What is Industrial Internet of Things?

[hmi]

Everyone's heard of the IoT – smart thermostats, Internet-connected refrigerators, connected lightbulbs – but there's a subset called industrial Internet of things (IIOT) that has a much more significant day-to-day impact on businesses, safety and even lives. What exactly it is?

[Joe Tauser]

The statements expressed here are my own opinion and do not necessarily comprise a definition.

Short answer - an IIoT device is an IoT device that's located in a factory with a lot more people that have an opinion about it.

I found these-

https://www.computradetech.com/blog/iot-vs-iiot/

https://www.leverege.com/blogpost/difference-between-iot-and-iiot

https://www.iotforall.com/iot-vs-industrial-iot-differences-that-matter/

https://us.profinet.com/iot-vs-iiot/

You'll find in reading these that there is no clear definition of IIoT - just some thoughts on what it should be.

What I have experienced is every company and every location has different expectations, requirements, paranoia, and regulations.  Most of the time we put the controls on their own network and manually connect a line if we need to get in.  There are other products that act as bridges through a secure website.  And so on.

Other input is certainly welcome.

Joe T.

[John_R]

If you build it, they will come

The first "wireless phones" (radio telephones) were developed in the early 20th century, which evolved into cell phones by the late 20th century.
My brand new cell phone would ring, I'd press a button and say Hello?
It was a brave new world, and you felt pretty special to actually have one of these devices....

By the turn of the century we started using "smart phones", not only could I talk to someone, but I could send my friends text messages when I didn't feel like talking, even take pictures,

how cool.....

20 some years later these smart phones have evolved into do everything mini computers/cameras/you-name-it, and we can't live without them...
(I accidentally left mine at home one day, and I actually felt lost at work without it).

Now we are living in a cloud world where everything has to be able to talk through the internet, whether it really needs to or not.
What worked well 20 years ago in industrial control, still works well...
and while controls have been refined over the years, life without IIoT is still possible, but then we would all feel left out on the new technology.....

So they are building it...  Here we come......

 

My 2 cents.....

JohnR

 

[DanT]

Hi Joe;

Thank You.

Very interesting reads.

I wonder if anyone has done an actual    Cost -  Benefit   analysis of  AN   IIOT device.

Cost - Cost of the Device,  Cost of the  Physical Installation,  Cost of the Network Integration,  Cost of the Database Integration,  Cost of the " Now how do We Use this piece of information"

              Cost of maintaining this device ( device failure, network failure, internet failure,troubleshooting) , Cost of impact on the process cycle time of this device,  Cost of Network/Data  Backup/Data Security of this device.

          Benefit - Is it worth it  ( this device)     and the Is it worth it ( on the whole )

How much of a burden is all this on the network - Internal and External.      

Is the data useful -   now, hourly, daily, monthly,  review of past event, ever?

 

The Data Gobler  is everywhere and getting bigger and we are encouraging and supporting it.

Listen to the song   "In the Year 2525"   and then look at when it was first written and released.

 

Just my own thoughts.

Dan

 

[Ausman]

Agree with Joe and Dan.  And on Dan's comment in particular, my take is is that it is all related to the evolving fascination with "everything you need to know" being readily available at the great source of truth...the internet.  That has generated a myriad of useless jobs/positions that demand the ability to justify their existence, but in reality are simply "tick the box" positions that don't really achieve anything except a fat bonus for great work done by actually tallying info produced by others' hard work.  When originally if Widget X was being made ok, the machines weren't indicating any error, and the production was logged and regularly reviewed, it was fine.  Nowadays we need to know RIGHT NOW if production is OK.  The process and physical results are just the same, but there has been a raft of other ridiculous issues brought into the equation by the ever increasing expectations of data availability.

The implementation of I(I)OT is where I see a nightmare approaching, yet the proponents think nothing of some of the instances that exist, eg the simple act of turning on a light needing an internet transaction b/n a remote (whose?)server and the light fitting in question.  dumb dumb dumb

End of rant!

cheers, Aus

[Joe Tauser]

BTW, I bought an IoT light control for my bedroom to turn on in the morning to help get my night-owl butt out of bed-

https://www.leviton.com/en/products/dw3hl-1bw

It talks to my wireless router, and I set up the schedule with an app on my phone.  

