In The hitchhiker’s guide to I/O devices we lined up five I/O blocks and compared them on connectivity and price. All five shared something we never bothered to mention, because there was nothing to mention: the I/O count was printed on the box. A WISE-4012 has four inputs and two...
Most factory and retail cameras are essentially flat slices of the world: point them somewhere, hope nothing interesting happens behind them. The GVision 360° and 720° AI surveillance cameras take the opposite approach - four CMOS sensors edge-stitched in real time, a built-in NPU for on-device inference, and a single...
Before we touch a single piece of Peakboard, let’s quickly clarify what we are actually dealing with. LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is a low-power wireless protocol designed for small amounts of data over very long distances, sometimes several kilometers in open terrain. The radios are cheap, the batteries...
The Swedish company Axis Communications is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of network cameras and surveillance solutions. Their AXIS Q3556-LVE is a compact, outdoor-ready dome camera that comes with a 4K sensor, built-in IR illumination, and advanced analytics powered by ARTPEL, Axis’s deep learning processing unit. Beyond just capturing...
In this blog, we’ve discussed a few different ways to integrate sensors into a Peakboard application. We can find an overview of these articles in The hitchhiker’s guide to I/O devices. In today’s article, we’ll take a look at the ADAM-6051 by Advantech. The ADAM-6051 is a compact, Ethernet-based I/O...
The SCORPION 6X V2 is a rugged handheld device built for industrial environments. This compact yet powerful device features a 6-inch display, robust construction that withstands drops and harsh conditions, and impressive battery life. What makes it particularly interesting for Peakboard is that it runs Windows, making it an ideal...
CAS is a Korean company that makes industrial and commercial scales. In this article, we’ll explain how to connect to those scales with Peakboard. (Spoiler alert: It’s easy!) Install the CAS extension Our first step is to install the CAS extension. We do this directly from Peakboard Designer: To see...
Peakboard version 4.1 introduced the new BACnet data source! BACnet (Building Automation and Control Network) is an open communication protocol designed for building automation systems. It’s widely used in large buildings, factories, and smart infrastructure, for centralized monitoring and control of energy systems. In this article, we’ll take a look...
A couple of weeks ago, we gave an introduction on how to print with Peakboard, where we explained how to use the printer extension with high-level commands. In another article, we explained how to mix high-level commands with low-level ESC/POS commands. In today’s article, we’ll explain how to use the...
Over two years ago, we published two articles about Shelly products: One about how to use the button and another about how to use the power plug. A lot of time has passed since then, and many readers have come back and have actually used Shelly products in a professional...
A few weeks ago, we discussed how to print with Peakboard. We learned how to use the POS printer extension and how to use the simplified internal commands to send ESC/POS commands to the printer. In this article, we will deepen our understanding with the following: How to use the...
On this blog, we often discuss how Peakboard application can communicate with hardware components that are used in manufacturing and logistics. In today’s article, we’ll take a detailed look at a pick-by-light system from Captron. Captron is a German manufacturer based in the beautiful state of Bavaria, Southern Germany. One...
In industrial applications, Peakboard Boxes are often connected to other devices. This is true for large manufacturing machines and conveyor systems, but also for smaller devices like printers. We’ve discussed how to use Peakboard with e-ink displays, but we often still find printed tags, papers, and labels in modern logistics...
A couple of weeks ago, we discussed how to use the Bosch security cam to monitor the occupancy level of a parking lot. In today’s article, we’ll discuss how to integrate the camera image into a Peakboard application. There are two different methods: Regularly download and refresh a web image....
In this blog, we’ve discussed a few different ways to integrate sensors into a Peakboard application. You can see an overview of these articles in The hitchhiker’s guide to I/O devices. In today’s article, we’ll take a look at a sophisticated and slightly more expensive type of I/O module—an IO-Link...
The German company Bosch offers an innovative camera called FLEXIDOME indoor 5100i IR - 8MP. Not only is it a normal security camera, but it also comes with a couple of interesting AI features for monitoring public spaces. The camera can detect objects that are in its view. For example,...
Since the official release of Peakboard BYOD in 2023, more and more Peakboard users have installed the BYOD runtime on their own devices. This is especially popular in environments with special requirements for screens—for example, in food production or in extreme heat or dirt. Some of the screens commonly seen...
In part one and part two of our ProGlove mini-series, we discussed the basics of integrating ProGlove scanners into Peakboard applications. We used both the USB and MQTT modes to get the scan event and related metadata. We also discussed options to send feedback to the scanner operator, such as...
