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Last updated: 2022-04-26 05:10 (UTC)

HMI Droid (Odrid HMI)

HMI Droid enables you to use your phone
or tablet as a mobile operator panel
over mobile internet, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth® 2.

Versions for Windows, Linux
and JRE™ under development.

Examples of different use

  • Engineering and automotive
  • Process industry
  • Petrochemical industry (on ATEX rated devices)
  • Andon-systems
  • Material handling systems and automated warehouses
  • Building automation
  • Home automation
  • Telemetry
  • Forklift computer
  • Greenhouse climate control
  • Wind and solar power systems
  • Commissioning
  • PLC and HMI training (Student licenses available)
 HMI android app touch SCADA smartphone phone application mobile operator panel human machine interface andon HMI android tablet app

Advantages

  • Excellent technical support.
  • Free updates.
  • Pay once! No in-app purchases. No subscriptions.
  • Industrial Grade.
  • Communicates directly with your controllers, no need for intermediate servers.
  • Long expected life cycle (the predecessor is still in use after more than 20 years).
  • RAD - Graphical HMIs with multi touch function can be created in minutes.
  • Virtually unlimited number of panels (pages), objects and variables.1
  • Powerful but still easy to use.
  • Very low price vs. performance.
  • Does not require any third-party services.
  • Genuine native app.
  • Can be used with more than 20130 different Android devices.
  • Can be installed on Chromebooks.
  • iOS/macOS-versions compatible with iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Mac.

A panel (page) can contain the following types of objects

  • Texts (Labels) in different sizes.
  • LEDs displaying the status of boolean variables with different colors.
  • Numerical fields that displays the value of a variable and where you can also change the value in a dialogue.
  • Buttons for manipulating variables or for navigate between different panels (pages).
  • Images in png format.
  • Slider bars for changing value of numeric variables.
  • Bar indicators for displaying value of numeric variables.
  • Line Graphs to show e.g. trend curves logged by the controller.
  • Checkboxes to display and modify logical variables.
  • Radio buttons for displaying and modifying numerical variables.
 HMI android slider app Bar Indicator HMI Droid Android app hmi android line chart graph app HMI android checkbox

Features (new in bold)

  • Easy navigation between panels (pages) by using swipe gestures or with buttons.
  • Parameters for communication e.g. IP address, port number, protocol, etc. can be specified per panel (page).
  • Automatic polling of all variables displayed in the current panel (page), no need for separate tag list.
  • Many formats for numeric variables such as 16 and 32 bit integer, unsigned, hex, ASCII, float (IEEE 754), TIME_OF_DAY etc.
  • Prioritized event-driven transfer to the controller.
  • Panels (pages) are edited in the measurement unit dp (Density Independent Pixels).
  • Life bit for monitoring HMI Droid in the controller (function similar to the coordination area in Siemens S7).
  • Auto-scaling enables the use of the same panels (pages) on devices of different sizes.2
  • Numeric variables can be displayed as predefined text for example alarms, sequence steps etc.
  • Detailed diagnostics of connection and communication through system variables.
  • Separate variable areas for system and local variables.
  • Possibility of automatic return to the start panel (page) after some time of inactivity.
  • Selectable order for high and low words of 32-bit variables in the Modbus protocols.
  • Poll interval can be set do save data traffic or battery.
  • Support for Arabic2, Baltic2, Central European, Chinese (GB2312, BIG5), Cyrillic, Eastern European, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese (Shift JIS), Korean2 and Turkish character sets.
  • Support for full screen / hiding the Action Bar.2
  • Ability to test run panels (pages) in the development tool HMI Droid Studio.
  • LED-objects can be displayed as rectangles and in any size e.g. for Andon-systems.
  • Background color for panels (pages) can be selected.
  • Change Modbus Device ID with GUI objects during operation.
  • Backward compatible with LEDpanel with regard to *.led-files.
  • Constant variable area.
  • Password fields.
  • Floating point and hexadecimal number formatting.
  • Timestamp for panel (page) files.
  • Hyperlinks.
  • Document information in the panel (page) files.
  • Connect objects directly to each other.
  • The maximum number of Modbus registers to read in one block can be set.
  • The high and low bytes in a 16-bit Numeric variable object can be accessed.
  • Animated image buttons.
  • Button action for opening the options menu in full screen mode.
  • Fixed-Point Data Types.
  • Support for Unix time format in the numeric variable object.
  • Underflow and Overflow status bits for the Bar Indicator
  • Extended addressing range for Siemens S7 datablocks.
  • Write only option for manipulating variables with Buttons.
  • Concurrent communication with multiple PLCs in the same panel (page).
  • Support for Byte data type.
  • Support for bitwise operations on word variables.
  • Support for panels (pages) with both landscape and portrait orientation. HMI Droid 1.7.8.89 (Android)
  • Support for Android TV. HMI Droid 1.7.8.90
  • Customizable title in the Change value dialog.
  • Slide show mode. (Android)
  • Support for multiple Device ID for Modbus (Android and iOS).
      HMI android radio button phone smartphone tablet droid plc modbus tcp rtu Wi-Fi Bluetooth HMI android radio button phone smartphone tablet droid plc modbus tcp rtu Wi-Fi Bluetooth

