A handy way to update HMIs for free

A Swedish HMI manufacturer is offering free software for handheld computers that will make it easy to update its HMIs, wherever they are in the world. Beijer Electronics says that its HMI Tools for Palm PDAs (personal digital assistants), will allow OEMs and machine builders to maintain and update HMIs located in remote factories and in plants without networks.

The software has separate applications for transferring files (such as trend data, alarm information and web pages), system information (including networking functions and Web servers), and projects, from the PDA to the HMI via a serial cable.

The files stored on the Palm cannot be edited, making it a safe and convenient way of letting end-users to upgrade installations, without having to send an engineer to the site. Machine builders could simply send a PDA containing the new files to the site.

The software can be downloaded from Beijer`s Web site.