Industrial IoT and edge intelligence company Foghorn Systems has recently announced a solution that brings real-time analytics, machine learning and AI capabilities to Android-based mobile devices such as smartphones.
Called Lightning mobile, the technology is intended to bring edge computing information to operational technology and field professionals without having to rely on connectivity to the cloud. With better access to data and insights, these professionals will be able to make better decisions and assess industrial workflows on the go.
Foghorn App. (Image courtesy of FogHorn)
Lightning mobile is a software solution, which means that it opens up new opportunities to build and market off-the-shelf solutions based upon it. According to the company, the software also comes with a support system to deal with the high-volume deployment of the devices.
By enabling industrial edge computing on mobile devices, the company aims to open the door to new edge computing applications across industry. Applications include advanced barcode image recognition via the device camera, smart power tools, advanced fleet applications, portable factory environmental monitors, and device health and battery monitoring.
“Over 85% of mobile operating systems worldwide are Android,” said Mike Guilfoyle, Director of Research at ARC Advisory Group. “For users, more of their operations technology staff can leverage edge intelligence for real-time analytics in the field, without the restriction of fixed-position devices. By enabling OT-staff access to edge computing on handheld Android devices, it will expand the pool of thinking about what is possible at the edge. This will inevitably lead to new use cases for industrial and commercial organizations.”
FogHorn’s Android App, in addition to providing the core analytics and ML capability on the live data, supports ingestion of all the Android event data coming from various sources. This provides a view of actionable insights right on the device, and aims to offer an efficient way to process digital, audio, video and image-based content.
Another interesting industrial IoT application that uses smartphones is an AI-based system that delivers work instructions to field personnel using smartphones and wearable devices, from Contextere. Check out that feature story here.