Device to Cloud Getting Started Onboard Lorawan Devices Step by step

Introduction

LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is a wireless communication protocol designed for low-power IoT devices that need to transmit small amounts of data over long distances — typically several kilometers.

It operates on unlicensed radio frequency bands and uses a star-of-stars network topology where devices communicate through gateways to a central network server.

LoRaWAN is widely used in applications such as smart metering, asset tracking, and environmental monitoring where battery life and coverage range are more important than high data throughput.

This guide explains how to onboard LoRaWAN devices to Device to Cloud (D2C) using LORIOT.

Supported LORIOT Environments

D2C supports:

  • Enterprise Private Server
  • Professional Public Enterprise Server
  • Community Public Network Server

Supported version:

  • LORIOT Network Server 8.x (Hummingbird)

Information Model

Device to Cloud (D2C) uses the LORIOT Network Server as its LoRaWAN backend.

The LORIOT network server information model consists of:

  • LORIOT Account: a user account that provides access to the LORIOT network server
  • LORIOT Network: a group of gateways
  • LORIOT Application: a group of devices

In this tutorial, you configure D2C to manage your LORIOT Account, LORIOT Network, and LORIOT Application and to connect devices and gateways.

Onboarding Options

The following onboarding options are supported:

  • Propagated by D2C: Let D2C manage your LoRaWAN resources without requiring you to operate your own LORIOT infrastructure.
  • Not propagated by D2C: Connect an existing LORIOT account and manage its devices together with other devices in D2C.

If you want to select the fully propagated onboarding option, please contact D2C support.

Device to Cloud supports a propagate flag for applications, networks, and devices that specifies whether D2C is responsible for creating, updating, or deleting a resource.

Prerequisites

Before you start, collect the following information.

Collect the following information when the D2C LORIOT network server should be fully propagated by D2C in the background:

  • For every application:
    • Application name
  • For every network:
    • Network name

Skip the steps 1-4 and continue reading with step 5.

Collect the following information for an existing LORIOT network server with existing devices and gateways that should not be propagated:

  • LORIOT server URL
  • API token of a LORIOT user account
  • For every application:
    • Application name
    • Application Hex ID
  • For every network:
    • Network name
    • Network Hex ID

Configure Device to Cloud for LORIOT

Step 1: Find the LORIOT Server URL

  1. Open your LORIOT web console.
  2. Copy the domain from the browser address bar.
  3. Use the root URL as userApi in D2C.

Examples:

  • https://eu1.loriot.io
  • https://eu3.loriot.io
  • Your own private LORIOT server URL

Step 2: Create or Use a LORIOT User Account

  1. Sign in to your LORIOT server.
  2. If you do not have an account, ask your LORIOT administrator to create one.
  3. Ensure the account has access to the required networks and applications.

If you do not have a LORIOT account, contact D2C support.

Step 3: Configure Account

  1. Open the user management UI of the LORIOT network server in your browser.
  2. Log in with your LORIOT account.
  3. In LORIOT, open Account in the left navigation pane.
  4. Go to API Keys.
  5. Create a new API Key.
  6. In D2C: configure a new account .
  7. In D2C: check that the account was configured successfully.

Step 4: Find Application and Network Hex IDs

  1. Open the user management UI of the LORIOT network server in your browser.
  2. Log in with your LORIOT account.
  3. In LORIOT, open Networks and/ or Applications in left navigation pane.
  4. Note all Application Hex IDs and Network Hex IDs with devices or gateways that should be processed by D2C.

Application ID and Network ID are terms used by the LORIOT user interface for Application Hex ID and Network Hex ID.

Step 5: Configure Network and Application

Create resources through the DMO API (see Configure LORIOT Application and Configure LORIOT Network ):

Onboarding Option not Propagated

Use this mode if applications and networks already exist in LORIOT and should not be propagated in the LORIOT network server.

  1. Create an application with an existing Hex ID and propagate:false with the DMO API.
  2. Create a network with an existing Hex ID and propagate:false with the DMO API.

Onboarding Option Propagated

Use this mode if D2C should create and manage resources in LORIOT.

  1. Create an application without a Hex ID and propagate:true with the DMO API.
  2. Create a network without an existing Hex ID and propagate:true with the DMO API.

Step 6: Provision Devices and Gateways

  1. Prepare your LoRaWAN device or gateway before onboarding.
  2. Create device entries using the DMO API or create gateway entries using the DMO API .
  3. Assign the target network and application.
  4. Verify provisioning status in the provisioning response and logs container of d2c-protocol-adapter-loriot.

Step 7: Validate End-to-End Communication

  1. Send an uplink message from the device and verify it appears in D2C .
  2. Send a downlink message from D2C and verify delivery to the device.

D2C LORIOT Adapter Capabilities

  • Supports the propagate flag for network and application resources:
    • propagate: true: D2C creates and deletes the resource in LORIOT.
    • propagate: false: D2C links an existing LORIOT resource.
  • Supports creating LoRaWAN devices and gateways via oneM2M D2C API.
  • Supports automatic device creation in D2C for devices that already exist in LORIOT.

Troubleshooting

  • Invalid token: Regenerate token and confirm account permissions.
  • Resource not found: Re-check Hex IDs and account visibility.
  • No uplink messages: Verify application output/webhook configuration.
  • No downlink delivery: Verify mapping of device, application, and network.