The IoT Really Does Work in the Factory

Industrial IoT pays off big in terms of reduced maintenance and operating costs. As Paul Rako discovered, implementing an IO-Link chip can help cultivate those advantages by managing the power in your designs. There’s so much hype surrounding the Internet of Things (IoT) that I have become a bit of a skeptic. I think it’s stupid that my Samsung refrigerator has Wi-Fi so it can communicate with my smart electric meter. I don’t want my 200-W refrigerator turning off during peak usage times to save me a few cents of electricity. I want a box of cold that ensures I have the best food safety. I was equally skeptical of the mesh radio networks that were supposed to connect factory IoT nodes. Any musician knows that anything with a battery is sure to run out just when you need it most. I have seen estimates that a battery replacement in a factory can cost around $150. And if the most-used mesh node in your factory runs low of battery power, then you might as well replace all of the batteries in all of the nodes.