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What’s new in iNELS BUS? Expect a big boom

Přemysl Březina, the company’s product manager responsible for the development of BUS solutions, is rightly proud of this year’s news within iNELS BUS.

Not to mention that ELKO EP is launching a product this spring to “roll the market”. That is the CU3-07M mini-central. “This is the biggest and best news without debate. It is a unit that can be used almost anywhere. In hotel rooms, apartments, corridors, cottages. But the main attraction is the price, which is up to three times lower than it used to be in the past. I dare say that this will be our big sales drive in the future, “says Přemysl Březina.

In combination with the new IOU3-108M input-output unit, the CU3-07M mini-central unit is basically a complete switchboard equipment not only for smaller installations. The new I/O unit has ten inputs and eight outputs to which you can connect any sensors and outputs. Control lights, unlock locks, measure energy.

More technically, the IOU3-108M is an input-output actuator equipped with eight binary inputs, two temperature inputs and eight independent relays with potential-free switching contacts. Thanks to this, it is possible to connect up to eight different devices – switches, detectors – or use the unit to read pulses from energy meters. Each of the output contacts is individually controllable and addressable. The relays are divided into four pairs, each of which switches its common potential. The new 6-MODULE mini-central is designed for mounting in a switchboard on a DIN rail EN60715.

The result is clear – a way more efficient unit, which does not require a large PLC and connection to complex computers. The whole installation can be done in one box today. Thus ends the time when the boxes were switching, input and those for a complete solution. “Along with that, we also played with the power supply. At the end of April, we will launch the PS3-30 / iNELS, which already has a built-in bus separator, which allows us to further reduce everything. It is a stable power supply with a total output of 30 watts for powering central units and external masters within the bus wiring. It is equipped with electronic protection against short circuit, overvoltage or power or thermal overload. The previous source was also large. Today, everything is smaller, more efficient and also cheaper, which is a really good precondition for success on the market, “adds Přemysl Březina, who came to ELKO EP from a technology company, where they mainly dealt with IoT, predictive maintenance and machine monitoring.

Vendor locks are a thing of the past

This experience is useful to him today, because all product lines ELKO EP, iNELS RF + BUS and iNELS Air are gradually becoming more and more interconnected into various integrated solutions. According to Přemysl Březina, shrinking and interconnection are also the two most fundamental trends of recent times.

“Previously, all manufacturers wanted to make closed systems. They believed that they would create something unique, find their users and lock them in their product lines. It was a bit of our case, but the present clearly shows that any vendor-lock is already beginning to be a thing of the past. On the contrary, people want to combine everything with everything, and everyone must be prepared for it if they want to succeed in the future. The way forward is integration and an effort to open up to other manufacturers and solutions. Probably the simplest example is for home assistants. If you have Google Home, Amazon Alexa or Apple Siri today, you need to be able to connect to them with your products and solutions – you can’t expect them to adapt to you. But the same is true, for example, with electricity meters. Read protocols communicate over a serial line. Similar to a computer or audio equipment or air conditioning, “says Přemysl Březina.

He adds: “Today, most customers ask right away – and can this product work with this? Will it work for me? This is a huge challenge for me as a product manager responsible for the further development of the iNELS BUS series. In the coming months, we will continue to open the system, we will establish further cooperation with leading manufacturers. At the same time, humanize everything, because most people do not want to play with technology, but use their strengths and “intelligence”. That it will do things for you without you noticing. Automation systems will soon be ubiquitous. Everything will be managed, monitored, data sorted, compared and analyzed. It is nonsense to think that we will escape this trend. Manufacturers simply stop marketing ‘stupid’ things and we have nothing left, ‘he concludes with a laugh.