January 8, 2025 • 26 mins
This week I cover the results from our 2024 Audience Choice Polls, recapping what industrial automation vendors our audience picked as their top choices in this episode of The Automation Podcast.
Note: As this episode was not sponsored, the video edition is available to members only. For more information, check out the Show Notes below.
The Automation Podcast, Episode 233 Show Notes:
Special thanks to everyone who voted in our 2024 Audience Choice Polls! To unlock our extensive automation how-to library, become a member starting at just $5 per month. Visit TheAutomationBlog.com/Join to learn more.
Link to the 2024 poll results:
TheAutomationBlog.com/2024-audience-choice-polls/
Until next time, Peace ✌️
If you enjoy this episode please give it a Like, and consider Sharing as this is the best way for us to find new guests to come on the show.
Shawn M TierneyTechnology Enthusiast & Content Creator
Eliminate commercials and gain access to my weekly full length hands-on, news, and Q&A sessions by becoming a member at The Automation Blog or on YouTube. You'll also find all of my affordable PLC, HMI, and SCADA courses at TheAutomationSchool.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to the automation podcast, and a
very happy 2025 to you. My name is
Sean Tierney
from Insights and Automation, or going on, we're
just going to call it Insights.
And this week on the show we're going
to take a look at what you chose
as your most popular products, or your products
of choice in industrial automation. Now, before we
(00:20):
get to that, a couple of things. First
of all, I am in discussions with several
vendors to get them back on the show.
Some new vendors, actually, mostly new vendors who
have not been on, but we do have
some favorites coming back on as well. And
so not sure when those episodes will be
recorded or released.
December is a very slow time for us,
because everybody's thinking about the holidays, and holiday
(00:41):
parties, and holiday gifts. So in any case,
we'll be ramping back up here, in January
like we do every year. But, as soon
as I know more, I'll let you guys
know. The second thing is because this is
not sponsored,
right, nobody's paying us to actually produce this,
the video edition of this episode is for
members only. I just updated all the members
levels for
(01:01):
2025. I added a new, a lower cost
level, and you can see all those details
at the automation blog.comforward/join.
That actually doesn't force you to join. That
is just a page with information on the
memberships.
And, I try to mirror the YouTube because
we do the memberships on YouTube and on
the automation blog.com,
but you can find all the information at
the automation blog dot com with links to
(01:22):
sign up at either location.
And I'm very excited that, formally, the level
2, now level 3, we now have a
new Discord server for both, level 3 members
at the automation blog and YouTube. Again, these
would be level 2 members last year. I
just renamed it. And the price stays the
same. Everything else stays the same, except that
we have a discord server, and we're gonna
(01:43):
do a weekly hangout
on Wednesday nights from 6 to 7 PM
EST. That's the same time I'm in the
office for the students. Had to have a
lot of students showing up lately, so I'm
like, we're just doing together until we get
so many people showing up that we have
to separate them. So in any case, I
want to use my time wisely, and I
don't want to be sitting in 2 hours
worth of silence
(02:03):
during the week. So please come by and
see us if you're a level 2 member
or a student.
In any case, with that said,
I do want to get into this week's
show. We're talking about the audience choice polls
for 2024.
Now this is not a 100% representative of
the audience. So if you're out there and
you're listening, you're like, well, those ain't my
picks. It's not everybody in the audience. This
(02:26):
is only the most
enthusiastic members of the audience who actually went
to the automationblog.com
and voted. So I know a lot of
people just said, hey. I'm just gonna comment
while I'm on LinkedIn, and that's great. But
that's not a vote in the poll itself.
I didn't actually try to take all the
comments from LinkedIn and vote for each of
these people. Who has time to do that?
But in any case, I do appreciate all
the feedback on LinkedIn. I think I replied
(02:47):
to everybody or liked everybody who made a
comment.
In any case and I try to do
that across well, Let's talk about that for
a minute too. Social media 2025,
I'm focusing on YouTube, the automation blog, and
LinkedIn.
