The HMI in your pocket

[Garyhlucas]

I was mowing the lawn today, and thinking about how much I hate mowing the lawn, so I had to think of something else.  You know HMIs are really expensive still.  30 years ago I built greenhouse watering/spraying machines that could talk via a speech synthesizer because that was way cheaper like $30 than any kind of display we could find.  Actually turned out to be very popular, greenhouses are really quiet so you hear a problem from hundreds of feet away. I've had customers thank us because our machine was the only system in the greenhouse that sensed water pressure.  So a machine screaming "No water Pressure!" was a clear indication of a problem.

We use the C-more 6" HMI on our waste treatment systems.  We are using small screen because it is still perfectly readable when displayed on a smart phone.  We need the local HMI, but the reality is we use our phones way more.  We can be outside where the tanks are, watching for flow or checking tank levels and we have full control of the system. Troubleshooting is now a one person job.

However there are lots of applications where it would be really nice NOT to need a local HMI except by a cell phone app, plugged in with a USB cable, WiFi or Bluetooth.  We have another product where the customers have been asking us to supply a control panel to provide on off operation of a drive motor when flow is sensed, and timed control of a solenoid valve, plus level sensing of a tank.  Under normal operation there isn't any user interaction required.  But it would be nice to be able to adjust the timers, levels etc. if needed. We also do some small custom chemical feed systems and again the need for an HMI connected all the time really isn't needed, but would be very useful at times.

So how about a DoMost cell phone app to create an HMI on the high resolution screen we all carry?  I know the C-More does it via a web server that is built in.  Couldn't an app running on a cell phone that is far more powerful than any PLC or HMI simply read and write the PLC tags the same way an HMI does?  I'm only interested in working with DoMore PLCs myself.  Because we intend to support just one platform.

No hurry, yesterday or the day before will be fine.

[BobO]

Funny. I was just thinking about this earlier this evening.

Specifically, some time back we had the idea to build a form of HMI screen definition into Do-more PLCs, that could be rendered to apps on most mobile devices and PCs. It got delayed while we focused on BRX. More recently, there was discussion about building a PLC into an HMI. But today's thoughts were about the possibility of a hybrid approach...don't even know what that means exactly, but I really liked the idea we had a few years back, and at the same time, I'd love to build some HMI hardware. This might happen.

Word of warning: unlike the program backup/restore on the sdcard, there is 0% chance that this one happens quickly. Just sayin'.

[Garyhlucas]

Well I am happy there is thinking about it going on. I am not a fan of a PLC attached to an HMI. What does it save, like one connecting cable? Then all the wiring has to go to the door instead of to the backpanel where all the commons and power sources are? No fun trouble shooting when you have to work on a swinging door instead of a solid panel.  I always lay out panels to use the least amount of wire and no crossovers if at all possible.

To me an app that just used tags like the C-More would be way more universal. It could talk to all AD plcs not just Do-More. It wouldn't load the PLC down and in our case we might use it to connect to lots of different jobs without needing to put any code in the PLC. Nice troubleshooting tool, connect to a PLC and grab a few tags and see what is going on without making any changes or needing to put the changes in the spare PLC.

[BobO]

The integrated PLC/HMI hybrid probably won't be our short term goal, but we get a large number of requests for it. The vision we are exploring now would span PCs, conventional industrial HMIs, tablets, and phones. There is a significant investment in development...meaning...we plan to sell stuff. While your phone is a target we'd like to hit, that isn't going to pay the bills. Industrial HMIs is what will justify the development.

Anything Host builds will be Do-more specific and tightly integrated with the PLC and DmD. There are several reasons that will be true, politics being chief among them.

Sounds like you are really looking for a general purpose HMI. That isn't likely to be our focus.

[Garyhlucas]

Bob,
You say an HMI app isn't going to pay the bills.  I don't envision this as a $5 app like the C-More app, because that takes advantage of the C-More hardware's web sever and the C-More programming software which is $149.  Considering a C-More for remote access starts at around $500 I would think there is room in the middle for a smartphone software solution.  Even a local solution with USB would be useful.  We sell a product that gets installed at sites all over the US.  Every one has an HMI that only gets used when a service guy shows up once a month.  He resets the various hour meters and such, adjusts some set points and that is it.  The HMI has to be protected from weather and installed in an expensive enclosure too.

Currently we are installing C-Mores in our small waste treatment plants.  We've found the C-More app so convenient that we seldom actually use the C-more screen itself.  I can be standing on top of a tall tank or in another room while controlling a pump for testing, no helper needed.  These plants run 24/7/365 so the HMI is a critical component that the customer must have a spare on hand and programmed.  So the actual cost is now doubled.

I previously worked in the commercial greenhouse industry building watering and spraying robots. Some customers had 15 or 20 machines and keyboards and displays were a huge percentage of the control system cost on each machine.  They were not convenient and always getting damaged too, because there simply is no good place to mount one on a machine that is always moving. In fact almost no one uses a PLC for this kind of product because once you add an HMI it is no longer a low cost solution.

I constantly recommend to people to use a PLC instead of some Arduino kludge to control things.  The problem is that as soon as you add an HMI the hardware cost looks prohibitive and they do it with the Arduino.  In the end they don't necessarily get a good result, but they won't admit to that and you already lost the sale.  So the right smartphone product might drive additional PLC sales in the same way that your free programming software for the PLC does.

