Why do we need to create a remote thing?

[nnaidu]

I am a bit confused on the concept of remote thing..

Let's say I have a mars rover (physical device) on which I install the ThingWorx SDK to start sending data to my ThingWorx server. I know that using the SDK I can directly connect the mars rover to my rover Thing (NOT inheriting RemoteTemplate ) on the server.

So why are remote things created then? Only when gateways are used?

[mhollenbach]

When you say, "I can directly connect the mars rover to my rover Thing (NOT inheriting RemoteTemplate )", are you saying that you are connecting over a websocket, or are you updating properties and/or calling services with HTTP requests?

When trying to connect to a Thing not using a RemoteThing* template there will be a warning in the Application Log that you are not using a ConnectedThing for your remote device SDK. A ConnectedThing has functionality that a regular Thing using a GenericThing ThingTemplate, etc., will not have. Functionality in the form of services that automatically handle pushing property updates and handling any service invocations coming through the websocket communication.

[nnaidu]

Ok. I was using the HTTP REST APIs. So if I understand correctly, using a RemoteThing template automatically enables bidirectional websockets connections with the edge device.

Can I directly bind the remote template Thing to the mashup OR do I need to create one more local bound Thing and bind it the the remote thing first?