Illinois based Grid Connect has developed a smart power cord that allows secure integration of legacy industrial equipment to any application running on the AWS IoT Core cloud platform. The integration allows tracking real-time data on performance, frequency of operation, features used, and can predict faults and breakdowns, and schedule preventive maintenance.

“Built into our Smart Power Cord for AWS is a rules engine, so a machine operator can define, for instance, when to shut off the machine to protect it from burning up,” said Gary Marrs, solutions architect at Grid Connect. “If a manager knows a machine’s steady state is 10 amps, the breaker is 20 amps, and the machine begins burning at 15, they set our cord to shut down the machine at 14 amps.”

According to Marrs, the Smart Power Cord for AWS also has built-in technology to track on-off cycles that predict when a machine would need a new filter, oil change or grease. The Smart Power Cord for AWS looks and acts like an extension cord, but Grid Connect designed it as a complete AWS IoT solution. Ideal applications for the Smart Power Cord for AWS are monitoring and controlling pumps, commercial appliances, electric vehicle chargers, electric metering and load shedding.

Data from the Smart Power Cord for AWS also controls and monitors power remotely, improves the customer experience, and provides better maintenance schedules.

“Without our cord, to get data from a legacy machine, a manager would have to hire an integrator or buy a COTS controller and write code; that’s an engineering project,” said Marrs. “Instead, by plugging any product or edge device into our Smart Power Cord for AWS, a machine builder or user immediately gets the data to monitor their machine and provide user-defined alerts to improve product safety.”

Grid Connect developed the Smart Power Cord for AWS with Trek10, an AWS Premier Tier Partner focused on the IoT ecosystems, and AWS. To get started with the Smart Power Cord for AWS, Grid Connect created an AWS Quick Start guide for users to quickly add IoT capabilities into their AWS account in 10 minutes. Users can deploy secure environments on AWS for a variety of solutions, including mining IoT data and AI tools to help analyze the data and gather insights. Quick Starts are built on AWS CloudFormation templates that provide a mechanism for rapid deployment of services and application infrastructure.