What do you miss about the KNOT RB924i-2nD-BT5&BG77?

Hardware MikroTik IoT hardware
1

I open this discussion:

  1. DB-9 RS-232 port, to communicate with hundreds of devices like PLCs
  2. External GPIO with the typical green connector
  3. Device administration through mobile data interface. Is it necessary LTE instead of LTE-M? I don’t know
  4. MODBUS TCP and TCP gateway through mobile data interface
  5. Time synchronization from mobile operator and GPS
  6. MODBUS TCP not only for read holding registers (message 3), but also for the rest of the MODBUS messages
  7. Possibility of manually setting the slave ID in a MODBUS TCP message
  8. Integrated complex data types in MODBUS requests: 8bit INT | 8bit UINT | 16bit INT, high byte first | 16bit INT, low byte first | 16bit UINT, high byte first | 16bit UINT, low byte first | 32bit float (various Byte order) | 32bit INT (various Byte order) | 32bit UINT (various Byte order) | 64bit INT (various Byte order) | 64bit UINT (various Byte order) | 64bit float (various Byte order) | ASCII | Hex | Bool | PDU; default: 16bit INT, high byte first
  9. MODBUS TCP/serial server
    1. monitor/control the router using a set of holding registers, including all the get/set variables
    2. secondary holding registers zone to store data read from MODBUS or from a script

Any other idea? Please comment.

2

I am not sure to understand the scope of the discussion?

I miss a little touch screen and bluetooth, besides 5 Ghz radio and 802.3af/at PoE out, and the micro-USb should be replaced by a USB-C, but the list of missing features is potentially endless.

3

Well, I work with several IoT products and I’ve tried to sum up the features found on different solutions that would improve the IoT capabilities of the KNOT.

4

RS-232 port, to communicate with hundreds of devices like PLCs

An ARM-based KNOT (thus allowing containers) with an exposed USB port would solve that via RouterOS’s built-in support for USB-to-serial converters.

External GPIO with the typical green connector

I presume you are asking for the current internal 6-pin GPIO connector to be exposed as a Phoenix Contact style connector, as with the current 2-pin ModBus connector?

Device administration through mobile data interface.

Surely that’s just a matter of configuring one of the many available RouterOS VPNs on that interface?

MODBUS TCP and TCP gateway through mobile data interface

Port forwarding?

  1. Time synchronization from mobile operator and GPS

Already done, no, for GPS at least?

The rest I can’t speak to.

5

An ARM-based KNOT (thus allowing containers) with an exposed USB port would solve that via RouterOS’s built-in support for USB-to-serial converters.

An USB dongle is a workaround. An industrial solution requires a proven and certified embebbed hardware.

I presume you are asking for the current internal 6-pin GPIO connector to be exposed as a Phoenix Contact style connector, as with the current 2-pin ModBus connector?

Absolutely right.

Surely that’s just a matter of configuring one of the many available RouterOS VPNs on that interface?

Port forwarding?

LTE and LTE-M are different, I hope it will work.

Already done, no, for GPS at least?

GPS will not work in a inner installation, so time synchronization from mobile operator is required.

Thanks for your contribution.

6

You need a cable regardless. Cables can be certified.

GPS will not work in a inner installation

It will if you run an antenna to an outside wall.

7

Well, I don't know about new scripting types for those, but it's a reasonable feature request for :convert to handle some of those specifically. But you can have a short functions to that call [:convert to=byte-array] which IMO a bit easier to deal various byte-ordering that % and bit-shifting tricks.

RouterOS does not have a "float" type... so that's where it's impossible.

There is also the RBM33G, no external connector but the only MikroTik with GPIO. And this be more DIY but you can add whatever modem in one of the miniPCIe slots, since...

I dunno either. My guess two fold, LTE-M is kinda limited speeds even for remote management (fine for metrics, workable but limited for RAS) (e.g. remote access via shells and simple web admin pages fine, but if you have a larger application some modern use do a lot JS/fetch) & it is easier to just a "normal" SIM for some device. Also, the LTE-M one are "harder" to get, well not really that hard, but more difficult than just going to a bodega to get a normal SIM card.

My guess is mikrotik got a lot complaints it was too slow, or "my sim does not work"... and these days, prices for low category modems is pretty cheap, so not much saving in LTE-M modules if a full one is almost same cost....