Configure hardware

Viam represents every piece of hardware on your machine as a component with a standardized API. A camera is a camera whether it connects over USB, Ethernet, or CSI. A motor is a motor whether it’s a brushed DC motor on GPIO pins or a stepper on a CAN bus. Your application code calls the same methods regardless of the underlying hardware.

This means you can swap hardware without rewriting code, reuse configurations across a fleet of identical machines, and test your application logic against fake components before the physical hardware arrives.

This section covers how to add hardware to your machine, configure it, and verify it works.

How components work

Understand how Viam represents hardware, add components to your machine, and configure them.

Add a component

Step-by-step guides for adding and configuring each component type.

Component types

All the component types Viam supports and when to use each one.

Machine configuration

Understand the JSON configuration that defines your machine's components, and how to edit it.

Fragments

Capture working hardware configurations and keep them consistent across your fleet.

Overview

Understand the two kinds of modules and how to extend your machine with custom hardware drivers and application logic.