The Internet of things now within small machine builders‘ reach

At the core of our new offering are Kinco’s IoT series HMIs. With an existing internet connection via Ethernet or WLAN or optionally an integrated 4G modem, these connect directly to a remote maintenance server from Kinco in Frankfurt. This allows customers to securely remotely control the HMI via VPN and also update the software on the HMI. However, the IoT functions are not only limited to remote control, but even enable a VPN connection to connected PLCs and other devices. These devices can be connected to the Kinco HMI via Ethernet as well as via serial interfaces. For many PLCs, the HMIs are thus directly suitable as a remote maintenance gateway. Since the Kinco HMIs have a variety of communication drivers on board, e.g. to Siemens LOGO!, Siemens S7-1200/1500, Modbus TCP or Beckhoff Twincat ADS, they are suitable as a flexible interface in heterogeneous machine parks.

In addition, the Kinco devices have integrated OPC UA Server & Client and MQTT Publish & Subscribe. This allows machines or systems to be flexibly integrated into higher-level IoT infrastructures.

Partnership with Things Mobile makes complete solution perfect

To further facilitate its customers‘ entry into the IoT world, spstiger has additionally entered into a partnership with Things Mobile Srl. from Italy. Things Mobile offers very innovative mobile tariffs and SIM cards for the IoT world and integrates them into a very convenient online platform for the connectivity management of a large number of IoT devices. "Things Mobile is the ideal partner for our offer," explains Managing Director Steffen Methling, "We have decided to deliver every IoT device with a 4G modem directly with a SIM card from Things Mobile with 10 euros of credit. This makes it easy for our customers to get started in the IoT world." In addition, spstiger will offer Things Mobile tariffs to customers in its own online shop.

The IoT SIM cards from Things Mobile work worldwide and use roaming in different networks for high accessibility. The tariffs are transparent and inexpensive. A big advantage is that different SIM cards can share the common credit of a customer account and at the same time a tariff without any basic fee is possible. This means that even a large number of devices that are only online from time to time and only use a small amount of data can be connected to the internet cheaply and securely.

Countless SIM cards can be conveniently managed, paused and activated via the Things Mobile portal. Extensive statistics on costs and data consumption per device are also available.

Further IoT services planned

spstiger wants to continuously expand its IoT offering. "We want to offer our customers even more services in the IoT environment in the future," enthuses Methling. For example, this could be pre-configured MQTT dashboards that we create for our customers and on which they can monitor and also control their devices and plants in Germany, Europe and the world. The spstiger industrial web panel, an industrial open Android HMI touch panel from spstiger, will also soon be available in a 4G variant. It will then be possible to run not only web visualisations of the PLC and plants, but also extended services such as Node Red, IFTTT or MQTT Broker. This will also open the way to comprehensive and yet cost-effective IoT visions for customers.