Key you copied in step 1. Click + Deploy to launch the ingestor on the device.

5. 5

   Verify data in InitialState

   Open your InitialState dashboard and select the bucket you created (for example Sample Stream Bucket). You should see live tiles updating with values such as alpon_device_temp_42, alpon_device_humidity_7, and so on, generated by your ALPON.

   If nothing appears, confirm the container is running in the Applications section and that the ACCESS_KEY and BUCKET_KEY values match the keys shown in the bucket's Data tab.

Creating a new stream bucket from the InitialState dashboard.

The New Stream Bucket dialog.

Opening the bucket settings from the left panel.

The Bucket Key and Access Key in the Data tab of the bucket settings.