Industrial IoT (IIoT)

Industrial IoT (IIoT) means machines, meters and buildings fitted with sensors and connected to the internet, so their readings reach software far from the machine. IoT stands for the Internet of Things. The word "industrial" shows that it is used in factories, power plants, farms, ports and buildings, not in phones or homes.

Here is how it works in general. A sensor on the machine measures something, such as temperature or pressure. A small device next to the machine collects the readings and sends them over a wired or wireless network. The readings reach a cloud or a plant server, where they are stored as time series data. Software then shows them on a dashboard, raises alerts, or starts an action. Some processing is done near the machine, as described in edge computing.

Some parts of this are hard. Old machines have no sensors and no network, so sensors must be added later; see the page on retrofit sensors. Machines from different makers use different message formats, so a gateway has to translate between them. Readings must also be trusted, because a dirty sensor or a loose cable gives wrong numbers. And the benefit must be larger than the cost. Sensors on every machine produce far more data than anyone reads, so plants usually begin with the few machines whose stoppage costs the most. The plant owner pays, in the hope of fewer stoppages, less energy used and fewer visits by technicians.

Take, for example, a cold storage for vegetables. A sensor sends the room's temperature every minute, and a message goes to the manager's phone if it rises above 6 degrees Celsius. Consider a water pump station in a city, where flow readings are checked from one control room instead of by visiting each pump. Say a maker of compressors fits sensors in the machines it sold and watches them for faults, which is the basis of predictive maintenance.

Many pages describe the products. See the IIoT platform, retrofit sensors for old machines and SCADA. The three layers of a typical connected product are described in IoT architecture.

How is it different from consumer IoT? A smart bulb or a fitness band is for one person at home. Industrial IoT must work in dust and heat, run for many years and be secure, because a wrong reading or an attack can stop a plant; see operational technology security.