In the past few weeks, we’ve discussed two I/O modules provided by ICP DAS: the ET-2254 and the U-7560M. In this article, we’ll take a look at the Advantech WISE-4012. This module provides a network connection via Wi-Fi. It offers two digital-only outputs and four analog/digital inputs. We will look...
Peakboard applications are often used in paperless environments. But what if a piece of paper is necessary to identify a pallet, a package, or a warehouse bin? One answer is to use a paperless e-ink display. In this article, you will learn how to transfer data from a Peakboard app...
In this blog, we’ve explained how to connect various devices to Peakboard, and build beautiful applications. One family of devices is I/O devices. These are used to connect any kind of sensor, like light barriers, buttons, and temperature sensors. On the output side, we often see actors like traffic lights...
In the first part of our ProGlove miniseries, we discussed the basics of integrating ProGlove scanners into Peakboard applications. We used both the USB and MQTT modes to get the scan event, along with some metadata. In the third part of the series we will build a full blown use...
In a previous article, we discussed an I/O module made by the Taiwan-based company ICP DAS. In today’s article, we will discuss another I/O module from the U-7500 series: the U-7560. It has 6 digital inputs and 6 relay outputs. The main difference is that it supports OPC UA as...
ProGlove creates next-generation barcode scanners that are integrated into a glove, so the user can scan barcodes without having to pick up and put down a conventional barcode scanner. The scanner is always “at hand.” For readers who’ve never seen a ProGlove scanner before, here’s what it looks like: In...
ICP DAS is a Taiwan-based company that sells industrial components for automation. In today’s article, we’ll take a closer look at ET-2254, a 16-channel I/O module that provides digital input and output pins, and comes with a cool MQTT interface that makes it easy to create a stable connection to...
In the first part of our series on how to build Peakboard applications with wheel.me, we learned how to connect to the wheel.me API and get information about floors, positions, and robots. In this article, we will learn how to move the robots, and how to build a command stand...
Wheel.me is a Norwegian company with a revolutionary concept for building autonomous vehicles. They don’t actually sell an entire vehicle. Instead, they sell four intelligent wheels that can be mounted to all kinds of pallets or other trays, to transport them within a factory. The wheels have access to the...
Welcome to the second part of our Beckhoff TwinCAT series. In Part 1 - Connecting TwinCAT PLCs, we discussed the basics of connecting TwinCAT and Peakboard. In today’s article, we will talk about writing back to TwinCAT. Compared to the relatively tricky router / connection task from the first part,...
TwinCAT is one of the world’s most popular PLCs, made by the German company Beckhoff. This article serves as a basic introduction for connecting Beckhoff TwinCAT 3 to Peakboard applications. We will also cover some basic knowledge about how TwinCAT works in the backend. Installation and first steps In this...
Modbus is a standardized protocol for addressing sensors. It was invented by Schneider Electric back in the late 70s, but is still widely used. In this article, you will learn how to use the Peakboard Modbus data source to address a sensor, get the values, and do something useful with...
In today’s article, we will discuss narrowband IoT devices. Narrowband IoT devices are usually not connected to any kind of Wi-Fi or local company network. Instead, they use the cellular network to connect to a server. For technical details, see this Wikpedia article on Narrowband IoT. The device we will...
In this article, we will learn how to use lists in Peakboard Hub Online (PBHO). We will learn how to write data to a list, how to read data from a list, and how to aggregate data from a list. The data we will use is sensor data from an...
In fall 2023, a new version of the Peakboard Edge box was released. Version 1 was released in 2019 and only allows for very simple sensors with an on/off state (e.g. light sensors). Edge 2 allows for and fully supports analogue sensors that operate in a certain range. This article...
With a regular fridge, you can gain insights into the power consumption of everyday household appliances. Today, we will look at how to measure and visualize the power consumption of a fridge, using Peakboard. To take the measurements, we use the same Shelly plug we that we discussed a couple...
In another article, we talked about some basics around Shelly products. In this article, we will use a Shelly Button1 to build an alarming system. The button press can send two levels of emergency to a Peakboard application, and then reset to a normal state. In a professional environment, it...
Shelly is a Germany and US based company that provides gadgets for home automation. Their products are popular among home automation enthusiasts, because unlike competing products, you can easily access Shelly’s products with standard technologies like REST and MQTT. Other vendors desperately try to sell their own landscape, app, cloud,...