I'm really,
not deleting the other channels, but I'm gonna
take a step back from them. I know
the folks over at Locals already know this
because I posted it and emailed you guys
about that. But in any case, we get
(03:10):
virtually zero interaction on those other sites. So
we're just gonna focus where most of you
are, LinkedIn, YouTube, and the automation blog.com.
So, just wanted to throw it out quickly.
But in any case, so I put these
polls up in November, earlier this year try
to get more people to vote. And, we
had of course, there was a lot going
on with the election and stuff, so a
lot of people were distracted in the holidays.
(03:30):
But in any case, we did have
we did receive thousands of votes in this
poll, and hundreds of people went up there
and voted. And so I'm going to take
the polls in reverse order. We're going to
start with,
the 10th poll and work up to the
1st poll, kind of like a countdown. Okay?
And again, please do not be bummed out
if your favorite vendor doesn't make number 1.
(03:51):
This is just the people who were enthusiastic
enough to get in there and vote in
November December. So if you did vote, then
you may be very interested in knowing, how
many of the enthusiastic members of the audience
actually voted. So with all that said, let's
go ahead and get started here, and we'll
scroll up to the 1st poll. And this
poll is
going to require me to have my glasses
(04:13):
on to read it. And let me see
if I can make that a little bit
bigger.
Okay. So in this poll it says, please
choose up to 3 automation sensor and code
reader vendors
you prefer the most. So,
you know, I was going to include vision
in there,
but I'm like, you know, I didn't want
(04:33):
to make the question too long. So sensors
and code readers, and people may be considering
vision a code reader or a reader of
some type, but in any case,
number 1
with
14.3%
of the vote was Banner Engineering.
I'm not surprised by that because we've had
Banner on so much over the years, and
they've been just a great sponsor of us.
(04:54):
And, you know, they have great products. Right?
Especially the last one we did with the,
the the sensing distances and whatnot. And then
following them very close at 13.10
is a company we used to do a
lot with. They kind of fell off the
face of the earth for us, but we
used to do a lot with them, still
think very highly of them.
IFM,
(05:14):
13.10%
of the vote went to them. And then,
a company we've never done anything with, we've
we've covered them back when I was doing
the automation, news show,
SICK.
They came in at 11.9%,
and which surprised me because we've never interfaced
with anybody from SICK. And so I'm like,
well, there must be I I was covering
(05:35):
them because I always knew they were a
big name, so it must be something that
our audience
is interested in.
And then from there we had Siemens. Now,
again, this is for sensors and code readers.
So again, I was surprised they got up
there, 10.71%.
And then I'll just quickly go through some
of the others. Andress and Hauser, 7.14.
Rockwell Automation 5.95.
(05:56):
I am surprised they're so low on the
list. Cognex
at 4.76,
another vendor I'd love to get on the
show. And Turk, somebody we've been covering quite
a bit
in the news, 4.76,
and data logics 4.76.
And P and F, I'm really surprised about
P and F being solo
because they've been on the show a bunch.
(06:17):
So, P and F at 3.57.
So
maybe not for,
sensors, although we have a bunch of samples
from them. They've been really good to us.
They came in a little bit farther down
the list. So now let's go to the
next question. So that poll had a total
of
(06:38):
39 votes. Okay. So the next poll, we're
talking 46 votes. Let's take a look at
this. So let's start here. This is, choose
up to 2
motion control or servo vendors you prefer to
use.
Okay. And and customers could add,
with all these poles, they could add additional
choices with the other choice pole, option. And
(06:58):
so here,
Siemens, 31.82%.
I know we've really grown our European
audience, English speaking, alert European audience,
because, one of our top videos of all
time with over 400,000
views is my s 7 1200
I'm sorry, s 7 1500 video. And I
know the 1200 does really good and so
(07:20):
on. So in any case, right behind Siemens,
though, is the hometown boy, Rockwell Automation,
28.79.