Planned protocols

Communication protocols in bold are available in the current Android-version of HMI Droid. Other protocols in roughly the order they will be implemented.
  • COMLI 2
  • Modbus RTU
  • Modbus/TCP Class 0
  • Modbus/TCP Class 1
  • SattBus COMLI 2
  • Siemens Fetch/Write (for e.g. Siemens Step 7 300/400) 2
  • Siemens S7 Communication (ISO on TCP)
  • MQTT
  • VBus® (for RESOL® controllers for solar panels)
  • Protocol for Mitsubishi A and Q systems.
  • Modbus/TCP Class 2
  • EtherNet/IP
  • RK512

Upcoming features (roughly in the order they will be implemented)

  • New variable areas for counters and timers.
  • Support for Siemens S5TIME format.
  • Support for split-screen mode. Watch demo here!!
  • Support for 64 bit integer and floating point variables.
  • 2-axis Joystick object
  • More colors for LEDs.
  • Function blocks for e.g. MIN, MAX, SUM etc.
  • Two way function blocks e.g. SCALE, LOBYTE, HIBYTE, SQR, LOG, SIN, INV.
  • Hierarchical navigation between panels (pages).
  • Automatic or manual password protected connection.
  • Ability to program logic statements etc.
  • Cross reference list in the development tool.
  • Notifications for alarms and other events.
  • Validation of identity for connected controller.
  • Custom menus.
  • Logging of data in a local database.
  • Dedicated string variable object.
  • Oscilloscope function for numerical and logical variables.
  • Simple graphic objects.
  • More file formats (bmp, jpeg, gif) for image objects, and backgrounds.
  • Toggle buttons and switches.
  • Selectable characteristic for Slider Bar, e.g. linear, logarithmic etc.
  • Support for right-to-left scripts.
  • Scales to be used with bar indicators and line charts.
  • More Languages.
  • Support for serial ports (e.g. USB OTG).
  • Identifiers for variables and objects.
  • XY plots.
  • Extended text handling.
  • Wi-Fi Direct.
             

System requirements

  • Android 5.0 / Chrome OS 53.0 / iOS 10.0 / macOS 10.15 or later.
  • External storage must be available. (Not to be confused with SD Card.)
  • Windows or Linux with WINE to create and edit panels (pages).

Over Wi-Fi, response times of about 20 ms can be achieved. For mobile internet the response time wil be longer, but it may fall below 100 ms.

Modbus and Modbus/TCP are registered trademarks of Schneider Automation Inc.

S7 and STEP 7 are trademarks of Siemens AG.

Android is a trademark of Google Inc.

HMI Droid Studio

Panels (pages) are created quickly and easily using the development tool HMI Droid Studio that runs on Windows PC. A free version of the development tool can be downloaded here. There is also a paid version of the development tool available on the Windows Store.

HMI Droid Studio - example           HMI Droid example

Changing a numeric variable

To change the value of a numeric variable in the controller you only need to touch upon the value which opens a dialog for input. The dialogue Change value can show variable name, data type, and how the value should be entered as well any comment entered in the variable in the HMI Droid Studio.

HMI android app HMI android app      HMI android app


LEDpanel application on HMI Droid

Authentic older LEDpanel application that displays signals from robots.
The buttons are used to nagivate between different panels and to send a start signal.
(Panel is actually designed to run on PCs with 800 x 600 pixels screen, 'Super VGA', but has been scaled up and centered automatically to fit this device that has a workspace of 1280 x 696 dp.)

LEDpanel ideautomation.se

HMI Droid for home automation with EASY mini PLC

Control of outdoor lighting and garage door with tablet/smartphone and WiFi PLC from XLogic Sweden.

In addition to lighting and garage doors HMI Droid can be used to monitor and control heating, ventilation, awnings, heaters, outlets etc.

HMI Droid android home automation tablet app HMI Droid android home automation smartphone phone app


Upcoming programming language in HMI Droid ( Implementation in progress )

Version 2.0 of the HMI Droid will include a powerful programming capability that can be used to improve the HMI functions or even to use HMI Droid as a PLC-system!

Below are some preliminary examples of what the PLC program code will look like.

PROGRAM HMI_Droid_example_1

//
// Adding numerical values from different PLCs and making the result
// available in the local variable area for presentation in the panel
//
Local.R400 := PLC0.Register.R200 + PLC1.Register.R150 + PLC2.Register.R400;

END_PROGRAM

PROGRAM HMI_Droid_example_2

//
// Performing logical or between boolean variables from different PLCs making
// the result available in the local variable area for presentation in the panel.
//
Local.R1000:0 := PLC0.M.M1200 OR PLC1.Datablock10.DBX10.0 OR PLC2.Register.R300:8;

END_PROGRAM



S7 and STEP 7 are trademarks of Siemens AG.


1. The number of variables is limited only by how many variables that the selected protocol can handle, the number of panels that can be stored in the device and how long you want to wait for the panels to be loaded at startup.
2. This feature is not available in the iOS and macOS versions of Odrid HMI.



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SE-472 93 SVANESUND
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