IoT Explorer

Question

IoT Explorer

Mikhail Soloviev 0

For many years I've been developing systems communicating with Azure IoT hub. One of the tools that I use almost daily has been Device Explorer Twin. I know it had been abandoned and replaced by Azure IoT Explorer, but I adhered to the former mainly because the display of the telemetry as well as direct method representation were more convenient. Well, 2 days ago it stopped working. This happened before, and after some time it started to work again.

I tried to switch to Azure IoT Explorer a few times. It creates bulkier logs, but the major problem was introduced in 0.15.11 when the Specify enqueue time setting was for some reason removed. Anyone cares to explain? I use explorer to real-time monitor devices where the user reports issues, but when I open telemetry the messages from a day before are popping up first. This renders this release unusable. I had to roll back to 0.15.8.

An IoT explorer is also important when developing HW ahead of the cloud part. In my case it is essential. I test the protocol before even presenting it to the Cloud team.

All in all, the IoT explorer is a vital tool for both development and troubleshooting. However this area feels neglected by Azure team. What is the right channel to discuss improvements?

SRILAKSHMI C 16,705 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-08T12:13:23.7+00:00
Hello Mikhail Soloviev,

Thanks for sharing this detailed feedback

I understand your concern here. When you're doing real-time monitoring and hardware-level validation, features like Specify enqueue time are not just nice-to-have, they’re critical for effective troubleshooting.

I also get why you’ve continued using Device Explorer Twin for so long. However, since that tool has been deprecated for quite some time, intermittent issues (like it suddenly stopping) are expected and unfortunately won’t be actively fixed going forward.

Coming to Azure IoT Explorer:

“Specify enqueue time” removal: You’re absolutely right this capability existed in earlier versions (like 0.15.8), and its removal in newer versions (0.15.11+) does impact real-time telemetry scenarios. Without it, older messages appearing first makes live debugging difficult, especially in your use case.

Current workaround options: Until this is addressed in the tool:

Rolling back to v0.15.8 is a valid and practical workaround

For more control, you can use the IoT Hub’s Event Hub-compatible endpoint with SDK/scripts to filter messages by enqueue time

Azure Portal monitoring is available, but as you mentioned, it’s not ideal for real-time debugging workflows

Newer versions introduced more verbose logging for diagnostics, but this does come at the cost of usability for quick telemetry inspection.

Where to raise this

The IoT Explorer tool is open-source, and the engineering team actively tracks feedback in the following channel GitHub: https://github.com/Azure/azure-iot-explorer/issues

You can also upvote similar requests there to increase visibility.

What to include in your request

To help the engineering team prioritize this properly, I’d recommend including:

The exact version (e.g., 0.15.11) A clear description of how you used “Specify enqueue time” The impact on your workflow (real-time monitoring, HW-before-cloud validation, etc.) Screenshots or comparison with older versions (like 0.15.8)

You’re not alone in this this is a genuine usability gap for real-time troubleshooting scenarios. Your current approach (rolling back) makes sense, and raising this through GitHub will give it the best chance of being addressed by the product team.

I Hope this helps. Do let me know if you have any further queries.

Thank you!
SRILAKSHMI C 16,705 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-09T12:59:47.03+00:00

Hi Mikhail Soloviev,

Did you get any chance to review the above response. Do let me know if you have any further queries.

Thank you!

1 answer

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SRILAKSHMI C 16,705 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-09T12:59:47.03+00:00

Hi Mikhail Soloviev,

Did you get any chance to review the above response. Do let me know if you have any further queries.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Azure IoT Explorer and the older Device Explorer / Device Explorer Twin are client tools built on top of Azure IoT Hub; their feature set and UX are not controlled from the IoT Hub service side and can change or be deprecated independently. The context confirms that Azure IoT Explorer is now the supported cross‑platform desktop tool for managing IoT Hub resources and devices.

For day‑to‑day development and troubleshooting, the following tools are currently documented for working with IoT Hub devices and telemetry:

Azure IoT Explorer (desktop app) for managing IoT Hub resources and devices.
Azure IoT Hub VS Code extension (Azure IoT Toolkit) to manage IoT Hub and devices directly from Visual Studio Code.
Azure IoT extension for Azure CLI, which includes commands such as az iot hub monitor-events to monitor device telemetry in real time.
Azure portal and related tools such as Visual Studio Cloud Explorer and the (older) iothub-explorer CLI.

From the provided context, there is no documented explanation for the specific UX change in Azure IoT Explorer 0.15.11 (removal of the “Specify enqueue time” option) or guidance on that particular regression. The only supported statement is that Azure IoT Explorer is the current cross‑platform tool and that the Azure IoT CLI extension can be used for real‑time telemetry monitoring.

For discussing improvements and gaps in tooling (such as telemetry ordering, enqueue‑time filters, or log verbosity), the documented channels for Azure IoT Hub and its tooling are:

Microsoft Q&A for Azure IoT Hub – for product questions, feedback, and interaction with product team members and community experts.
Stack Overflow with the azure-iot-hub tag – for developer‑focused questions and feedback on SDKs and tooling.
Azure support – for issues that block production workloads or require formal support.

These are the official channels in the context where IoT Hub and its ecosystem (including tools like Azure IoT Explorer and the Azure IoT CLI extension) are discussed and supported.

References:

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