Devices on Labstep can be used to represent the instruments and devices you use in the lab. The Instruments & Devices Integration enables you to make measurements or collect data by connecting the ones you have in the lab to Labstep!
Creating New Devices:
Navigate to the 'Instruments & Devices' page
Click on 'New Device'
Click on 'Untitled Device' and enter your device's name
Click on 'Add Metadata Field' to add any relevant metadata such as the Manufacturer, Model or Serial Number
Labstep team tip: You can also add Date fields such as 'Last Service Date' or 'Next Service Date' and File fields for attaching instruction manuals and other important documents.
'Notes' tab → you can keep a record of recurring events such as services or calibrations.
'Data' tab → you can see and search through all the data sent to Labstep by this Device.
Fetching Data from your Device:
Data collected from your devices can be used to populate Data fields in your experiments in a single click.
Type / (slash) in an experiment or protocol entry
Click on 'Data'
Click on 'Search measurement device'
Select a device
Specify the Data Type
Specify the Label and other fields if necessary
Click on 'Done'
Labstep team tip: You can also follow the same process by adding Data from the Data tab.
Labstep team tip: Now, whenever you run this Experiment/Protocol you can simply click 'Fetch from device' and it will fetch the most recent data of that type sent by the device!
Labstep team tip: If it has fetched the wrong data point, you can click the 'plug' icon to manually select the correct data.
Sending Data from a Device:
Devices can send 3 different types of data to Labstep.
Simple numeric measurements consisting of a number and a unit i.e. Temperature, Concentration, Weight etc.
Files such as CSV files with raw data, output reports generated by larger instruments or even images.
Free form text.
To send numeric measures or free form text from your device you will need to use the Labstep API. We provide a Python SDK to make this easy along with some examples to get you started (see the documentation here).
Labstep team tip: If you aren't comfortable working with the API you can still send files from your devices with no coding required using the Labstep Device Client. See this article to find out how.
Still need help?
Contact us here or start a conversation with a member of our team using our in-app chat.