It works properly 99% of the time.  I THOUGHT it kept the schedule inside itself, but one morning when my Internet was down I learned that was not true.  If it couldn't talk to the Levition Master in the Cloud, it just sat there.  In other words, my light didn't go on that morning.  I couldn't trigger it with my phone app, either.

1 hour ago, Ausman said:

I see a nightmare approaching

Yep.

Anyone who tells you their Internet is up 100% of the time is lying.  When Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the US, I could not communicate with my vendors in the New York / New Jersey area for over a week, because they couldn't get email and they had drank the Kool-Aid and converted their phone systems over to VoIP.  Those who had copper land lines could still be reached.

Anything connected to the Internet can be hacked, too.

  Joe T.

[Swervomotor]

I use these around the house for lights and ceiling fans: https://www.itead.cc/sonoff-wifi-wireless-switch.html

They can be had for less than $5/each,  if you trim the ends off they fit in a US standard box and I wire them at the light switch in parallel so in the event they go offline I can still operate the lights via the switch. They work with alexa/google (through the vendors server) and the wife loves them.  It's basically a 10a wifi relay. 

Would I trust them in an industrial machine? no. To turn on my light? yep.   They are "hackable" in terms of loading your own firmware aswell. 

Seems like the IIot makes sense with one caveat. Only on a local network.  With a central Server that hosts the control.  I can see data being able to exit but control not being able to enter. 

 

 

On 10/26/2018 at 7:40 PM, Joe Tauser said:

BTW, I bought an IoT light control for my bedroom to turn on in the morning to help get my night-owl butt out of bed-

https://www.leviton.com/en/products/dw3hl-1bw

It talks to my wireless router, and I set up the schedule with an app on my phone.  

It works properly 99% of the time.  I THOUGHT it kept the schedule inside itself, but one morning when my Internet was down I learned that was not true.  If it couldn't talk to the Levition Master in the Cloud, it just sat there.  In other words, my light didn't go on that morning.  I couldn't trigger it with my phone app, either.

Yep.

Anyone who tells you their Internet is up 100% of the time is lying.  When Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the US, I could not communicate with my vendors in the New York / New Jersey area for over a week, because they couldn't get email and they had drank the Kool-Aid and converted their phone systems over to VoIP.  Those who had copper land lines could still be reached.

Anything connected to the Internet can be hacked, too.

  Joe T.

 

[Ausman]

On 4/5/2019 at 11:52 PM, Swervomotor said:

They are "hackable" in terms of loading your own firmware aswell.

But they constantly change their code to try to foil this, such that even the latest hack might not work on a new unit.

I have a few lying around used as paperweights!  But I wouldn't even want them sending anything out at all.  If you can hack so that they work directly within your network simply via the router, that is ok, and is possible.

We'll see these things controlling major supply generators soon, for management's convenience!  Without the Hack.  🙄

cheers, Aus

[Swervomotor]

On 4/6/2019 at 6:24 PM, Ausman said:

But they constantly change their code to try to foil this, such that even the latest hack might not work on a new unit.

I have a few lying around used as paperweights!  But I wouldn't even want them sending anything out at all.  If you can hack so that they work directly within your network simply via the router, that is ok, and is possible.

We'll see these things controlling major supply generators soon, for management's convenience!  Without the Hack.  🙄

cheers, Aus

 

What I mean by hacking the firmware is just using their hardware but taking their server and software out of the equation off the device. Basically loading your own ESP8266 type firmware and running it off  your own app/P2P/Mqtt backbone.  I can't build a relay with ESP8266 for what I can buy one of these for.   I have not tried it yet but it may come into play in future projects. Right now the work doesn't justify the end. As security is not really a concern on my light switches haha.  If I was going to integrate these across more security sensitive applications I wouldn't as it stands.

[Ausman]

On 4/10/2019 at 12:00 AM, Swervomotor said:

Basically loading your own ESP8266 type firmware

Yes, I do this, but the makers keep on changing their coding and systems to stop the access that lets you do this.  It's a bit of a one step ahead type thing.  You have to have the correct hack for the particular build/unit, otherwise it is bricked.

 

On 4/10/2019 at 12:00 AM, Swervomotor said:

As security is not really a concern on my light switches haha

Ahhh....but essentially you are telling the world your system's security.

cheers, Aus