Challenges of tradition IoT development
To better communicate and exchange data between digital assets, many businesses harness the power of IoT. As its name implies, you are building an internal system of your own.
As the tech world grow, many companies adopt sensor data with technologies such as machine learning or predictive analytics for their IoT. These deliver an intelligent, proactive, and context-sensitive experience for employees, customers, and partners.
However, said fusion can be challenging to create. First, it requires skillful and robust resources for a seamless development process, including technical infrastructure, human resources, and financial capacity. Unfortunately, not every technology is abundant staff-wise. Some skills are scarce and hard-to-find, and that can severely affect your progress.
Most IoT solutions contain an intricate network of IoT endpoints, platforms, data of multiple functions, and back-end systems. To develop and maintain IoT applications, developers must be well-versed in running the platform & underlying service. They must also understand (or at least have someone to support and consult) big data and machine learning technologies to make sense of real-time data streams.
All of these combined conditions create pressure in terms of time and effort to make IoT applications. On top of that, the constantly changing pace of the digitalized era pushes IT teams to keep up with new advancements and abilities.
How low-code benefiting business in IoT development
It’s not that ambiguous to see that low-code technology is being favored and recognized by companies. In case you are new to this, low-code is a software development approach that helps build applications with little to no code. This emerging method skips complex programming languages and transforms the process into drags-and-drop sequences.
This poses a question: Can low-code simplify IoT development?
Thanks to the drag-and-drop framework of low-code, non-tech personnel can create digital solutions from scratch and help create IoT-centered solutions faster. Eventually, businesses can adapt to customer needs and market changes swiftly, improve overall agility, and get themselves new opportunities.
A beneficial aspect of low-code IoT leverage is application design. Application design should be easily navigable, visual, and user-friendly so that users can grasp data quickly and make decisions from it. Low-code can provide industry-standard UI design into IoT applications, giving users that seamless transition between different platforms and devices.
With cross-platform capabilities of low-code tools, companies can communicate better and integrate traditionally isolated functions while maximizing capabilities.
Moreover, low-code can help downscale the IoT application costs when working as a SaaS (software-as-a-service) platform. Businesses can create fully functional IT solutions even on a limited IT budget. Plus, it’s easier to use since it requires little to no coding experience. Also, onboarding non-tech employees on these platforms is much cheaper and faster.
Examples of how you can use cow-code
Example 1: You can use low-code to automate data gathering and fasten the transfer workflow between IoT devices. For example, you can monitor a machine’s condition using an IoT device. It should precisely detect downtime, maintenance needs, and lifespan.
A low-code application can be integrated with this device to initiate workflows that speed up and facilitate activities like maintenance and execution. Additionally, the data collected from the IoT device can be analyzed to decide whether to decommission or upgrade the machine.
Example 2: Low-code can improve IoT integration thanks to its programming distribution. Users can build and manage IoT solutions under a unified design framework.
For example, a low-code distributed IoT application collects and processes data with its two edge devices. The data is later transferred to the server for further analytics aggregation. That data stream is later sent to the database for storing, and valuable insights are displayed straight on the dashboard.
Low-code IoT integration also helps streamline the entire IoT application into one unified program. This is accessible even when the system is physically scattered in different locations. Users can focus on data analysis and data flow, instead of low-level IoT technology development.
Compared to traditional software application development, low-code IoT programming allows users to continue developing their IoT applications without having to log in to any of their devices.
Example 3: The versatility of low-code IoT is not limited there. For example, low-code technology can be integrated into manufacturing, logistics, robotics, HVAC, building, and energy management processes. The integration is useful, as companies can control and monitor their output more accurately and guarantee frequent business updates.
Moreover, an IoT platform typically has a small number of business processes. When combined with low-code, the IoT API is opened to construct new business processes efficiently.
Low-code platform for IoT
1. ToolJet
ToolJet is an open-source platform with great flexibility and extension using JavaScript and Python as the key coding languages. But of course, the platform is still open to serve logic & data transformations with other preferred languages. Developers using ToolJet can easily access any data source of application and build their own integration.
