Vaisala empowers SMEs with the strength of large companies – Introduction of the Echo measurement infrastructure

Jarno Mitjonen

Many industry players rely on precise measurement of indoor climate in their production facilities and other establishments. However, until now, only large companies had the resources to establish measurement infrastructures that enable functions such as remote monitoring or simple scalability. Vaisala Echo was developed to provide the benefits of an intelligent measurement infrastructure for indoor environments – but in an integrated form within selected measurement products and solutions from Vaisala.

Vaisala, a globally leading company in measurement technology, is launching a new solution for industrial indoor environment and process measurements with Vaisala Echo. Echo connects Vaisala measuring devices and monitoring software, creating an intelligent measurement infrastructure. In practice, customers do not acquire Echo separately, but in integrated form within Echo-compatible measurement products from Vaisala.

“With Echo, the days of manually setting up indoor monitoring systems are over. The Echo infrastructure allows you simple, reliable, and continuous access to data and alarms from all compatible devices. You choose what you need based on your measurement, monitoring, and reporting requirements – and Vaisala guarantees that all instruments communicate safely and trouble-free with the monitoring software,” explains Jarno Mitjonen, Software Product Manager at Vaisala.

According to Mitjonen, industries where compliance with specific conditions is critical benefit most from measurement infrastructures like Echo. Examples include industrial manufacturing, the pharmaceutical industry, laboratories, museums and archives, as well as indoor farming and vertical agriculture. In many of these areas, conditions must be measured based on various parameters such as humidity, temperature, CO2 levels, or dew point.

Although large companies will also benefit from the easy installation and connectivity of Echo, Mitjonen is convinced that the advantages of Echo are especially relevant for small and medium-sized enterprises, where maintaining optimal conditions is crucial but resources are insufficient to set up tailored systems, as is often the case in larger companies.

“We believe that industrial companies should have access to all the measurement data they need anytime and anywhere, regardless of their IT budget. With this release, Vaisala aims to create more balanced competitive conditions. Our customers should focus on their core business, not on setting up or managing measurement systems,” says Mitjonen.

Secure remote monitoring saves resources

A major advantage of Echo is easy access to comprehensive reporting – both from current and historical perspectives. Echo’s environmental condition reporting is also real-time and enables notifications and alarms. Through remote access to trustworthy and comparable data, geographically dispersed companies can compare locations, detect anomalies, and take appropriate measures to achieve corporate goals. This way, costs can be reduced since there is no need to visit individual sites for data verification and validation.

Since remote monitoring requires access to data online, data security was a top priority for Vaisala during the development of Echo. Mitjonen comments:

“We designed Echo to be secure from the start. All data is encrypted during transmission and at rest, secured with authenticated certificates. Additionally, Echo allows firmware updates for all connected devices remotely. In today’s world, companies need to be able to update their connected devices as needed. The result is increased security throughout the entire lifecycle of the measurement infrastructure.”