[Controls Guy]

How about expanding the HTTP capabilities in the Do-More itself?  I think even some user did some basic HTTP stuff already.  Maybe Host could build in some more support for user web pages hosted in the controller.

On another note:  "Is that an HMI in your pocket, or...."

[ATU]

Did you know there are a bunch of patents out there for giving a PLC Web Server capability?
I didn't know this until it was pointed out by another vendor, but I guess there are ways around it.
https://www.google.com/patents/US6640140

[racrowd]

Would this be sending a file back upon a tcp connection and maybe a string?  I guess it would still take a program to build the html file which would grab the variables and insert into the html text document.  Or maybe the files could be processed in a program for the file to be updated upon the text variable being listed a certain way in the html file. I guess the devil is how to write the values into the HTML without being hacked together.  I know you guys know a lot more about this than I do, so I'll be eager to hear the rest of your thoughts.

Also, How would html handle a value that is changing quickly?  Just rebuild and resend or would a file have to include some other more powerful method (java or something)?

[plcnut]

Here is a very rough example of webserving out of the Do-more. You can get much more elaborate, and can also use javascript on the client to update the page data without re-loading the entire html.

http://forum.hosteng.com/index.php/topic,1117.0.html

[BobO]

HTML is cool for simple reporting, not so good for HMI. I'm really not a fan as a general rule.

We are digging into developing a concept that answers all of the needs, at least to the degree that we understand them. We see targeting devices like phones and tablets just as important as industrial terminals and PCs. We are trending toward licensing the function to a PLC through several possible methods, the intent being that we can generate revenue from the sale of industrial terminals or from enabling the HMI function for devices like phones and tablets. Where there is revenue, there is a willingness to develop.

I'm using the term "industrial terminal" instead of HMI, because in the design we are considering, the screen definitions are part of the PLC program, and are rendered by whatever you have connected: phone, tablet, or anything else.

Still a very abstract concept, but the primary goals are: 1) tight integration with the PLC program, 2) support a wide range of data presentations, from status reports for the VP, to troubleshooting aids for a line technician, to HMI screens for the line operator, and 3) develop once and render everywhere.

Another thing that we recognize is that conventional HMIs were not developed around modern data appliances. We think that the young guys coming out of school see a different set of needs than the operator panel of 15 years ago. Time to rethink the problem.

So yes, "The HMI in your pocket". We hear you.

[Garyhlucas]

Okay guys,
You gave me the analog modules we needed to move our waste water treatment products over to BRX.  Started one of my young engineers into integrating them into our system today.  So no excuses, lets have the HMI in our pocket app for BRX.

Oh, and good job on getting those analog modules out and the new version of designer!

[JimBesselman]

There are a number of Android HMI apps that use Modbus TCP I don't have an iphone but I suspect there are similar apps. So if your phone can link to the PLC network, that would be one option. I've done this before and it works ok, but distributing it to customers that are not technical can be an issue. If MQTT become available to the DoMore (and I really hope it does) that will open up other options for simple dashboards as well.

Another option might be with a bluetooth "gateway" plugged into the PLC serial port. I've also use a bluetooth interface from Adafruit to make a wireless connection to a click for programming. If I remember correctly that worked OK. I've not explored the bluetooth connection to a phone but I suspect its probably not to difficult. (Famous last words that often come back to haunt me).

[Garyhlucas]

Jim,
We use C-more and the app for that extensively.  However we are building standalone controllers that talk to a master PLC but we do not want to add screens and code to the C-more for those panels because the C-more never changes but those standalone panels are custom to each job. Yet we can't justify the cost of an ethernet HMI just to change a couple of parameters every so often. The C-More HMI is really important so customers often must buy a spare, so using a less expensive model doesn't save money because now you need a different spare instead of one spare for two HMIs. So an app that lets you build a simple HMI for a Do-More on a phone would be super.

[timk]

I know this is an old topic but I ran across this, thought it was interesting.

http://www.maplesystems.com/products/graphic-hmi/rmi5001/index.htm

Thanks

[Bolt]

A reply to a super old post, but what's Host's temperature on such a project nowadays? I know a lot has changed in the world since this was started 8 years ago, but the need is still there, arguably more-so? I'd love a (Host designed/manufactured) full-featured solution.

Quite frankly, I think the C-More line falls flat on it's face in several aspects. It can graph, but graphs won't survive a power cycle or program update. It can do remote access, but the experience over phone or PC is fairly grainy, doesn't utilize the device's keyboard, etc. The dev software doesn't even have a find function, let alone replace.

This is just scratching the surface really. I've started using Weintek devices that do much, much better in these departments, but no symbolic access, only native Do-more. Still better than modbus only, but once you start modularizing your code, doing logs, etc, it would be so much easier to be able to access User Data Types natively.

I don't know how it looks on your end, if it would be something that is built into/activated in the next generation Do-more, or a standalone device similar to RHMI's currently. These are just "legacy" type solutions, and I've not used CODESYS/WebVisu, but it seems like they do a lot of things "differently" than the old status-quo. The market is full of HTML5 HMI's nowadays, make it work with that?