As part of CRN’s 2024 Internet Of Things 50, here’s a look at 10 of the coolest and most noteworthy vendors who are innovating and making big moves within the industrial IoT space.

Industrial solutions are expected to capture a large portion of IoT spending by businesses in the coming years, underlining a significant opportunity for solution providers to identify and work with the best vendors in the space.

According to research firm IDC, discrete and process manufacturing are the two industries that are expected to command the most global IoT spending, forecasted to account for more than one-third of total expenditures through 2027. Utility companies are also expected to spend significant sums of money on IoT projects, behind the category of professional services.

This is good news for industrial IoT vendors who are developing a variety of solutions, both hardware and software, to address the needs of businesses in heavy industries.

When it comes to running data analytics on industrial data to improve business processes, that alone represents a “huge, untapped market,” according to Joseph Zaloker, head of business development and global alliances at Miami-based solution provider Klika Tech.

“Pick any of these major manufacturers that have high-value assets. There’s still a lot of information that’s not being used or generated,” he said.

For the 2024 Internet of Things 50, CRN picked the coolest and most noteworthy vendors who are innovating and making big moves within the industrial IoT space. What follows are descriptions of each company, which range from Cognite and Honeywell to ThinkIQ and Tractian.

Cognite

Girish Rishi

CEO

Cognite looks to inject data management and AI into industrial operations, with industrial digital twins and improved contextual­ization among its promised capabilities. The Norway-based vendor has updated its Data Fusion data operations to feature integrated root cause analysis workflow enhancements and a GenAI-driven industrial data search, among other enhancements.

Honeywell

Vimal Kapur

CEO

Automation and energy transition are among the areas this 100-plus-year-old giant in industrial technology has realigned its portfolio around this year, recently debuting its Advance Control for Buildings platform for automation and improved efficiency as part of the strategy. Charlotte, N.C.-based Honeywell recently boosted its OT/IoT cybersecurity capabilities through the acqui­sition of SCADAfence and continues to offer the customizable Connected OEM platform for industrial IoT, with the ability to get equipment online and provide visibility.

Infinite Uptime

Raunak Bhinge

Founder, CEO

Predictive maintenance and plant reliability are part of the prom­ises of Infinite Uptime’s platform, which offers capabilities in anomaly detection and downtime potential. The India-based company uses acoustics, temperature and other parameters as part of its trend analysis and positions its products as helping with machine diagnostics and asset optimization, with specialties in cement, steel, metals and other industries.

IOTech

Keith Steele

CEO

IOTech has made its Edge Central platform generally available, offering the potential to unlock more edge data for users across heterogenous OT systems. The U.K.-based vendor’s platform is the commercial, industrial-grade version of the open-source EdgeX Foundry, bringing an open approach to edge data accessibility, insight and management.

Johnson Controls

George Oliver

Chairman, CEO

Johnson Controls is leveraging IoT and AI to enable smarter build­ings for its customers, with offerings around making data actionable, getting more insight from equipment and environments, plus social distance monitoring and contact tracing. The Ireland-based com­pany also positions its technology as aiding with insider security, cybersecurity risk prevention, false alarm reduction and better controlling carbon emissions, and gained a boost last year with the acquisition of digital workplace and IoT provider FM:Systems.

Samsara

Sanjit Biswas

Co-Founder, CEO

Samsara’s recent innovations in its connected driver and fleet offer­ings include general availability of a Connected Forms application for frontline workers to report inspections and incidents digitally, potentially reducing operational risk. The San Francisco-based company’s Connected Operations Cloud is leveraged by users with fleets to save on fuel, lower insurance premiums, lower mainte­nance costs and other benefits, according to Samsara, which also features video-based safety and vehicle telematics offerings.

Schneider Electric

Peter Herweck

CEO

IoT-enabled electrical grids, connected room products for energy efficiency and edge devices for multichannel shopping experiences are some of the ways this nearly 200-year-old company continues to bring on the next iteration of IoT. France-based Schneider Electric continues to forge deeper partnerships with NTT Data, Cisco Sys­tems and Microsoft to bring the benefits of IoT to a wider audience.

Siemens

Roland Busch

President, CEO

Siemens’ growth in the IoT space includes the acquisition of eBus and eTruck charging vendor Heliox, collaboration with Amazon Web Services’ IoT SiteWise Edge offering and more capabilities in its Industrial Edge ecosystem. The nearly 180-year-old Germany-based vendor’s recent Industrial Edge innovations range from more IoT devices to low-code development environments and a software portal for managing IoT offerings.

ThinkIQ

Doug Lawson

Founder, CEO

Smarter manufacturing is the promise of ThinkIQ’s Software-as-a- Service platform, with AI insight coming from internal and external raw data. The offerings from Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based ThinkIQ were enough to land an undisclosed amount of investment from Mit­subishi alongside a collaboration agreement, although the vendor’s wares have served customers in industries ranging from food to pharmaceuticals to mining.

Tractian

Igor Marinelli, Gabriel Lameirinhas

Co-Founders, Co-CEOs

This startup offers sensors for monitoring vibration, temperature, energy use and other measures aimed at preventing downtime and improving equipment diagnoses. Atlanta-based Tractian, founded in 2019, says its sensors connect to 4G networks in seconds and bring data from machines to the cloud in industries ranging from automo­tive to packaging, with maintenance management software to aid users with work order management, integrations and other actions.