Glossary

A quick reference to the terms you will see throughout the Dashboard. They build on each other, so the groupings below follow how the pieces fit together.

Devices and Hardware

Term	Meaning
Device	A physical Bluesonde buoy. It is the thing in the water that carries Sensors and reports data.
Sensor	An instrument attached to a Device that measures one or more Observed Properties.
Sensor Type	The model of hardware a Sensor is, which defines what it can measure and in which Units.
Sensing Schedule	How often a Device wakes up and records data. A tighter schedule gives more detail but uses more battery.
Status	A Device's overall health at a glance, such as Healthy, Warning, Critical, or Offline. See Device Statuses.

Data

Term	Meaning
Observation	A single measured value at a point in time, for example a temperature reading.
Observed Property	What is being measured, such as Temperature, Salinity, or Dissolved Oxygen.
Unit of Measurement	How an Observed Property is expressed, such as degrees Celsius or practical salinity units.
External Datastream	A stream of external environmental data pulled in for a Site, such as rain, wind, or tide.

Sites and Deployments

Term	Meaning
Site	A fixed, named location such as a bay or monitoring station. A Site anchors Deployments and can subscribe to environmental Datastreams.
Deployment	A time-bounded group of Devices collecting data together, for example a single field campaign.
Geofence	A boundary set around a Site's anchor. If a Device drifts outside it, an Alert is raised.

Monitoring

Term	Meaning
Alert	A notice that something crossed a limit, for example a reading past a threshold or a Device outside a Geofence. See Deployment Detail.
Alert Rule	A rule an Organization Admin sets on a Deployment that watches an Observed Property and raises an Alert when it crosses a warning or critical threshold.
Notification	An Email or SMS message sent to you when an Alert fires, for the rules you have subscribed to.

Organization and Access

Term	Meaning
Organization	Your workspace. It owns your Devices, Sites, and Deployments, and contains your members.
Organization Admin	A role that can configure the organization, including Devices, Deployments, invites, and Alert Rules. See Roles and Permissions.
Share	Giving another organization or person access to a Device or Deployment. Shared items appear under the Shared tab for the recipient. See Sharing.
API Key	A credential that lets your own scripts and tools read your organization's data through the Bluesonde API.
OAuth Application	A registered third-party application that can connect to Bluesonde on behalf of your users.
Webhook	A way for Bluesonde to push events to your own endpoint as they happen, instead of you polling for them.