The Industrial IoT Blog
IIoT Insights by Henry Costa
Category: Brainstorming
Early ideas, sketches, and thought experiments on Industrial IoT and digital transformation.
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AI, IIoT, and the Knowledge Leaving the Shop Floor
Read more: AI, IIoT, and the Knowledge Leaving the Shop FloorLet’s talk about something nobody really wants to admit. Most plants are sitting on a ticking time bomb. Decades of operator know how are about to walk out the door as experienced people retire. The machines and systems might look…
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Top 10 IIoT Use Cases to Watch in 2026
Read more: Top 10 IIoT Use Cases to Watch in 2026Every year, we see new IIoT trends, new buzzwords, and new “top use case” lists. But inside a plant, the reality is usually much simpler. People don’t come to work excited about Industrial IoT. They come to work hoping the…
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Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0: Evolution or Revolution?
Read more: Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0: Evolution or Revolution?Lately, there’s a lot of talk about Industry 5.0. Some folks say it’s a revolution. Others say it’s just a logical next step after Industry 4.0. I’ve spent the last two decades living through these shifts on plant floors, in…
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Understanding 5G for IIoT. Use Cases, Limits, and Reality
Read more: Understanding 5G for IIoT. Use Cases, Limits, and RealityIf you follow industrial digitalization, you have probably seen 5G mentioned everywhere. Vendor slides, conferences, strategy decks. Sometimes it sounds like the missing link for Industry 4.0. Other times, it sounds like expensive hype. The truth sits somewhere in the…
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Closing the Loop: Agentic AI and IIoT in Self-Correcting Manufacturing
Read more: Closing the Loop: Agentic AI and IIoT in Self-Correcting ManufacturingIf you work in manufacturing today, you’re probably hearing a lot about “Agentic AI” and self-correcting systems. I’ve spent the last two decades watching factories evolve from islands of automation to fully connected, data-driven environments. We moved from PLCs talking…
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The Power of Storytelling with IIoT Data
Read more: The Power of Storytelling with IIoT DataIf you’ve been in manufacturing for a while, you know the plant floor is noisy—not just with machines, but with data. Every sensor, robot, and PLC is constantly spitting out numbers. But here’s the thing: all that data is just…
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Industry 5.0: When Operators Matter More Than Dashboards
Read more: Industry 5.0: When Operators Matter More Than DashboardsI’ve spent the last years connecting machines to the cloud. Millions of tags. Real-time dashboards. Predictive analytics. The whole Industry 4.0 playbook. But here’s what nobody talks about: we forgot about the people. The Moment We Knew Something Was Wrong…
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Large Language Model (LLM) Integration with IIoT for Real-Time Industrial Intelligence: What I’ve Really Seen
Read more: Large Language Model (LLM) Integration with IIoT for Real-Time Industrial Intelligence: What I’ve Really SeenLarge language models (LLMs) like GPT-5 are starting to show up in industrial settings, and—if you ask me—they’re about to change how we think about real-time intelligence on the shop floor. I’ll break down what I’ve actually seen, what works,…
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What’s the Value of Combining IIoT with Blockchain?
Read more: What’s the Value of Combining IIoT with Blockchain?I’ve been around manufacturing tech for a while — long enough to see a lot of “next big things” come and go. Lately, I keep hearing more people ask: “What if we combine IIoT with Blockchain?” Is it just hype,…
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IIoT in Logistics: What I’ve Really Seen (and Learned)
Read more: IIoT in Logistics: What I’ve Really Seen (and Learned)If you ask me what’s changed most in logistics over the last 20 years, I’ll tell you straight: it’s the way we connect the physical world—boxes, pallets, forklifts, people—to the digital world of data, automation, and real-time decisions. Industrial IoT…
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Industry 5.0: Human-Centric, Sustainable & Resilient IIoT
Read more: Industry 5.0: Human-Centric, Sustainable & Resilient IIoTIndustry 5.0 might sound like a buzzword, but underneath it’s about something real: putting people back at the center of manufacturing. It’s about making factories not just smarter, but also more human, sustainable, and resilient. I’ve spent the last 20…
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Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and IIoT: Where They Meet on the Shop Floor
Read more: Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and IIoT: Where They Meet on the Shop FloorLet’s talk about AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) in the world of Industrial IoT. I’ve been hands-on with both — Google Glass, HoloLens, and their cousins — and I want to share what I’ve actually seen work, what’s…