What is an industrial modem?

Industrial modem is a wireless terminal device specially designed to convert serial data into IP data or convert IP data into serial data through a wireless communication network. It is an essential data transmission unit in the Internet of Things. Industrial modems are widely used in transportation, meteorology, hydrology, water conservancy, geology and other industries. With the development of the Internet of Things, more and more industrial modems are used in all kinds of data transmission systems.

 

Industrial modem selection method

There are many manufacturers of industrial modem devices on the market. Although the functions are similar, the performance is different. How to choose a product suitable for system applications requires a certain amount of expertise, and here is a detailed introduction on how to choose a suitable industrial modem product.

1. From the functional requirements of the product, whether to do data transmission, or to do SMS transmission, or both, some industrial modems can not do SMS transmission. Also consider the maximum packet size that the industrial modem can transmit for data transmission to meet the maximum packet size in the system application. The maximum packet that the industrial modem can transmit should be greater than or equal to the maximum packet in the application system, otherwise the data transmission will lose data. Some manufacturers' industrial modems have a crash restart when the transmitted data packets exceed the industrial modem maximum data packet.

2. From the power consumption, if systems are powered by batteries, low power applications must be considered, the power consumption of industrial modems is relatively high, it is necessary to fully consider the static power consumption of industrial modems, whether it is low-power consumption design, such as intermittent operation mode, sleep wake-up mode design, or provide controllable external power interface;

3. From the secondary development, some manufacturers’ industrial modems are very cheap,  they only encapsulate the communication module into the industrial modem. There is no encapsulation of the underlying protocol. The client also needs to use the underlying AT instruction set, which is very inconvenient;

4. From the communication module that the product adopts, the communication modules used by industrial modem manufacturers are different. Some industrial modems use modules produced by low-end manufacturers, whose performance is not stable enough and adaptability to harsh environment is very poor, it is easy to malfunction. Generally, USRIOT modules are quite good;

5. From the production and processing of products, in order to save costs, some industrial modems manufactured by manual welding adopt the manual welding, the welding of equipment components is messy and the cleanliness is poor. The overall performance of such products can not be guaranteed, the failure rate is higher;

6. From the design strength of the company, the design strength of the product determines the quality of the product itself and the quality of service. products of some companies are OEM products and have no technical support strength. This should be fully understood when purchasing products;

 

In short, the choice of industrial modem should consider all factors, price is not the only factor to choose, it is important to choose a product suitable for the system.