This low-code IoT platform is designed to meet the unique demands of IT teams. Streamlining operations and accelerating development are made easier with advanced security features, custom application tools, SSO support, audit logs, and many fascinating features.
2. Node-RED
Node-RED allows new and creative ways to link hardware devices with online services. With the help of a browser-based editor flow editor with a node-rich palette, flow can be swiftly deployed after a single click.
The low-code IoT is built on Node.js, making it ideal to operate on both low-cost hardware as well as in the cloud. Also, flows created in Node-Red are stored using JSON, making it importable and exportable for sharing with other people.
3. Kaa
Kaa is a flexible low-code IoT platform for your business. It has over 25 years of experience in IoT, Telecom, and Big Data. You can collect telemetry through the dashboard and control IoT devices through the cloud.
This Kubernetes-based IoT microservices architecture helps users scale the right elements with extreme performance and fault-tolerance. Kaa makes sure to encrypt the data with out-of-box authentication & authorization.
Kaa platform features range from hardware integrations, device management, and configuration management to command execution to connectivity. Various hardware types are included in the support lists, namely Sensors, Gateways, Industrial PLC, Machines, etc.
4. Akenza.io
Clients use this low-code enterprise-grade IoT platform can get white labeling support, active directory integration, private cloud deployments, and excellent security and control.
If you are having a complex IoT challenges, these features of Akenza are the reason you should choose the platform as an ideal partner:
- Worldwide LPWAN connectivity
- Device type library
- Device and connectivity management
- Cloud connectors
- Logic blocks
- Built-in visualization
5. Tulip
You can build anything with Tulip, as long as it fit the business’ existing system and processes. Tulip can build robust solutions to help you tackle challenges in operation. It can be Next-Gen MES, Electric Records Solutions (eBR and eDHR), or Visual Quality Inspection.
By combining apps into operations, material systems are managed, work order is properly tracked, production progress is visualized in real-time, and workflow is streamlined.
6. Sensative
Sensative provides a unified smart infrastructure for a disjointed world of installed and new systems through launching, leveraging, and scaling IoT solutions. The low-code IoT claims to enable service improvements, efficiency, and scalability.
The Sensative’s method of enabling data-driven operations with IoT removes data blockage and vendor lock-in to make data more accessible and actionable. The said method is referred to as Smart Infrastructure Management, which includes Smart Buildings, Smart Cities, Smart Homes, and so on.
7. Fathym
If you are looking for a Cloud-based IoT solution, Fathym is the choice, as it is the toolset for rapid cloud application assembly and deployment.
Working with Fathym can help you start your solution immediately without wasting time and money. Users can access DevOps, cloud, and IoT technologies with simplicity and control over future development.
Yet, low-code is not always the best choice for IoT
Beneficial as it is, low-code IoT is not always the best combo.
First, it tends to generate excessive codes, slowing down IoT performance. This contradicts the loT requirements of fast applications and rapid runtimes, so adding low-code into IoT can set back the process.
Second, IoT has high plurality and unpredictability for low-code platforms to adapt to. Most low-code platforms and solutions are quite simple and not advanced enough to address the IoT’s complexity fully. This sort of circumstance would require IT admins’ integration support.
Next is about security. Most IoT devices in integration have weak, less-than-minimum default security settings. This inevitably forces the IT team to assign those IoT devices to the right default security settings when integrations happen.
So, when is low-code the right choice for IoT?
When your system is not too complicated. When you require an instant solution internally.
On the other hand, if your IoT is complex, meaning it has to deal with cross-data points or requires many technologies to function, we suggest custom development as an alternative. You can craft your IoT to fit your business model best and avoid all these concerns of vendor lock-in, weak security, or under-delivered.
To learn what is the right choice for your business case, discussing with an expert should be the first approach.
Being a veteran in both custom IoT and low-code development service, our team of experts will deep dive into your project scope and research what’s best for you. Explore our IoT development & custom low-code services!
Wrapping up
With the help of low-code, IoT development is made easier in many different aspects. Automation is activated, program distribution is simplified, IoT application is streamlined, and many more. There are tons of reliable low-code IoT partners to choose from. Yet, you are not obliged to use low-code IoT for every circumstance, since low-code IoT is not enough to cover certain areas.
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