When deciding to pick a protocol over another, we may ask ourselves several questions to narrow down our decision on which is best for us: “Have I made an investment on devices that I still need to recover? Which devices do I have? Which protocol is compatible with my devices?...”

In this article, we’ll talk about the main pros and cons of each protocol that is compatible with Neuron so you can make the best decision.

IO-Link is the most advanced industrial protocol. This is best for devices that need to carry out complex actions such as receiving information while being able to control actuators. Currently, there are more than 23,000 IO-Link devices from different manufacturers that allow endless possibilities.

In order to function correctly, we need at least one IO-Link Master, a module that connects the IO-Link devices to an industrial CPU in our installation from where we can run Neuron Edge and where we have previously installed Docker.

This protocol also allows us to connect non-IO-Link devices to our installation thanks to retrofitting, however, doing so means spending more money on adapters for each non-IO-Link device to make it IO-Link.

For all these reasons, IO-Link is a protocol that generally requires a higher initial investment if we don’t have IO-Link devices, but it places us at the forefront in terms of connectivity and in the future of IoT industrial management.

If you have already installed sensors in your installation, it might be easier and more budget-friendly to use Advantech’s WISE-EdgeLink to read data from your sensors and upload all the information to Neuron via MQTT.

Thanks to this collaboration, at Neuron we can work with 200+ different industrial protocols and, on top of that, guarantee identification and encryption when uploading the data since Neuron’s software is in charge of generating the security certificates.

Neuron also implements via MQTT gateways the limits on data upload frequency, information processing and clean-up, alarms and notifications management, and all tasks regarding storing and managing ingested data.

Thus, it’s an inexpensive system that allows us to get our money’s worth on the investment we have already made thanks to its greatest advantage: compatibility with almost every industrial protocol on the market.

If you have any questions about which protocol is best for you, you can contact our technical support team at neuron@plexo.cloud.