Okay. So 31.82
for Siemens, 28.79
for Rockwell. And then B and R, a
company that I just think is so interesting,
and we'd love to get on the show,
4.55%.
(07:40):
Automation Direct, who has sent samples into us,
3.03
tied with Schneider and Horner.
We've had Schneider and Horner on the show
many times. Great, great companies,
great sponsors. But those are you can see,
really, anybody above 7%, there's only 2. Siemens
and Rockwell as far as motion control, and
Siemens comes out at the top, 31.8
(08:01):
versus 28
point 8, roughly.
Alright. So in the next poll we have,
68 votes. This next poll is,
I gotta go all the way up to
the top to see the question.
This one is
choose up to 2
VFD or VSD
vendors you prefer the most.
And again, they could add others, other choices
(08:23):
to the list that I had. I started
with an extensive list.
In this one,
Rockwell Automation, the PowerFlex now I separated the
lines. Okay?
Because just because you use a PowerFlex 520
or 52x, doesn't mean you use the PowerFlex
75x.
So I spent a lot of time digging
up all the different models from all the
different vendors. And so number 1 was the
(08:44):
Rockwell Automation PowerFlex 52
series. So the 525,
523, 527
series, with 17.78%
of the vote,
followed up closely by the Siemens G120,
which is at 14.81.
And then right behind that is at 11%,
(09:05):
the PowerFlex 750
series.
And behind them, again, at 8% is the
Siemens G 220.
So you can see Rockwell and Siemens battling
there for 1st place. Definitely, the lower end
drives are a higher choice than the higher
end drives, because you can use a lower
end drive, a simpler drive, in more applications.
(09:25):
Right? That's my take. Now, the next one,
though, surprised me. Never had them on the
show.
Danfoss at 7.41%,
Siemens G130
at 6.67%,
and then ABB. Very surprised to see ABB
down here at 5.9%,
and then the Rockwell Automation PowerFlex 40s,
4s, and 400s at 3.7%.
(09:48):
And the list goes on and on. So
very interesting to see that, mix there. And,
now let me talk about the new show.
So what I did is I looked at
2023 and 2024. In those 2 years, I
did over 250,
shows. Right? So that's like 2 a week
on average. Right? And, I looked at how
(10:08):
much we made from sponsorships of those show
shows. I looked at how much we made
from ad revenue and how many members signed
up after it went members only. And,
what I found is we need a lot
more members to bring that back. So right
now, we're about 40 let's just say 40
level 2 members. We need actually 240
level 2 members for me to be able
to do that and not lose money every
(10:29):
show. So just to let you know, the
new show is on pause. I already have
plans to bring it back. I got a
new website. I got all these plans, but
the businessman in me is saying, Sean,
you gotta have at least, let's say, $24100
a month. You know, we don't get all
of that. Right? So if we have 240
members at $10, that's 24100 a month, we
(10:50):
don't see all that. YouTube takes 30%, then
the tax man, you may look at, what
you pay taxes when you're self employed. It's
pretty high up there and, so on and
so forth. So to be able to bring
that back, we need
240. And to bring it to 2 days
a week, we need 400. Okay? So,
what I am doing is, the weekly membership
show
(11:10):
that, goes through how to's. I will be
continuing to do that. Even though the memberships
are low right now, I'm hoping that over
the year we'll grow the membership, and,
it'll at least make the, the weekly how
to show in-depth how to show, like the
automation show,
you know, for members actually, you break even.
But in any case and, of course, we
will have sponsored episodes. Again, I'm talking to
(11:32):
vendors about not just sponsoring episodes of the
automation podcast, but also sponsoring
additional episodes of the automation show and the
automation minute. You know, we had real time
automation. They have a new historian module coming
out, so we have another show coming up
from them. We've had,
just so many different vendors over the years,
Red Lion,
IFM, just so many of them from,
(11:53):
sponsor episodes with us that, we wanna keep
that going. And when the vendor sponsors it,
we release it to everybody. So in any
case, because they're paying for the the the
filming of it. They're covering the cost. But,
let's move on from variable frequency drives. Now
this next poll only had 30 votes in
it,
and this was your favorite.
