Expanding its NEON portfolio
IMI has launched new non-EX/IECEx-certified monitoring solutions to enable cost-effective predictive maintenance across industrial environments
The launch expands on its NEON product line, developed by recent acquisition TWTG and used in hazardous environments, including oil and gas and petrochemical applications. The IMI TWTG NEON range includes sensors certified to operate in explosive environments up to Zone 0.
The sensors form part of IMI’s Industrial IoT offering, combining hardware with the SolidRed analytics, providing operators with an environment for device management, analytics, asset visibility and [PB1] LoRaWAN gateway infrastructure. The solution facilitates long-range, low-power communication across complex industrial sites, utilising LoRaWAN connectivity and supporting reliable data transmission without extensive cabling or network infrastructure.
While EX-certified solutions are mandatory for explosive atmospheres, many assets in petrochemical, power, and industrial facilities operate outside these zones. These have historically been less monitored due to the cost and complexity of certified solutions, limiting operators’ ability to implement condition monitoring at scale. This allows operators to extend predictive maintenance strategies beyond their most critical assets, enhancing visibility across a larger proportion of their plant.
The new non-EX NEON variants provide the same sensing capabilities, wireless connectivity and battery life as existing NEON sensors, but at a lower cost. The solution also supports safer maintenance practices by enabling continuous and remote monitoring.
Reducing the need for manual inspection helps personnel to spend less time in potentially hazardous environments, while early fault detection enables better planning of maintenance activities and helps avoid unplanned interventions. This is relevant for large industrial sites with distributed assets, where routine manual inspections can be resource-intensive and challenging to scale efficiently.
Over 2,000 non-EX NEON units have been ordered since their launch and are due to be installed across industrial sites, reflecting the demand for lower-cost condition monitoring across large industrial estates and distributed assets. These components provide continuous data on asset condition, allowing operators to identify potential issues earlier and take preventative action.
Till Sereny, managing director for Digital & IIoT for Process Automation at IMI, said, “Across many industrial sites, asset monitoring continues to focus on the most critical equipment, leaving a significant proportion of assets unmonitored. With our non-EX solutions, we are supporting operators in implementing proactive maintenance more cost-effectively and extend monitoring beyond their most critical assets, using technologies like LoRaWAN."
