The collection, transmission, and monitoring of device data are key steps in the entire process. With the continuous updates in market demand and technological advancements, the IoT smart gateway has emerged. To better understand its value and the opportunities for its emergence, we need to discuss the development history of the collection, transmission, and monitoring processes of device machine data.

In the early development stage, when the awareness of data collection just emerged, due to the lack of sensors and the backwardness of transmission technology, most data was measured manually. The drawbacks of manual measurement are self-evident: it is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and the detectable range is very narrow, so manual measurement was quickly eliminated.

1. Initial Local Monitoring, the First Attempt at Data Collection

True data monitoring should start with local monitoring. By connecting the centralized control of devices with PLC or HMI through wired networks, local human-machine interaction and information exchange can occur, with data from devices displayed directly on PCs or HMIs.

PCs need to be installed close to the devices, requiring personnel to monitor and provide feedback 24 hours a day. At this time, human labor still dominated, and the practical significance of local monitoring was minimal, merely staying at simple data statistics.

2. The Emergence of Ethernet, Extending Physical Transmission Distance

Due to the limitations of local monitoring, people began to apply wired broadband technologies like Ethernet in data collection and transmission, extending the range of data transmission. When device nodes connect to sensors, data can be transmitted through certain conversions to Ethernet and then to terminal displays. In terms of transmission range, there was a certain expansion based on the original range.

However, the differences in protocol standards in between led to communication not being smooth, and the inherent limitations of wired networks meant that remote monitoring was impossible, creating a huge demand in the data market once again.

3. The Emergence of Gateways, Adapting to More Protocol Standards

With the emergence of 2G/3G/4G networks, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other wireless transmission technologies, remote data transmission issues saw a turning point. However, the multiple protocol standards hindered communication between devices. At this time, the emergence of gateways was very timely to adapt to more protocol standards. The gateway acts as a translator between communication protocols and data, differing from a bridge that simply transmits information; the gateway repackages the received information to meet system requirements.

The conversion capabilities of gateways combined with wireless communication protocol technologies greatly extend the distance of IoT, but IoT technology also faces unique challenges. One challenge is that many IoT nodes cannot directly connect to IP-based networks due to limitations in system memory, data storage capacity, and computing power, making it difficult to achieve the interconnection of all things. The IoT gateway can fill this gap by building a network bridge between the IP-based public network and the local IoT, using different communication protocols, data formats, or languages, even when the architectures are completely different.

In simple terms, with a gateway, the so-called M2M is no longer a narrow definition of machine-to-machine dialogue but a seamless communication between devices, systems, and people.

4. Modern IoT Smart Gateways, Promoting Predictive Maintenance of Devices

Modern IoT smart gateways play a very important role in the IoT era; they are not only the link between the sensing network and traditional communication networks. As gateway devices, IoT smart gateways can realize protocol conversion between sensing networks and communication networks, as well as between different types of sensing networks; they can achieve both wide-area interconnection and local interconnection. Moreover, IoT smart gateways need to have device management capabilities, allowing operators to manage the underlying sensing nodes, understand the relevant information of each node, and achieve remote control. The unique edge computing capabilities of IoT allow traditional factories to achieve faster and more accurate data collection and transmission during the digital transformation process.

Features of IoT Smart Gateways

Support for remote updates and maintenance. For example, Ruff’s IoT smart gateway can add supported protocols based on software upgrades at any time, providing a development interface based on JS language. Users only need to download the corresponding configuration application to modify the hardware product functions. If issues arise during the use of the gateway, there is no need for on-site repairs; modifications can be made at the software level using the Ruff Explorer remote management tool, allowing for early detection and resolution of potential problems, making maintenance smarter and ensuring more stable and reliable device operation.

Ruff serves agricultural clients

Ruff Explorer remote management tool

Secondly, modern IoT smart gateways also possess strong compatibility. With a plug-and-play design concept, they are compatible with devices and protocols from mainstream manufacturers, making compatibility easier through protocol downloads and secondary development interfaces. Since the hardware gateway is controlled at the software level, factories do not need to incur high costs to replace compatible gateway devices; they can simply modify software-level logic.

Currently, some domestic companies, such as Huawei and Ruff, produce edge computing gateways and IoT smart gateways that have had multiple successful practices in real production environments. In the engineered wood industry, automotive manufacturing, and wood processing industries, they help clients quickly and efficiently connect devices, collect and transmit data, and provide edge intelligent services nearby through their edge computing capabilities, meeting key demands for industry digitalization in agile connectivity, real-time business, data optimization, application intelligence, and security and privacy protection. The reduction in labor costs, equipment maintenance costs, and time costs is highly valuable, and this will be one of the core competitive advantages for many small and medium-sized factories in the Industrial 4.0 transformation battle.

Of course, the technical capabilities of gateways have not yet reached their endpoint. As market demand increases and IoT technology continues to improve, we believe that more comprehensive IoT gateways will continue to emerge, providing better services for the future development of IoT.

Now that you know what a gateway is, you may wonder what the benefits are of taking additional steps between sensors/devices and the cloud.

Battery Life

If sensors/devices are located in remote areas, they may require remote connections, such as satellite connections, to communicate with the cloud. As mentioned here, longer ranges often mean increased power consumption (and costs); this can be a problem for small sensors/devices with limited battery life.

If sensors can last for years instead of months or weeks, by using elevated gateways installed near the periphery or top of barns, sensors/devices only need to send data over a short distance to the gateway, and the gateway can relay data back to the cloud through a single higher-bandwidth connection.

The gateway allows sensors/devices to communicate over shorter distances, thereby improving battery life.

Conversion of Different Protocols

A complete IoT application may involve many different types of sensors and devices. Again, using smart agriculture, you may need sensors for temperature, humidity, and sunlight, as well as devices for automatic irrigation and fertilization systems.

All these different sensors and devices may use different transmission protocols (essentially the rules and formats for transmitting information). Protocols include LPWAN, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, etc.

The gateway can communicate with sensors/devices using different protocols and then convert that data into standard protocols (like MQTT) to send to the cloud.

Unfiltered Data

Sometimes, sensors/devices can generate so much data that it overwhelms the system or incurs high transmission and storage costs. Typically, in such cases, only a small portion of the data is actually valuable. For instance, security cameras do not need to send video data of empty hallways.

The gateway can preprocess and filter the data generated by sensors/devices, reducing transmission, processing, and storage requirements.

High Latency

Time can be crucial for certain IoT applications; sensors/devices cannot transmit data to the cloud and wait for a response before taking action. This is particularly true in life-or-death situations in the medical field or for fast-moving objects like cars.

By processing data on the gateway and issuing commands locally, higher latency can be avoided. However, many sensors/devices in IoT applications are too small and have too low a battery to perform processing.

The gateway can reduce the latency of time-critical applications by executing processing on the gateway itself instead of in the cloud.

Security

Every sensor/device connected to the Internet is vulnerable to hacking. Compromised sensors/devices are problematic not just for the owners but for everyone.

A few weeks ago, malware named “Mirai” was used to attack and control thousands of IoT devices. This “botnet” of devices was then used to occupy a significant portion of the Internet (more on Mirai).

The gateway reduces the number of sensors/devices connected to the Internet because sensors/devices only connect to the gateway. However, this makes the gateway itself a target and the first line of defense. This is why security must be a priority for any gateway.

In the future IoT era, IoT gateways will play a very important role; they will become the link between the sensing network and traditional communication networks.