Pricing calculator
How can I estimate the usage costs for the service?
To estimate the costs of your potential project with Bosch IoT Device Management, you can use the online calculator available on our website.
The Standard plan of Bosch IoT Device Management has no base fee and the billing is consumption-based, which allows you to pay as you grow from the very beginning.
Screencast
Watch the screencast on this topic here.
First steps
Your entry point is https://bosch-iot-suite.com/pricing-calculator/
Expand the combobox named Select a capability.
Choose the option Device Management (public cloud), as it corresponds to Bosch IoT Device Management.
The rest of the capabilities in the combobox correspond to Bosch IoT Insights, Bosch IoT Rollouts as a standalone service, and Bosch IoT Remote Manager, respectively.
Fill in your project data
Go to the Configuration categories on the left side of the calculator.
Expand each main category to see its corresponding fields.
Hover over a field in each category to see more details about it.
Each category field is also explained in the second part of this tutorial.
Once you enter data in the left-side fields, on the right you will see:
(1) a cost breakdown and
(2) a cost summary.
(3) At your convenience, switch the currency of the cost estimate between USD and EUR.
(4) Save your calculations for your different project scenarios on PDF files by clicking the Download button.
(5) For complete information and examples, check pricing and conditions.
Each cost breakdown category is also briefly explained in the second part of this tutorial.
In the background, the calculator will apply price tiers, so when the communication behavior and the number of devices increase, we will grant discounts for high consumption.
Add further services
In case you work also with other Suite services for the same project, and want to estimate the costs together, feel free to add them.
You may add further capabilities to your device management project - such as data management and analytics.
To do that, check the box for Insights in the Optional single services area, as shown below.
This will add further input fields on the left and further cost breakdown fields on the right.
Depending on the entered project data, this cost estimate may include also a base fee for a Bosch IoT Insights subscription.
You are now ready to use our pricing calculator.
Continue reading this page, if you need a brief explanation of each configuration and cost breakdown field, as well as an example use case.
For complete explanation, price tiers, increments, and further examples, check Pricing and Conditions.
Configuration fields
Device Information
In this category you have to enter:
The number of devices, which corresponds to the number of digital twins and policies created in our digital twin layer. Normally, you should count only the number of gateways and edge devices connected directly to the IoT Suite stack. However, if you need a separate digital twin for every edge device connected through a gateway, include their number in this field too.
The size of a digital twin in KB per twin, ranging from 2 KB to 100 KB.
The average device connection time, expressed as a percentage per month. This metric shows how long your device keeps open the connection to our device connectivity layer, and depends on the protocol used and the specifics of your use case.
Tip: To estimate the size of your digital twin, you can open its JSON representation in the Developer Console and copy it on a file, then check the size in the properties of the file.
Digital twin updates with device communication
This category reflects:
how often the digital twins of your devices will be updated (calculated per device per month), as well as
the size of an update in KB, and
the direction of the communication - device to cloud or cloud to device.
Digital twin updates can be triggered by the physical device or by your custom application through our cloud services.
From the perspective of the Bosch IoT Suite stack, a digital twin update is usually triggered by:
Bosch IoT Hub (device connectivity layer) due to an update that is sent by a device,
Bosch IoT Manager / Bosch IoT Rollouts (device management / software update management layers) (e.g. update of metadata, tags, desired state, etc.),
a custom application that directly interacts with Bosch IoT Things (digital twin layer).
As you have noticed, the name of this category includes 'with device communication'. In contrast, there are also digital twin updates without device communication - there the digital twin update is triggered by an application and is applied to the digital twin but nothing is sent to the device. In other words, the digital twin update is persisted but not sent out to the device.
Live messages with device communication
Live messages reflect the direct communication between your devices and your application about events, operations, and messages. This information is not applied to or persisted in the digital twins of the devices. If you need the data stored in the digital twin representation, instead of sending live messages, use digital twin updates.
As you have noticed, the name of this category includes 'with device communication'.
A live message with device communication can be emitted or received by devices, applications, or Bosch IoT Suite services.
A live message without device communication can be emitted or received by applications or Bosch IoT Suite services. Such a message can be triggered by an application and routed to another application through the platform.
Notifications per month
In this category, you should specify the number of notifications about digital twin updates or live messages you would like to receive per device per month, as well as the size of a notification in KB.
You can apply fan out or filtering, to make sure you receive only notifications about the important events for your use case, for example exceeded thresholds in telemetry data, successful executions of remote commands, etc.
Digital twin reads per month
This category reflects how often your application will read the digital twins of your devices (calculated per device per month), as well as the size of a digital twin read in KB. The latter is usually the same as the size of the digital twin that you entered in the Device Information category above.
You may want to read the digital twins of your devices regularly, for example to check how many devices are switched on at a particular time, or perhaps upon every twin update and live message.
Software updates
One of the most prominent use cases of device management projects is software updates. They allow you to maintain the security of your devices and enrich them with new functionalities.
In this category, you should specify:
the frequency of software updates (calculated per device per month),
the average size of an artifact in MB, and
the artifact storage in GB, considering the number of software versions that you want to store.
Normally, you can also expect a one-time software update when a device connects to the cloud services for the first time.
Cost breakdown fields
Example use case
To illustrate how the calculator works, we will show a simple device management use case in a smart home scenario.
There we will include:
the needs of the device manufacturer and developer of a smart home application, and
the needs of the end-user of the smart devices and the corresponding application.
The manufacturer would need to connect, update, and monitor the health of its devices - in the factory and in the field, and act in case of specific alerts.
The smart home owner would need to read sensor data, send remote commands to its connected devices, and receive alerts on specific occasions, for example smoke detection or burglary.
Therefore, our cost estimate would need to include digital twin updates, live messages, notifications, digital twin reads, and software updates.
For a start, which will be our proof of concept stage, we will estimate the costs with 100 connected devices. Then, we will estimate the costs for the production stages with 10 000 and 200 000 connected devices.
Try it out - enter the following numbers in the left-side calculator fields:
Device Information
Number of devices / device digital twins: 100
Size of a digital twin (KB per twin): 5
Average device connection time (percent / each month): 100
Digital twin updates with device communication
Twin updates with message retention (device to cloud) (per device / per month): 60
Twin updates triggered by application (cloud to device) (per device / per month):
Average size of a digital twin update (KB per update): 2
Live messages with device communication
Live messages with message retention (device to cloud) (per device / per month): 7200
Live messages triggered by application (cloud to device) (per device / per month): 250
Average size of a live message (KB per message): 2
Notifications per month
Digital twin update / live message notifications (per device / per month): 7510
Average size of a notification (KB per notification): 2
Digital twin reads per month
Digital twin reads triggered by application (cloud to device) (per device / per month): 7510
Average size of a twin read (KB per request): 5
Software updates
Number of software updates (per device / per month): 1
Average size of an artifact (MB per artifact): 300
Software update artifact storage (GB per month): 3
Contact us
Besides the online calculator on the Bosch IoT Suite website, there is a more advanced version available through our pricing experts. Contact us if you have trouble filling in the right data or you cannot find a category relevant to your project in the online calculator.