What is your favorite historian or MES product?
(12:14):
Yeah, I guess a lot of the audience
aren't using those or choosing those, right, on
a regular basis. But in any case, here
we can see inductive automation. This surprised me.
Inductive automation,
not that it's not a good product, but
they've only come on the show once. It
wasn't sponsored, so the video is now members
only. And, you know, for for a product
like that, you think you want some visuals.
(12:35):
Right? But, and when they came on the
product, they only talked about,
Ignition,
SCADA, or HMI, whatever. But in any case,
they get 25.5
percent of the vote. So there's a lot
of inductive automation fans out there. And then
this next one, I have not been able
to find somebody at GE to come on
the show,
but their GE prophecy historian,
(12:56):
13.95%,
or let's say 14%
in 2nd place. Aviva, OSIpi historian,
11.5%.
And then Rockwell Tide at 11 a half
percent
is a factory talk historian,
which is based on OSIpi historian.
So if you put those 2 together, that's
22. That gets you pretty close to Ignition
(13:17):
historian.
But I suspect the ignition historian number, they're
using that with ignition. They're not using a
stand alone.
Then we had a Siemens process historian come
in at 4.65,
tied with Siemens Opcenter MES
and Emerson Delta V MES.
And Aviva historian, the old Aviva historian and
(13:38):
the Emerson delta V historian. So, all those
guys tied at,
at that 4.65%.
Very interesting. Okay, the next poll, we had
a 104, this is one of the most
voted in polls. A 144
votes in this poll. And this poll is,
choose the PC based SCADA software you prefer.
(14:00):
Okay. And this one, Ignition and inductive automations
Ignition took it away with
49.46%.
Nearly 50% of the vote preferred ignition. Love
to get that. I've asked them to come
back on the show multiple times, so I'm
not going to be that that nagging ex,
ex customer.
But, in any case, but that's pretty impressive.
(14:22):
And what I thought was more impressive, because
we've only covered it a
little bit, was Siemens Unified WinCC
at 8%. Now,
you know, we've covered the unified
HMIs from Siemens. They sent us in some.
They sampled them, and then they sponsored the
episodes. So, you know, we're just so you
know, when dentistry is like that, I mean,
we can't ask for a better support. Right?
(14:44):
And, but we only really covered you Siemens
Unified Wind CDC as part of Siemens SCADA
in one podcast.
And that got in at,
8.15%.
That's a fairly new product. Right?
When we look at, you know, WinCC, just
standard WinCC, you would think, yeah, that's been
around for a long time, but the Unified
WinCC
(15:04):
is new. Then we have, one of my
favorite products that I teach on, Rockwell Automation
Factory Chalk Factory Chalk View Site Edition. We
have had that team on a couple of
times to give us updates on the product,
and
we'd love to get them back on. But
that came in at 7%. So win Siemens
Unified WinCC,
8%,
(15:25):
Rockwell, 7%, and then standard
win, Siemens WinCC, 7%.
Aviva
Wind to Wear InTouch, 6.52%.
That surprised me. It's so low. And then,
another Siemens down at 5 4.35%.
So inductive at nearly 50,
then Siemens Unified at 8. Rockwell Effector Talk
(15:47):
View at 7. Siemens WinCC at 7.
So, wow, very interesting results. Yeah. Let's go
on to the next poll. This had a
105 volts.
In this poll
votes, not volts.
This
poll, please choose your human machine interface HMI
hardware you prefer the most. Choose up to
(16:07):
2.
And, number 1 was the Siemens Unified Comfort
Panel. Still, I think that's very surprising.
Fairly new product. We had Remi on when
it first came out, and, I was very
excited to get one. We we had it
behind in the studio here behind me. For
the longest time, I gotta build a new
wall. It's just, financing waiting for the financing
(16:28):
to make that happen. But in any case,
Siemens Unified Comfort Panel, 16% of all votes,
over a 100 votes, went for the Siemens
Unified Comfort Panel. Rockwell Automation Panelview Plus, a
product I've been using since beta,
15%.
