In Germany alone, there are millions of machines and devices from the pre-IoT era that are perfectly functional and will continue to serve their purpose well into the future. But how can these valuable capital goods be linked into the world of the Internet of Things? The solution is the IoT gateway concept, which featured as a major hot topic at HANNOVER MESSE 2017 - especially for Portwell, one of the world's leading innovators on the industrial PC (IPC) and embedded computer markets and a key IoT supplier of intelligent gateways and edge devices. Portwell chose the trade fair as a platform to announce the XM-1, a modular IoT gateway solution based on international patents.

The XM-1 doesn't just meet the requirements of a multi-compatible IoT gateway solution, however. It also fulfils the needs of an extensive range of IoT applications. Thanks to the unique system characteristics of the XM-1, which is exceptionally modular in structure, all the communication modules can be hot-plugged on-site without opening the system chassis. With two board choices available - ARM processor-based (more power-efficient) and X86 processor-based (high computing power) - the XM-1 supports four different communication technologies: ZigBee, LoRa, Wi-Fi, and 2G/3G/LTE (optional). What's more, conventional interfaces such as RS232/422/485 or a 4-Port ethernet switch can also be integrated.