Rich KurtzmanGot data? We’ve got you covered.
IoT Ensemble was developed and created to help those with a deluge of data navigate it all.
Manufacturers, brewers, refrigerated trucks; the list goes on in terms of who needs help managing that data.
We’ll explain later just how IoT Ensemble can help a variety of companies effectively use their data, but first, let’s start at the beginning.
IoT/IIoT definition
IoT or the Internet of Things refers to anything that can be hooked up to the internet. Your smartphone, watch, and home security systems are part of the IoT world.
However, those devices are “closed” in terms of the availability of data. There’s no way to take the data from your smartwatch and read it on an independent app or website. (It should be noted DIYers can, and do, use sensors from open-source companies and can read their IoT data that way.)
When it comes to IIoT – or the Industrial Internet of Things – now we’re talking about the business side of things.
Manufacturing lines can consist of hundreds of robots working alongside human counterparts, or just the robots themselves. Each one of the automated machines will likely have a whole host of sensors which need monitoring to ensure the tools are kept in working order and that they’re producing efficiently.
PLCs, or programmable logic controllers, are many times where the data comes from.
The size of the manufacturing line can help determine how many of those sensors there are, and therefore, how large the deluge of data is. But, whether a company is large or small, the incoming data presents a need for strong IoT software as well as a way to display it in presentable ways.
Use case: Crazy Mountain Brewery
For instance, a brewery – which is a favorite of ours in Colorado – has temperature sensors for their brewing equipment, making sure the beer gets hot enough but not too hot. They also need a variety of sensors for their bottling and packaging lines as well.
Instead of having a person stare at the screen all day, IoT software can collect the data, virtually store it in the cloud and then make it accessible later. Connecting that software to a user-friendly interface means setting parameters and even alarms to warn about unexpected temperature changes, equipment failures and more.
With Crazy Mountain specifically, we configured email and text alerts for when their boiler temperature dropped below 150 degrees Fahrenheit. That happened on a Sunday for them, which is typically a day off, meaning no one was at the brewery to fix the critical error.
"You saved us a whole day of brewing! If we didn’t have the alert and we didn’t come in to check Sunday or Monday, we would have walked into cold water today. And it takes so long to heat up that we wouldn’t have been able to brew at all today, which messes up the whole week!" Director of Operations at Crazy Mountain Brewery, Denver, Colorado
Businesses aren’t using IoT data effectively
For many businesses, an absence of IoT data strategy is negatively impacting their efforts. More specifically, 46% of respondents to an Inmarsat study said there was a delay between data collection and delivery, while another 33% cited a lack of IoT strategy completely.
Fathym built IoT Ensemble to empower small and independent brewers, home brewers, and others like DIYers to setup the same monitoring as described above for their equipment - but this time without needing a few senior engineers to be Microsoft Azure experts. IoT Ensemble acts as your Virtual App Developer and manages the Azure complexity for you.
Let's be clear, with IoT Ensemble you still need to set up your device, dashboards, and alerts - but IoT Ensemble handles all of the heavy lifting in Azure. And trust me, the heavy lifting in Azure is no joke. The good news is that setting up your device, dashboards, and alerts is a manageable lift. If you have a staff member that loves technology they can set this up. Otherwise, find your nearest teenager to help.
IoT Ensemble collects needed data, allows users to create interfaces that are usable, interactive and valuable
Now that you have sensor data flowing to IoT Ensemble and Power BI, it’s time to expose that data on the web so that you can easily view it on any device (laptop, phone, etc) and share it with others.
Fathym hooks up users by allowing them the freedom to build a website quickly and easily by using our modular frontends. From our dashboard, users are walked through the process of building a site quickly and easily by using GitHub repositories, open-source code, the virtual assistant in the background and then any tool they choose. That means using any JavaScript framework, static site builder or no-code tool (with open hosting) of your choice.
There are recipes for folks to follow on Fathym.com, as well as templates and videos: Rest assured, there are simple ways to get your site stood up and start displaying that data.
An improved user interface for IoT applications means:
More efficiency from technicians
Easier, clearer readouts tailored to that specific industry and the data they need to acquire in a quick manner. Help those boots-on-the-ground workers solve time-sensitive problems faster.
Better predictability for hardware
With more in-depth data readouts, the people in front of the computer screens will be able to better predict when the hardware is wearing out and needs to be replaced. Easily see when efficiencies are slipping etc.
More efficiency from the manufacturing line itself
Speaking of efficiencies on the manufacturing line, data-readers will be able to search for and find inefficiencies and correct them in real time. Stacking data up day after day will give an incredibly accurate picture of expectations. If those aren’t being met, looking through the data at individual PLCs will show where the inefficiencies are happening.
Easily repeatable and reproduceable interfaces
Once people create a user interface for one industry – or company -- that dashboard can be translated to a variety of industries and/or clients who share an industry. So, for a company who works in multiple industries, solutions will be swift and scalable.
Dazzlingly displayed data
As the data rolls in, it can be displayed in dazzling ways.
Find the right tools that work for you to make interactive graphs of many kinds which allow users to cross-reference data points and see what they really mean. Dashboards are customizable and tailored to what clients need to see, all hostable on Fathym.
Great for presentations and can help with relationships with:
- VCs
- Shareholders
- New clients
- Existing clients
- Employees
Solution: IoT Ensemble and Fathym
Collect all your data using IoT Ensemble, then display it using whatever tools you’d like, and use it all to evaluate critical IoT systems. Then, those dashboards can be stood up on websites using the Fathym platform to host.
Hosting and multiple teams and Fathym
As we explained earlier in the piece, Fathym allows you to host different tech stacks under one domain. In the simplest of terms, that means using a variety of tools to create state-of-the-art user interfaces for IoT applications. It means being able to build a website from multiple different JavaScript libraries or static site builders; in other words, creating about any custom site and data dashboard imaginable. Easily. And fast!
For an IoT company working in partnership with other companies or even subsidiaries, each client company they work with can have their own website, and then multiple dashboards easily built with the technology of your choice and hosted under one domain.
Fathym is a one-stop shop solution for your IoT data needs. Collect, organize and effectively use your IoT data by creating a simple, customizable website, all hosted on the Microsoft Azure cloud.
Watch a 1-minute overview of IoT Ensemble here.
