IoT Device Implementation Guide

Reduce the data transfer size

Last Updated: June 27th, 2024

Network connection optimizations also align with TS.34_4.0_REQ_015, which requires developers to use data compression methods to minimize overhead and reduce the total volume of data to transfer.

Developers can also design their IoT Device Applications more intelligently, such as transferring only the parts of data that have changed since the previous transfer.

For example, if a device transmits 8 bytes of sensor data at regular intervals, the device application can be modified to send only the 1 or 2 bytes of sensor data that changed since the previous reading, rather than sending the same data over and over again.

Going further, IoT Devices should only establish data sessions for the purpose of sending and receiving data. An application that establishes a data session and then terminates it without sending data (a “zero-byte session”) on a regular basis is not compliant with the Soracom Device Guidelines.

Edge AI is another area where the size of data transfers can be reduced. New AI algorithms are being developed every day that make it easier to process data directly on a device and summarize which parts of application data are critical to transmit.

Reducing data usage with Soracom’s Binary Parser

Soracom’s Binary Parser feature helps reduce data transfer sizes by enabling devices to send structured data over the cellular network using binary rather than JSON, and then decoding and converting the data into JSON format after it has passed through the network

This helps maintain the human readability of the data and interoperability with IoT cloud systems. In addition to reducing data transfer sizes, Binary Parser can also reduce device power consumption by removing the need to format or convert data to JSON on the device.

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