How to Choose Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 Gateway and BLIIOT PLC Gateway BL102?

1. Foreword

Industrial IoT intelligent gateway is an inevitable product of the continuous development of industrial IoT technology, and it is the link that integrates IT and OT. Whether it is an international big brand enterprise in the field of industrial control, or a small and specialized enterprise, they have launched their own products according to market demand.

Industrial IoT smart gateways are widely used in intelligent edge computing and cloud connectivity for enterprise digital transformation. It connects the cloud, in-company IT, and OT at the production operation layer, enabling industrial data acquisition, processing, and transmission directly in the production environment. designed for IT solutions. For example, for remote monitoring of production equipment, data acquisition, failure prediction, preventive machine maintenance, equipment life, linking production process machinery and production data analysis.

Now, we make a simple comparison between the BLIIOT PLC gateway BL102 and Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 industrial IoT gateway for your reference.

Overall, it is mainly reflected in price and performance, and each has its own strengths in functions.

In terms of price: the price of the BLIIOT PLC gateway BL102 is far lower than the price of the Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 gateway.

Functionally: BLIIOT PLC Gateway BL102 focuses on converting PLC protocols of different brands to Modbus, MQTT, OPC UA protocols, and is directly compatible with AWS IOT Core, Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud, Thingsboard cloud platform, IgnitionSCADA, etc., to achieve seamless IT and OT connect. Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 gateway focuses on secondary development. Through higher-end software and hardware, it provides a function for secondary development of edge computing, so as to realize the integration of IT and OT and meet more powerful application requirements.

Therefore, when it is used to collect PLC data of different brands and convert it into an industrial Internet of Things protocol, it does not need a powerful edge computing function, but only collects PLC data to the IT system, so there is no doubt that the BLIIOT PLC Gateway BL102 is selected. When developing applications, focusing on edge computing functions, or when the project budget is very high and costs are not considered, of course, Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 gateway is selected.

2. Here are a few aspects for a brief comparison for your reference

1) Hardware

The hardware design of the Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 gateway is compact and based on rugged, reliable and durable industrial technology. The device is suitable for wall and standard rail mounting and features an energy efficient Texas Instruments ARM AM 6548 (+ Secure Boot), 2 GB DDR4 RAM and multiple interfaces including two Gbit LAN, two USB and a serial and Arduino interface that supports 4G communication.?

BLIIOT PLC gateway BL102 adopts ARM9-based embedded design, supports Linux OS, provides 1WAN port, 1LAN port, 1RS485 serial port, dual power supply redundancy design, and supports 4G/5G communication.

It can be seen that in terms of hardware, the Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 gateway and the BLIIOT PLC gateway BL102 are much higher, and the cost is naturally much higher.

2) Software

The Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 gateway is equipped with the installed Simatic Industrial OS industrial operating system. Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 gateway can be easily expanded to customize solutions with Arduino shield and mini PCIE card. It also supports Debian Linux based, high level language programming, and many other options.

The BLIIOT PLC gateway BL102 adopts Linux OS, directly integrates various types of PLC protocols, and can be used directly. It can support secondary development and provide SDK. In addition, it is directly compatible with AWS IoT Core, Huawei Cloud, Golden Pigeon Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, Thingsboard, IginitionSCADA, etc., and can be used directly.

It can be seen that the Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 gateway at the software level also has powerful functions and is more suitable for occasions requiring edge computing, while the BLIIOT PLC gateway BL102 integrates PLC protocols of different brands, as well as MQTT protocol, Modbus TCP protocol, OPC UA protocol, directly compatible with AWS IoT Core, HUAWEI CLOUD, Golden Pigeon Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, Thingsboard, IginitionSCADA, etc. can be directly connected to 9 cloud platforms and can be used directly.

3) Protocol conversion

The Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 gateway can support high-level language, so it can develop its own driver to communicate with different devices;

The BLIIOT PLC gateway BL102 directly integrates PLC drivers of various brands, and users can use it directly without writing code to realize the connection.

4) Certification and others

The BLIIOT PLC gateway BL102 has passed the Huawei Technology Cloud Compatibility Certification, AWS IoT Core Compatibility Certification, Thingsboard Certification, Siemens SIMATIC IoT2050 gateway has passed the Azure Certification, etc. In other respects, both support the OPC UA server function and both support X. 509 root certificate, all support OPENVPN secure tunnel, etc.

3. Conclusion

When it is used to collect PLC data of different brands and convert it into industrial IoT protocols such as PLC to Modbus, PLC to MQTT, and PLC to OPC UA protocol, it does not need powerful edge computing functions, but only collects PLC data from the OT operation layer to the IT system , then there is no doubt that the BLIIOT PLC gateway BL102 is more suitable, no need to care about the PLC protocol conversion problem and can seamlessly connect to AWS IOT COre, HUAWEI CLOUD, Alibaba Cloud, Thingsboard, IgnitionSCADA systems, etc. And cheap, stable and reliable, small size.

If you need secondary development applications, focus on edge computing functions, or when the project budget is very high and the cost is not considered, of course, choose Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 IoT gateway.

The above analysis is for reference only. If it is inappropriate, please correct me. https://www.iot-solution.com/