Edge Device
An edge device is hardware near equipment or processes that collects, processes, or routes industrial data.
An edge device is hardware located near machines, production lines, sensors, or other industrial assets that collects, processes, stores, or routes data close to where it is generated. In manufacturing, edge devices commonly connect operational technology systems to plant networks, MES, SCADA, historians, cloud services, or analytics platforms.
Edge devices may include industrial PCs, gateways, embedded controllers, smart sensors, or ruggedized compute modules. They are often used to filter data, translate protocols, buffer records during network interruptions, run local analytics, or support real-time monitoring without sending every raw signal to a central system.
An edge device is not necessarily the same as a PLC or a sensor, although those devices may have edge capabilities. A PLC primarily controls equipment logic, while an edge device usually focuses on data acquisition, communication, and local computing. The term is also related to edge computing, which refers to the broader architecture of processing data near the source rather than only in a centralized data center or cloud environment.
Related Blog Articles
Related FAQ
Related Glossary
Ready to See How C-981 Can Accelerate Your Factory’s Digital Transformation?
