Thing Definitions

A thing definition models the attributes, alarms, properties, methods, tunnels, locations, presentation information, and other characteristics of a particular type of item in Device Cloud.

Things are instances of a previously defined thing definition. A thing is a logical item that is defined with the characteristics that are important to your IoT solution and your application logic. It may not have all of the characteristics of an actual physical device. Things also have dynamic run-time items associated with them that are not inherited from their thing definitions, such as event log messages and files. Each application connected to Device Cloud using the Device Cloud API is an example of a thing.

The definition or design of a thing definition is flexible and can be general (a few thing definitions that all thing types use) or specific (many thing definitions, each with its own specific definition of its characteristics).

Modifying a thing definition modifies all the associated things.

You can clone a thing definition to extend the definition with additional characteristics. Cloning creates a copy of the thing definition that you can modify to change all fields, including the thing definition key. However, you cannot modify presentation information as part of the clone operation. To change the presentation information, finish cloning the thing definition, and then edit it.

If you do not need a thing definition anymore and there are no things or applications referencing it, you can delete the thing definition.