Nexcomm Systems, a Tampa, Florida manufacturer of IoT gateways and solutions, is pleased to announce the release of its Nexus System. This innovative system consists of a central cellular gateway and a variety of wireless SensePoint “nodes” that perform specific tasks. The nodes can be sensor hubs, RS-232 and RS-485 interfaces, CAN interfaces and more. Sensors and equipment are connected to the nodes and they transmit their data to the gateway. The gateway sends the data to the Nexcomm device server over the cellular network. From there, the data can go to the Nexcomm cloud services or be forwarded on to our customer’s own cloud services.
The number and types of SensePoint nodes are chosen to meet the needs of the application. The are combined in an a-la-carte fashion, creating a customized system from standard pieces. This allows our customers to deploy an IoT system much faster and at a much lower cost than a fully custom system. Further, there is no requirement to use Nexcomm Systems’ cloud services beyond the device server, giving our customers more options to control costs in their products.
“The Nexus System is the culmination of several years of talking to customers and understanding the issues they have in selecting and deploying an IoT system,” said Nexcomm Systems President Craig Casey. “We have designed this system from the ground up to control costs, expand options and speed deployment.”
An encrypted wireless link between the SensePoint nodes and the gateway provides local security. The Nexcomm Systems device server uses a private APN with several major cellular carriers to provide security to the cloud. Nexcomm Systems offers the air time and SIMs to ensure this security as well as to provide support and trouble shooting.
There are two gateway options in the system: The Nexus Industrial for outdoor and harsh environments and the Nexus Panel for industrial panel systems. The SensePoint Nodes include the SensePoint Industrial that has multiple analog and digital inputs as well as Dallas 1-Wire for digital sensors. The SensePoint Serial includes an RS-232 port and an RS-485 port for communication to digital controllers, PLCs and drives. Future nodes include accelerometer nodes for vibration monitoring, RTD and CT nodes for DC motor monitoring and a CAN node for interfacing wirelessly to CAN-based equipment.
The SensePoint nodes and the daughter card in the Nexus Panel are designed to be modular, making the development of custom nodes simple. This makes the cost of a customized system much lower and the time to market much faster than developing a system from scratch.
The Nexus System is available for demonstration now with full production in Q3 2022.