Adapters

Adapters are code packages written for a specific device or architecture that make it easy for devices to ingest data and communicate with Formant. For example, if your device uses ROS, you can create a ROS adapter that will forward specific ROS topics to a Formant stream.

Think of adapters like outlet adapters when traveling abroad. In order to use your device abroad, you need something that will allow it to interface with the electrical outlets. With a complete set of adapters, any device you might have, no matter where it is from, can draw power from that outlet.

In a similar way, no matter what kind of device you have, if you have a Formant Adapter for it, you can send data to Formant.

Formant allows you to automatically install adapters on newly provisioned devices so that you don't need to manually configure or update your adapter code. Furthermore, Formant maintains a handful of common device adapters, like those for ROS, ROS2, The Jetbot, and Onvif PTZ Cameras.