FAQ

How do I login?

Overview

To use the Sensaphone REST API, a login call must first be made. A successful login request will return an account number and a session token. These will be used in all subsequent requests. Two examples of login requests are shown below. First, the URI-mode version, followed by the JSON-mode version.

Examples

URI-mode:

 GET https://rest.sensaphone.net/api/v1/login/{[email protected]}/{abc123_my_password}

JSON-mode:

 POST https://rest.sensaphone.net/api/v1/login
 {
   "request_type": "create",
   "resource": "login",
   "user_name": "[email protected]",
   "password": "abc123_my_password"
 }

Reply

The reply to a successful login request will contain a result object and a response object. The result communicates the overall success of the call. The response contains the data in which we are interested: in this case, the account number (acctid), and the session token. The account number and session token will be used in every subsequent query submitted to the API.

 {
   "result": {
     "success": true,
     "code": 0,
     "message": "Success"
   },
   "response": {
     "acctid": 21620750,
     "session": "1234ffffeeee5678aaaccda609cd8fb5099",
     "login_timestamp": 1605562465,
     "session_expiration": 86400,
     "user_id": 12345678
   }
 }

References

1. Login Resource: Additional information about the login resource
2. URI-mode/JSON-mode: Information about URI-mode and JSON-mode

How do I access log data?

Overview

Queries to our logging facilities are one of the most popular uses of the Sensaphone API. Making a successful log query involves first acquiring multiple pieces of data from the API. Because of this fact, crafting your first log query will be a multi-step process. All logs are accessed through the history resource. Outlined below you will find a practical example of how to gather the data needed to make a successful query to the history resource.

Examples

Datalog

Every device (e.g. Sentinel, Sentinel Pro, Stratus) associated with your account has input zones to which sensors may be connected. A device may be configured to log the value of any input zone at specific intervals. On www.sensaphone.net (the Website) the user may query a time range of datalog records for a single device. Users of the REST API can make similar queries against the input zones of one or more devices.

The data required to perform a datalog query are defined as follows:

log_points/data_log_points

List of one or more unique numeric ID's, each representing a "loggable" device zone.

begin_offset

The offset of the first record to be returned to the caller. An offset of 0 indicates the beginning of the queried timerange. Increasing this offset by 5 means we return results beginning with the fifth record obtained by the query. Use this value to "page" through results in descending order, newest to oldest.

record_offset

Number of results to return per "page".

start

The greatest Sensaphone-encoded timestamp we are interested in. See below for more details about how this value may be calculated.

end

The least Sensaphone-encoded timestamp we are interested in. See below for more details about how this value may be calculated.

We will take the following steps to retrieve the information necessary for a query to the datalog facility:

1. Get a list of devices associated with an account
2. Get a list of log_points from a device
3. Calculate Sensaphone-encoded start and end timestamps
4. Query for datalog records

For the remainder of this example, let's assume the following:

 acctid = 12345678  # account_id
 session = 1234aaa5678bbbb8765cccc4321dddd  # session token

List Devices

First let's list all devices associated with our account and choose one from the results.

 POST https://www.sensaphone.net/api/v1/{12345678}/{1234aaa5678bbbb8765cccc4321dddd}/device

Under the response object in the reply from the server is an array of devices. The device_id is listed in this information.

List Log Points

With a device_id in hand, we may now query for log_points associated with that device. Let's assume our device_id is 9191.

 GET https://www.sensaphone.net/api/v1/{12345678}/{1234aaa5678bbbb8765cccc4321dddd}/history/data_log_points/resource_type/{device}/device_id/{9191}

The server's reply will contain data for each loggable zone, including input zones and output zones. The log_point value of each zone is unique across all devices. Therefore a log_point value of 78208181 will refer to one, and only one, zone. Extract log_point values for all zones to be queried.

Query Datalogs

With start and end

How do I calculate Sensaphone-encoded timestamps?

Sensaphone's API uses a custom date encoding internally. The only time a user of the REST API must worry about these encoded timestamps is when making requests against the history resource.

The most important thing to keep in mind when converting to Sensaphone timestamps: All data passed into the algorithm is 0-based.

Observe:

• 0 - 59 seconds per minute
• 0 - 59 minutes per hour
• 0 - 23 hours per day
• 0 - 30 are 31-day months
• 0 - 29 are 30-day months
• 0 - 27 most Februaries
• 0 - 28 leap-year Februaries
• 0 - 11 months per year
• Even the year is zero based, but so is the way we count them, so no different than usual.

The algorithm in psuedo code:

 timestamp <-- (seconds mod 60) +                  // 0 - 59
               ((minutes * 60) mod 3600) +         // 0 - 59
               ((hours * 3600) mod 86400) +        // 0 - 23
               ((day * 86400) mod 2678400) +       // 0 - 31
               ((month * 2678400) mod 32140800) +  // 0 - 11
               ((year mod 100) * 32140800)         // 2000 - ...

Examples

Bash

1. sensaphone_time() {

2.     local year=$1

3.     local month=$2

4.     local day=$3

5.     local hours=$4

6.     local minutes=$5

7.     local seconds=$6

9.     local sensaphone_timestamp=$(( ( seconds          % 60) +

10.                                    ((minutes      * 60) % 3600) +

11.                                    ((hours        * 3600) % 86400) +

12.                                    ((day          * 86400) % 2678400) +

13.                                    ((month        * 2678400) % 32140800) +

14.                                    (((year % 100) * 32140800)) ))

15.     echo $sensaphone_timestamp

16. }

Python

1. def sensaphone_time(year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds):

2.     return (seconds % 60) + \

3.       ((minutes     * 60) % 3600) + \

4.       ((hours       * 3600) % 86400) + \

5.       ((day         * 86400) % 2678400) + \

6.       ((month       * 2678400) % 32140800) + \

7.       ((year % 100) * 32140800)

PHP

1. <?php

2. function sensaphoneTime($year, $month, $day, $hours, $minutes, $seconds) {

3.     return ( $seconds         % 60) +

4.            (($minutes     * 60) % 3600) +

5.            (($hours       * 3600) % 86400) +

6.            (($day         * 86400) % 2678400) +

7.            (($month       * 2678400) % 32140800) +

8.            (($year % 100) * 32140800);

10. }

11. ?>

References

• Sensaphone-encoded timestamps: More info regarding timestamp encoding