SmartBox Dashboard and Devices

What this page is for

The layout

• Connection badge, a Gallery button (to /latest-photos), and a Claim Device button (to /devices/claim).
• Box status: one line per box with what it is doing now: Awake, Asleep with its next wake time, Missed wake, Lost contact, or Not reporting yet.
• Stat tiles: Recent Uploads, Recent Events, Image History, Active Sessions.
• Recent Secure Uploads: each device's latest upload with a CONFIRMED badge, location, time-ago, and telemetry (volume status, distance, temperature, battery %, signal, solar, and how long the box had been awake when it sent the photo). Box ID links to its dashboard.
• Recent Events: recent box-open/close and volume-change events, each linking to its device.
• Confirmed Image History: recent photos with capture time; click one to open full-size.
• Auto-refreshes after new uploads or events. Dispatchers and admins see every box in the org; everyone else sees only the boxes shared with them.

• Header shows the device's location/waypoint, owner, its status, its wake windows and its connection (carrier, signal, how long it took to get online). Dispatchers, admins and the box's owner see a Device Controls button.
• Command History: the last 10 commands sent to the box, who sent them and what the box answered.
• Two charts: telemetry trends (battery, temperature, signal, solar, last 20 uploads) and an event timeline (last 30 events).
• Recent events and a photo grid; events with a matching photo are clickable.

• Status banner: the same status as the dashboards, updated every 30 seconds.
• Wake Schedule: three windows, each a start and stop time in your organization's time zone, or Off. The box stays awake inside a window and sleeps outside it. After Save Schedule the line under it says Saved, waiting for the box until the box wakes and takes it, then Applied with the time.
• Actions: Take Photo, Storage Status, Run Diagnostics (checks the photo storage, camera, signal, battery and connection in one go), Recalibrate Distance Sensor, and Stay Awake for 10, 30 or 60 minutes (or End). A sleeping box gets the command when it next wakes.
• Recalibrate Distance Sensor: use it when the box keeps reporting items added or removed that are not there, usually because something was inside when it set its empty-box reading. Empty the box and shut the lid first. With the lid shut the box takes a new reading straight away and the command history shows it; otherwise the next photo taken with the lid shut sets it.
• Camera: auto white balance, photo quality (lower number = sharper, bigger photo) and exposure (higher = brighter). Saved the same way as the schedule: waiting for the box, then applied.
• Wi-Fi: scan for nearby networks, choose one, save its password, and see whether the box connected or why it could not. A box with working Wi-Fi uses it for everything and keeps its cellular radio off on those wakes.
• Clear Photo Backlog: permanently deletes every photo still waiting on the box. Type CLEAR to enable the button.
• Firmware: the version the box runs and where its update stands. Up to date; Update waiting for the box to wake; Downloading with a percentage; downloaded, which installs when the box next goes to sleep; or stuck / failed with the reason. StatVault updates boxes over the air; StatVault staff can pin one box to a test build.
• Command History: each command with its status - Queued (waiting for the box), Delivered (the box has it), Done or Failed with the box's own answer, Cancelled, or Expired (the box did not take it within 48 hours). A queued command can be cancelled.

• Claim a new box (dispatchers and admins): switch the box on wherever it will live, type the ID from its label (it looks like SB-3F9A2C) and press Claim this box. Then, within 24 hours, go to the box, open its lid and press I just opened the lid. The box is added to your boxes as soon as it reports the lid opening, usually within a couple of minutes, and you become its owner.
• The list under the form shows each claim: Waiting for the lid (with its deadline), Claimed, Expired, start again, Refused: two boxes reported this ID (nothing was claimed; start again), or Error with the reason. An error that says to press the button again shows Finish claim; press it to complete the claim without opening the lid again.
• A box listed in red with another device is reporting with this ID is still yours and still working; tell support.
• A box that says it is claimed but its login is refused is listed in orange. An admin re-claims it the same way (type its ID, open the lid, press the button); its history and settings stay.
• Get access to a box: one Box ID field for a box already in your organization. Submitting gives you viewer access; a message confirms success or explains failure (not in your org, already have access, not found).

• One card per device you can see: most recent photo, assigned location, online/offline badge, and last-seen time.

Common tasks

1. Check your fleet at a glance: open /dashboard.
2. Dig into one device's history: click its Box ID or go to /dashboard/<Box ID>.
3. Add a new box: on Claim Device, type its ID, then open its lid and press I just opened the lid within 24 hours.
4. Get access to a device you don't see yet: use Get access to a box on Claim Device.
5. See every device's latest photo: open /latest-photos.
6. Send a command: from the device's dashboard, click Device Controls, press the action, and watch Command History for Done.
7. Change when a box wakes: on Device Controls, set the windows, Save Schedule, and watch for Applied after its next wake.
8. Check whether a box is checking in: look at its status on /dashboard.

Things that confuse people

• SmartBox is not an NFC box. A SmartBox is our own device (temperature, photos, telemetry); an NFC box is a CXT lockbox used for scan-based chain of custody.
• A new box only joins after the lid is opened. Typing its ID starts the claim; opening the lid at the box and pressing the button finishes it. If nobody does that within 24 hours, start again.
• Device Controls is for dispatchers, admins and the box's owner - viewer access shows status and history but not controls.
• Done means the box did it, not that the button was pressed. Until the box answers, a command shows Queued or Delivered.
• Actions are greyed out on a box whose firmware can't take commands yet.
• Missed wake means the box did not check in at the time it said it would wake; Lost contact means it went quiet while awake. Both usually mean no signal or a flat battery; the box catches up when it reconnects.
• A firmware update arrives in pieces. A box in a weak-signal spot may take several wakes to download one, and it never holds up photos or lid events to do it. The update installs as the box goes to sleep, so it never restarts in the middle of a pickup.
• A saved schedule does not reach a sleeping box right away. It waits until the box next wakes, which can be many hours.
• If the Wi-Fi does not work, the box uses cellular by itself. A wrong password, a network out of range, or a network with no internet never costs you a photo: the box falls back to cellular in the same wake and tries Wi-Fi again on a later one. The scan and the join test happen when the box next wakes.
• A new box lists its networks by itself. Right after you claim it, a box sends the networks in range once, so the list is usually already there: pick the network and type the password. After that it only scans when you press Scan, so a box left on cellular never spends battery looking for Wi-Fi.
• What you see on /dashboard and /latest-photos depends on access - dispatchers and admins see the whole org fleet, everyone else only their own devices.
• Event and photo times are shown in your organization's time zone, and a box's wake-up schedules follow local time wherever it is.

Related

• Admin: SmartBox Devices and Sensors
• SmartBox versus NFC Box