IoT applications are set to drive $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion in economic value in 2025. You may question this overwhelmingly large number, but the impacts of IIoT are revolutionary. To give you a few examples, IIoT enables organizations to manage fuel, air pollution, lighting, and temperature levels from any device. It provides predictive vehicles, factory equipment, space robots, and heart monitor maintenance. It’s starting to make a little more sense now, right?
Of course, enterprises with this power level also have a greater responsibility to ensure the performance and health of their IIoT connectivity. This article will take you through the top IIoT monitoring solutions to help them do just that in 2023 and beyond.
What is IIoT?
IIoT stands for Industrial Internet of Things, meaning using smart sensors and technologies on machinery (such as vehicles and factory equipment) to empower and improve industrial operations.
Developers have connected online to appliances since the 1980s. One of the first examples in history is a Coca-Cola machine connected to the internet that enabled consumers to check if the refrigerator was stocked and if their drink was cold before physically going to purchase it.
In the 2010s, organizations everywhere made smart sensors “tagging” a part of everyday operations, monitoring and amplifying the work of anything from mall lights to space robots at scale. IIoT increases process visibility and machine uptime, improves operational efficiency and reduces costs.
IIoT vs. IoT: what’s the difference?
The Internet of Things (IoT) encompasses the network of physical devices, vehicles, appliances, and other objects embedded with sensors, software, and connectivity capabilities. These devices are connected to the internet and can collect and exchange data with each other, often without human intervention. IoT is focused on consumer-oriented applications, such as smart homes, wearable devices, and connected appliances.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is a subset of IoT that specifically relates to industrial applications and processes. It refers to the network of connected devices, machinery, sensors, and systems used in industrial settings, such as manufacturing plants, oil refineries, power generation facilities, and transportation systems. IIoT aims to improve operational efficiency, automate processes, enhance safety, and enable predictive maintenance in industrial environments.
3 things to look for in IIoT monitoring solutions
It’s essential to get your company’s specific needs clear when choosing an IIoT connectivity monitoring solution. Below are some critical components you should consider when selecting an IIoT monitoring solution for your enterprise:
Easy integrations – Verify that the solution you get seamlessly connects to your systems. Otherwise, you may burn budgets and unnecessarily wait for the integration to be completed. FirstPoint’s IoT connectivity monitoring solution is easy to integrate and user-friendly, so you don’t have to waste your resources or even assign a specific Telco team to integrate and manage it.
Self-management – Choose an IIoT monitoring solution that makes your team’s life easier and is easily customizable, so you can ensure that it meets your needs. Similarly, self-manageable platforms will give you more control, so you can monitor your devices and network effectively without being dependent on this third-party provider.
Added security – Fake cell towers, signaling attacks, SMS attacks, mobile IP data attacks… you name it, and your IIoT devices are likely exposed to it. Therefore, IIoT monitoring is incomplete without added security. At FirstPoint, we offer advanced cellular network security to all traffic types including signaling, data, voice and SMS.
The Top 8 IIoT Monitoring Solutions for 2023
If you feel overwhelmed reviewing countless IoT connectivity monitoring solutions, we get you – mainly since only some of them target industrial IoT, and even those vary widely. We’ve gathered the best eight for a quick comparison to simplify your selection process.
1. Senseye PdM
Senseye PdM offers scalable, cloud-based, predictive machine maintenance for maintenance and operations teams, whether they want to keep using their current infrastructure or upgrade to a new one. It studies ongoing machine health, so it can alert of issues that require the teams’ attention while it’s still easy to resolve them. Alerts are automatically organized by order of importance. Teams can set KPIs and track performance, such as reduced downtime.
Pros:
Reduced unplanned machine downtown and maintenance costs
Reduced need for manual analysis
Cons:
The dashboard isn’t intuitive
When the product first learns new machinery, it can’t initially distinguish between temporary and acute challenges
Pricing: The company doesn’t publicly disclose its pricing.
Customer review: “With the support of the system, the lost time has been avoided by completing preventative maintenance during periods of scheduled downtime, before the degradation and catastrophic failure of an asset” – Dylan, packaging and containers company, 10,000+ employees (source).
2. Datadog
Datadog is a unified, end-to-end IoT monitoring platform. It includes 600+ turn-key integrations that give visibility of all your clouds, servers, apps, and teams in one place, providing a better context for your data. You can build real-time, interactive dashboards that visualize this contextual data and make it easier to improve business performance proactively.
Pros:
Great visibility of applications
A lot of integrations
Effective notifications
Cons:
Some customers experience higher-than-expected billing due to added features
The interface can sometimes be confusing
Some documentation is lacking or outdated
Pricing: Can range from free to $23 per host per month.
Customer review: “At all times, this software warns about the performance of each program… allowing work without complications and with 100% performance for greater agility and without delays” – Owen, mid-market company (source).
