Having hundreds or thousands of devices — and the variables that belong to them — can feel like mountains of data that would bury anyone. With Properties, you can quickly add metadata to your Ubidots devices and variables to efficiently organize, recall, and work with data coming from hundreds of different sources.
1. What are Properties?
By definition, properties are metadata, or "a set of data that describes and gives information about other data." In Ubidots, properties are the metadata describing a device, a variable, or their settings. Properties are not variables, and they are not the values a variable collects.
A Variable is the specific sensor or digital data stream providing insights to a system or process, and is updated regularly.
Properties are the specific identifying or describing attributes of a device or variable — its location, characteristics, or configuration details. Properties tend not to change, and they are not stored as a form of time-series data.
Type of data | Properties (Device or Variable) | Device Variables |
Definition |
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Examples | Device properties (default):
Device properties (user-defined):
Variable properties (user-defined):
| User-defined variables:
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Ubidots Properties allow you to add a layer of custom metadata to your devices and your variables for efficient identification, organization, and usability — whether you're managing metadata at the device level (e.g., where an asset is installed) or at the variable level (e.g., which sensor model is producing a specific reading).
2. Adding new Properties to a Device
To add a new property to a device, click on your device, then scroll down in the left-hand device options pane until you see the "Properties" section. At the bottom of the pane, you'll find "+ ADD PROPERTY."
Click "Add Property." A drawer window will appear where you can specify the name, description, and format of the property.
Supported formats
Text: A text string of up to 255 characters.
List: A list of text strings, presented as individual values in a dropdown menu.
Number: A float number.
True or False: A boolean value.
Date
JSON: A JSON object that can be used as payload in your events.
Device: A device that can serve as a "global device."
The description you provide will appear as a tooltip icon next to the property name — click it to see the property's full description.
To edit a property, simply double-click on its value.
You may want to check out Ubidots Device Types to specify a default set of Properties for any new device that is on-boarded to Ubidots.
You may want to check out Ubidots Device Types to specify a default set of properties for any new device onboarded to Ubidots. |
3. Adding new Properties to a Variable
The same workflow now applies to variables. Open any variable, then scroll down in the left-hand variable options pane — below fields like Description, Icon, API label, ID, Allowed range, and Tags — until you see the "Properties" section.
Click "+ ADD PROPERTY" at the bottom of the pane:
Clicking it opens the same "Add Property" drawer used for devices, with the variable's name shown at the top:
Name (required)
Key
Description
Format — the same options available for devices: Text, List, Number, True or False, Date, JSON, Device
Value
Fill in the fields and click Save. The property will now appear listed in the variable's Properties section, and — just like with devices — you can double-click any property's value to edit it, and hover over its description tooltip for more context.
3.1. Why add properties to a variable instead of a device?
Some metadata belongs to a specific measurement stream rather than the device as a whole. For example, a single multi-sensor device might have several variables (temperature, humidity, wind speed), each needing its own metadata:
Sensor model or manufacturer for that specific measurement
Calibration or last-serviced date for that specific sensor
The source or rationale for an alert threshold on that variable
Unit conversion or rounding notes specific to that data stream
Rather than cramming all of this into device-level properties (which describe the device as a whole), you can now attach it directly to the relevant variable.