So very interesting there. And then inductive automation
ignition as an HMI,
(16:48):
11%.
And then I thought this one was very
interesting.
The,
I think it's Winetec?
Winetec, 7%. We're trying to get them on
the show. Siemens' older comfort panel, 6.5%.
Automation direct,
Seymour,
5%.
Siemens' unified basic panel, which is very new,
(17:08):
5%.
And then the factory talk optics comes in
at 8,
4.5%.
Alright. Very interesting. Alright. This next poll had
66 volts in it.
I feel like I'm saying volts and not
volts,
so excuse my slang.
This is which micro PLC or nano PLC
(17:30):
platform you use the most. And you can
choose up to 2 here. The Siemens S7
1200
comes in first at 26%.
Rockwell's control compact logics rather, Rockwell's compact logics
comes at 22%.
But, and I put the compact logics there
because I don't consider it a micro
PLC, but I thought a lot of people
(17:50):
would. So I put it in there, and
they got 22%.
But look at this, Rockwell Automation's micro, a
100, which I consider a nano PLC. That's
how they launched it. That's how they explained
it. 11%.
So s 7 1200 from Siemens, 26.
Rockwell Automation CompactLogix,
22.
Rockwell Automation, Micro 800,
(18:11):
11%. And then the logo from Siemens, 8%.
Then we get the automation direct click at
7.
Opto, 22. Groove, RIL. That can now be
a stand alone PLC, 4%.
And,
now we'll go to the next one. This
poll has 61 votes in it.
And
let's see what the question is.
(18:32):
Okay. Choose the distributed IO platform you prefer
to use the most.
Number 1, with 17.82
percent of the vote, Siemens ET 200 SP.
Number 2,
Rock Automation
1756
ControlLogix
IO as remote IO, distributed IO. I did
not expect that. Right? When I was putting
it in there, I'm like,
(18:53):
but it came in second. Right? 10.89%,
almost 11%,
followed up by
2 more Rockwell choices. Right?
Point IO, which I didn't like at the
beginning, but I've become a big fan of.
We cover it in our courses. It's a,
we have a ton of it here. 8.91%,
and then
Rockwell,
(19:13):
Automation 5069
Compact 5000 IO,
8.91%.
And then WAGO's in there
at 6.93%,
and then we're back with the old 17/69
Compact IO at 4.95,
tied with Flex IO and Flex 5000.
So very interesting results there. You can see
(19:36):
while Siemens ET 200
SP1 has the top choice at almost 18%,
Rockwell has the next three choices with ControlLogix
Point L and Compact 5000.
So very interesting. If you add those all
up, they definitely get the most votes in
the poll. But none of them they have
so many options, I'm not surprised they didn't
come in. Siemens, I think for MP and
L distributed IO, ET 200 SP is probably
(19:58):
what most people are going to use. If
they want machine mount, then they have other
options. Right? Alright. This next poll, this is
one of the biggest polls that people voted
in.
A 126
votes.
And this one is votes, not volts.
This one is,
please choose the medium to large
PLC platform,
or PAC platform, because Rockwell calls their PLCs
(20:21):
PACs now.
And we could get into a long conversation
about that, but we're not going to.
In any case, large to medium to large
PLC or PAC platform that you choose the
most,
and people could choose up to 2.
And so this one I thought was very
interesting here. Right? So,
there's only really two choices in this category
(20:43):
for Rockwell, and they came in number 1
and number 2. So I said medium to
logic, and we have control logics at 23%,
and then compact logics
at 17.6%.
Very interesting,
with a total of, what is that, 30,
40 over 40%.
Right?
Then, following that, we have Siemens, s 7
(21:04):
1500,
at 15.6%,
and the s 71200
at 8.6%.
So that's a total of, let's see, 16
+8. Right? So that's, what, 24?
