Get Started
Last updated
Last updated
Cake Red is managed Node-RED. So it's Node-RED in the Cloud and in your Datacake Workspace. You can read more about what you get and how much it costs here:
OverviewIn order for you to try out Cake Red and its features, we allow a 14-day trial period. The following sections will show you how you can start it.
First, navigate to the "Billing" section, which you will find in the sidebar under the "Administration" group. You should now see the following view in your browser:
Under the "Subscriptions" section you can find a button "Add Cake Red Instance". If you do not have a valid credit card information, this button is disabled for the time being. In the following sections we will explain how to deposit a credit card.
Cake Red requires a valid credit card to be deposited in your workspace.
We will not charge your credit card at the start of the 14-day trial period and you have the option to cancel your subscription at any time before the trial period ends.
A dialog box opens for entering a corresponding payment method (by credit card). Now please follow the instructions. You will find further details in the following section:
BillingWe use a payment service provider for the processing of payments. This makes it necessary that a valid credit card be entered for the automatic processing.
Once a credit card is available, the trial period for Cake Red can be started by clicking the "Add Cake Red Instance" button.
When clicking, the following dialog appears:
To start the 14-day test phase now, please click on the "Buy" button.
Once again: We will not charge your credit card at the start of the 14-day trial period and you have the option to cancel your subscription at any time before the trial period ends.
You can cancel your trial period at any time before its expiry. To do this, navigate to the "Billing" group using the sidebar. There you will find a list of all subscriptions and can cancel them by clicking a button.
For further information, please refer to the following chapter:
BillingOnce you have purchased the Cake Red Subscription and activated the 14-day trial, an installation script will run in the background to activate the Cake Red instance in your workspace.
The following activities are carried out automatically one after the other:
Creating your own server
Installation of Node-RED and components
Embedding Cake Red into your Workspace on Datacake
Configuration of Node-RED Datacake Nodes for access to devices in your workspace
The individual steps are executed completely automatically in the background and take on average 10 to 15 minutes until the Cake Red instance is ready in your workspace.
As long as the process lasts, this is indicated by a corresponding title ("Installing") below the listing of your Cake Red instance in the left sidebar.
When the installation of your Cake Red instance is complete, the "Installing..." label disappears and when you select the instance from the sidebar, the typical Node-RED view opens:
Please reload the page occasionally, as an automatic update of the entry in the sidebar is not yet available.
Now we'll show you how to get started with your new Cake Red instance and how to interact with Datacake devices in a number of ways.
The next steps assume that devices are already present in your workspace. If this is not the case, use one of the following articles to create your first devices.
The easiest way to get real-time live readings and data from your Datacake devices is to use the native Node-RED Datacake expansion nodes.
These have already been added to Node-RED when you installed your instance, and you will find them as the first item in the left sidebar, called the Node palette.
There are two different types of Datacake Nodes available, which are:
This node type can be used if measured values from a device are to be transmitted into Node-RED.
Use this node type to store measured values from Node-RED in corresponding devices and fields.
The Datacake Nodes are based on MQTT and use the Datacake MQTT Broker to listen for readings from your devices. If a new reading is published via the Broker, the nodes pick it up and transfer it to the Node-RED. This means that the reporting of new measured values takes place in real time.
For access to historical data of your Devices, the GraphQL API can be used. Please have a look at the following:
GraphQL APIIf you are using the Datacake Output Node, it is best suited to transfer individual measured values to a field of a corresponding device.
Less or not at all suitable is this node for the transmission of data with time stamps, i.e. historical data. Again, it is better to use the API for this.
You can use a standard Node-RED Function Node to directly talk to your Devices using the Datacake GraphQL-API. We have created a tutorial for this. You can find it under:
Node RED to DatacakeNow drag the node named "Datacake Device Input" to the area of your first Node-RED flow.
Before the Datacake Nodes can be used, they must be configured. To set this configuration, please double click on the new Datacake node. The following panel will open:
To access the devices in your workspace, a configuration has already been defined when you created your Cake Red instance.
Open the drop-down menu "Datacake Configuration". In the list that is now visible, there should be an entry with the name of your workspace or the workspace ID. Please select this entry.
After you set the Datacake Configuration, the node can access your workspace and load a list of available devices and fields.
The next step is to assign a device and corresponding field to the Datacake Device Input Node.
For this purpose, there are two additional drop-down menus in the configuration dialog, where you can select your desired device and a corresponding field (of the respective device).
To check the function of the datacake nodes and your configuration, you can reproduce the following flow. Simply drag a debug node onto the flow and connect it to the datacake device input node.
If the device you have selected now sends new data, this will also be sent to Cake Red or Node-RED. In the Debug Tab of the right sidebar you should then be able to see the data as well.
As you can see, the data arrives via the Datacake Input Nodes in the form of a string. To be able to use them as objects in Node-RED, you may need to convert them into objects using the JSON node. See the following screenshot:
If you want to import data via Node-RED into one of your devices, please use the "Datacake Device Output" Node.
This type of node must also be configured in advance. However, the configuration is the same as the configuration you have done for the "Datacake Device Input" node.
Here you simply select the appropriate Device and the respective field into which you want to import your data. Now you can send any data to the respective field.
Please make sure that the data type of the data you send corresponds to the data type of the selected field. This means that if the selected field of your device expects a float, you cannot send a string. If this happens, the broker will disconnect the connection to the node for a short time. You can recognize this by a small note below the node itself.
As mentioned earlier in this article. Using Datacake Nodes has some limitations. You can't access historical data and so you cannot write historical data back using the Output Nodes.
But we have set together a tutorial about how you can use the Datacake GraphQL-API to record historical or multiple values at once with using Node-RED (not just on Cake Red - every Node-RED). You'll find it here:
Node RED to DatacakeWhen Cake Red was installed, a corresponding API user was automatically created with the necessary access rights to access all devices in your workspace.
For Cake Red to work properly, this API user must not be deleted. Should this happen, please contact our support team or create a new one and assign this to your global Datacake Configuration in Node-RED.
