IoTize SAS is an international center for research and development in the areas of digital, wireless, microelectronic and nano technologies that are all essential components of the Internet of Things (IoT).
The IoTize R&D team works with industry leading partners in microelectronics and digital security to provide customers with a turn-key solution that dramatically reduces the risks, and costs associated with migrating existing electronic systems to the IoT. This collaboration with STMicroelectronics and Gemalto won the support of regional and national R&D funding agencies, resulting the delivery of their award-winning solution.
Easy Engineering: What are the ranges of products and what types of services do you offer?
IoTize provides a wide range of wireless devices and software tools to support the engineers and technicians who use them.
Our product lines are based on our TapNLink wireless modules. These wireless modules are for OEM companies that are designing appliances, tools and industrial equipment.
However, these same modules are also in our lines of industrial devices; the Tapioca and TapBus Modbus-wireless adapters which are used to retrofit industrial equipment and infrastructure.
To support these customers, Iotize can adapt products to specific requirements, implement proofs-of-concept for product validation, or adapt our software to customers’ specific use cases.
E.E: Which are the most innovative products / solutions and what special features do they have?
The most innovative products are our embedded software and our software tool ecosystem.
The same software is embedded in all of our wireless modules and devices. It is the foundation of our no-code / low-code approach to the IOT. Called Duetware, it consists of 2 software components. There is its lwM2M engine that pre-implements everything required in a connected device: communication, security, access control and data handling protocols. These are all features that our customers use without writing a single line of code.
In addition to the lwM2M, Duetware includes a Java Virtual Machine. This embedded JVM allows designers to do a lot with just a few lines of code. It allows them to do simple edge data processing, or to send data to literally any cloud platform.
To help them work with Duetware, we provide a complete tool ecosystem with:
- A free device configuration environment for setting up the no-code features, and for adding java code to the device’s configuration,
- A new drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG environment for creating human-machine interfaces to monitor and control connected devices,
- And a builder that automatically generates mobile apps.
IoT App Creator
Create custom HMI for appliances and industrial systems without writing a single line of code.
With IoT App Creator, your HMI practically builds itself. No coding is required. Just connect your PC to your wireless device and import your device configuration. IoT App Creator supports you with:
- Drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG user interface designer
- Libraries of standard graphical elements & controls
- Plug-in support for external graphical components
- Advanced control of data flow logic
E.E: How do your best products / solutions work?
All of our products work essentially the same way. It is a simple process of connection and configuration. Our emerging strength is in the retrofit of industrial equipment and systems with our Tapioca wireless adapters.
Retrofit is extremely easy. First, a technician connects Tapioca to an existing communication port on their equipment. Tapioca supports the most common industrial communication ports.
Then, in our configuration software, the technician sets the communication parameters, and indicates addresses where the data in the machine can be accessed. All the information that they need is found in the documentation for their equipment.
This configuration is stored on the Tapioca hardware, and is imported into our IoT App Creator where they can create a customized HMI in minutes. The resulting HMI can then be built directly into an iOS or Android app, or into a Web App.
This process of connection and configuration in many cases requires absolutely no coding at all. In the case of data logging to a cloud platform, a few lines of java code are added to the Tapioca’s configuration. However, we provide examples for leading cloud platforms so there is no need to code anything from scratch.
E.E: In what types of projects do clients use your products / solutions?
Our solution is used in products that range from consumer heating appliances to industrial infrastructure and automation systems. Today our customers use our solution to off-board user interfaces to mobile phones or tablet PCs. It is much easier to understand and manipulate complex data and parameters with these apps.
We are seeing a growing number of customers who want to use our solution for data logging for cloud supervision of their devices. To encourage this, we are actually working on a special feature that allows our customers to provision their device on their cloud with just a few clicks in our configuration software. AWS is evaluating the feature now. We hope to promote it soon for AWS and for other IOT cloud providers.
E.E: How important is innovation / R&D in your field?
R&D is a large part of what we do. The IOT is evolving rapidly with changes in wireless technologies, standards like Matter, and technologies like machine learning and AI. Our team is 80% R&D and is focused on mobiles, wireless, and security.
E.E: How do your products /solutions increase profitability for users?
For many companies, benefiting from the latest trends in preventive maintenance and production optimization means changing out legacy equipment earlier than planned. Industrial retrofit with our products allows them to explore and benefit from new technologies without making huge, unplanned capital investments.
In addition, our no-code approach overcomes many technical challenges such as wireless communication, security, mobile apps and cloud integration. Companies who want to take advantage of IOT opportunities can go from a proof-of-concept to a deployed system in one-tenth of the time, with a much shorter learning curve and fewer resources. This acceleration often means the difference between profiting from opportunities or missing them.
E.E: How can clients sustainably use your products / solutions?
Our solution promotes sustainability no matter whether our customers are creating new products or retrofitting industrial systems.
The evolutions of the IIOT and Industry 4.0 could be the death knell for a lot of legacy equipment if for no other reason than the need to keep pace with the “trends.” That would be a shame and a waste.
The possibility to bring new communication capabilities, sensors and intelligence to legacy equipment is a legitimate way to evolve wisely. These retrofit technologies can provide a new and clearer vision of legacy systems and their reliability, their energy consumption, their cost of operation. This can help companies better plan what to change and when, instead of throwing our equipment prematurely. This is the true vision of the IOT and Industry 4.0 – data providing a clearer vision of operations and triggering decisions that optimize operations and investments.
Tapioca Modbus-Wireless Adapters
Tapioca is the perfect device for retrofitting industrial equipment with wireless connectivity.
It connects directly to the fieldbus (RS232, RS485, ethernet, CAN, USB) on your equipment and takes just a few minutes to configure. It links your equipment via wireless channel (NFC, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LoRa, LTE-M, NB-IOT) to mobile phones or to the cloud. It allows the immediate creation of customized human-machine interfaces that run as mobile apps or web apps without writing a single line of code.
E.E: How is AI affecting your field of activity?
Iotize is gaining a lot of interest from companies that are implementing industrial IOT. In this area AI could be a key to implementing adaptive strategies for preventive maintenance, optimized logistics, energy management and more.
Iotize contributes to the AI evolution in several ways. The first is by helping companies capture data from legacy equipment and retrofit environments with new sensors. By doing this we help them get new data to support AI platforms.
The Iotize solution also brings additional computing capabilities to data collection with our embedded Java Virtual Machine. Using our JVM companies can collect data intelligently at the device level. It is also extremely easy to evolve the java routines in the device configuration. This makes it much easier and more efficient to change data collection mechanisms as situations evolve.
E.E: How do you see the future in your field?
Iotize sees a future where equipment and installations must be designed to be adaptable and evolve readily to changing situations.
In a future that requires easy adaptability and agility, Iotize offers an add-on collection and communication solution. We separate these from the machines’ or the systems’ functionality. This means that the collection and communication mechanisms can be evolved independently and the machines and systems become more adaptable.
E.E: What are the business plans for 2024?
Iotize will continue to support leading industrial companies like Schneider Electric where we have a history of supporting industrial users.
In addition, our emphasis for 2024 is to grow our customer base of small and mid-sized companies. These are companies that we offer great advantages with a complete no-code / low-code software ecosystem that helps them make the best of limited resources, accelerate their IOT projects, and keep pace with a rapidly changing business environment.