3. FirstPoint
FirstPoint simplifies IoT connectivity and security in all cellular networks while reducing costs. It gives you unprecedented multi-IMSI and eSIM customization and control by allowing a list of identifiers on each SIM profile – and you can switch between identifiers and profiles as many times as needed.
You also get an advanced self-service portal and API for further customization, a data protection hub, and robust security tools for enhanced device protection. FirstPoint is easy to use for IT-oriented teams, so there’s no need to budget for Telco teams to make the most of it.
Pros:
A protection hub that provides additional security beyond what’s built into the device
Advanced self-service portal and API
Extensive control and customization (bootstrap/multi-ISMI/eSIM management)
Easy integrations
Pricing: Please get in touch with us to get a quote.
Industry review: “These winners’ commitment to securing devices and networks sets them apart. We are certain these innovators will continue to lead the market into the next decade and beyond” – Rich Tehrani, TMC’s CEO, following FirstPoint’s 2022 win of the lucrative IoT Evolution Security Excellence Award.
4. TeamViewer
TeamViewer provides remote access, monitoring, and management of devices, including industrial machines and robots, which reduces equipment maintenance costs and time. With an access network of 1,100 routers across 200 countries, device visibility, and industrial-grade security, organizations can take action in bulk and scale as fast as they need.
Pros:
Connect and manage devices across the world from a single source
Reliable cybersecurity
Simple to use
Cons:
The dashboard could be simplified further
Too many notifications and pitches to upgrade your program
Pricing: Prices range from 289 Israeli shekels a month to 629 Israeli shekels a month, billed annually. The company doesn’t publicly disclose enterprise pricing.
Customer review: “The software’s security has offered clients peace of mind” – Matt, enterprise company.
5. Galooli
Galooli offers remote, sustainable energy monitoring and management that gives you the entire site and vehicle status visibility so you can see how your assets are operating, where your vehicles are, and how you’re doing with energy usage. Then, take action from wherever you are to reduce your carbon footprint and increase your bottom line.
Pros:
Real-time reports that help predict and solve issues ahead of time
Access from any device
Export reports in a variety of formats
Pricing: The company doesn’t publicly disclose its pricing.
Customer review: “The software is user friendly and is easy to learn and use; the fuel module is also very impressive and accurate” – Justus, security and investigations company.
6. Particle
A full-stack PaaS that’s entirely reprogrammable, Particle helps companies build and digitize connected machines. With APIs, SDKs, and documentation that aim to simplify your work – plus security and connectivity that are taken care of – you’re free to customize applications for your exact needs.
Pros:
Provides better data with IoT monitoring
Helpful support from Particle’s team and user community
Cons:
You’re required to integrate Particle hardware into your IoT devices
Not enough programming languages are supported
Challenging to manage systems while working offline
Pricing: The company doesn’t publicly disclose its pricing.
Customer review: “They make the hardware part of IoT dev less painful. I don’t have a hardware background, so I like that provisioning a new particle device is super easy and that writing firmware and getting it to sync to your device is simple” – Verified reviewer in consumer goods, enterprise company.
7. Splunk
Splunk is a unified security platform that helps organizations take faster, more effective data-based actions. It enables you to modernize security operations, gain real-time, contextual visibility of your tech stack health (including easy search options), then proactively discover and fix issues – or identify opportunities for innovation and growth.
Pros:
Combine data from all your systems
Real-time data visualization
Works both with cloud providers and on-premises
Cons:
It can take time to figure out the most effective platform usage
Requires lots of system resources
It offers a slow interface for heavy users
Pricing: Starting at $15 per host per month, billed annually.
Customer review: “Splunk allows us to collect, process, and store information in… whatever format we like… It can be simply deployed and configured on any cloud provider, on-premises, or a hybrid of the two” – senior business manager, non-government services industry, $500M-1B company.
8. Hologram
Hologram equips IoT devices across 200+ countries to ensure reliable, secure cellular connectivity at all times. A dashboard and REST API provide full visibility of IoT deployment alongside actionable data that helps optimize your operations.
Pros:
Supports a wide variety of hardware architectures
Quick device deployment
Helpful customer service
Cons:
Customer support is only in hours that make sense in the US (so it might be a challenge if there’s a time difference) and only via email.
There isn’t enough flexibility with SIM card activation/deactivation or payment.
Pricing: There is a wide range of pricing models available.
Customer review: “Hologram has worked with us to make sure our needs are met” – Cord, mid-market company.
Which IIoT monitoring solution is best for you?
As more organizations digitize and competition becomes fiercer, it’s never been more critical to have a robust monitoring solution for your everyday IIoT operations. Make sure you choose a solution that fits not only your company’s current IIoT requirements but the company’s future plans too. To make the best choice, decide on your top critical IIoT monitoring needs, and remove any solution that doesn’t meet these requirements from your list.
If your needs include easy integrations, scalability, all-in-one self-manageable, user-friendly portals, and stronger-than-ever security, let us show you what FirstPoint can do for your IIoT connectivity. Book your demo here.