And then that is followed quickly by the
Schneider Electric modicon, the M580
at 7.54,
Codesys,
(21:25):
7.04,
and then you can see they go down
below that. Okay.
So from there, we'll go to the next
poll here. This is the one that gets
the most,
a 176
volts.
Volts?
I don't know what it is today.
But in any case, I'll find out when
I see how long you guys listened or
(21:46):
watched if you guys enjoyed this lighthearted look
at, the polls or not. In any case,
here we
have, choose up to 3 of your top
industrial automation vendors.
Okay? And again,
voters could add additional vendors to the list
that I didn't have.
Number 1,
(22:06):
with the most votes out of,
almost 200 votes,
Rockwell Automation with 19, just over 19 percent
of the vote. Number 2,
Siemens
with just over 15.6%
of the vote.
Inductive
Automation, man, they have a great fan base.
Right?
4.5%
of the vote.
(22:27):
Automation Direct, another another company that has a
passionate following,
4%,
Codesys, 3.53,
Phoenix,
3.27,
Emerson, 3.27,
and so on. So I was surprised about
this too, not about Rockwell and Siemens. I
figured they would be fighting it because, you
know, they fight globally for the number 1.
They fight here. You know, we've we've tried
(22:49):
to get Mitsubishi back on. We tried the
Ganamaran on. They you know, it's all crickets
with them. So, you know, and they're big
in Asia. Although, they have their big fan
base here in the US too. I know
that. But, in any case, Rockwell Automation and
Siemens, I figured they'd be fighting for number
1. But I was surprised that inductive automation,
even though it's only 4 and a half
percent,
came in 3rd, although I shouldn't have been
(23:09):
surprised. And then the automation director, really didn't
come in 4th in any of the other
polls that I can remember,
that they came in 4th place. And then
there's a lot of people who only got
one vote.
And, again,
if you're if you're disappointed that your favorite
vendor didn't get more votes, it's probably because
you didn't vote in the poll, because I
know there's anywhere from a 1000 to 10000
(23:31):
of you who consume the podcast every week,
and,
whether it's on LinkedIn, on the automationblog.com,
or on iTunes, or on Spotify.
But in any case, hopefully, next year, now
that you guys are more familiar with the
polls and we reviewed them, hopefully, next year,
you guys will be more apt to vote,
because I love to see the more people
(23:51):
who vote, the more guidance I get. I
mean, from this poll, I can definitely see
some places where I need to focus both
my free public videos and articles,
as well as my membership videos and articles.
And so with that, we've come to the
end of the show. So, again, I just
want to recap.
I am in conversations with a lot of
vendors that get them on the show in
(24:12):
2025.
If you're a vendor, please contact me. Love
to get you on the show.
As far as the membership programs,
we are gonna be I'm personally gonna be
dedicating,
several hours every week to produce new membership
videos. With those, I will usually have, like,
a free
short tip for the public.
(24:32):
But, in any case, we're really trying to
grow that membership program from roughly 40 members
today to 240,
so I can really just dedicate most of
the day to doing both those in-depth,
how to's, as well as bring back the
news show, because I kinda miss following the
news. I don't know if any of you
saw the NVIDIA,
press conference. Was it yesterday or the day
(24:54):
before? But they had all those humanoid robots
we had been talking about, covering for 2
years.
And so I'd really like to get back
to doing that. Maybe we just do it
once a week to start, but we'll need
to get up to to to make it
break even, we need to get up to
240.
All we need, we need a a sponsor
to come in and sponsor the shows.
But in any case, I think, you know,
(25:15):
a lot of these,
large vendors have cut back on their
marketing budget, and and they've decided to do
the simple thing, just spend it all with
Google. And to me, it's like, yeah, you
may get millions of views, but
people don't really view the ads. Right? We
get, you know, 1,000,000, 9 8, 9,000,000
thumbnail views on YouTube every year, but, you
(25:35):
know, that doesn't mean anybody's even watching or,
you know, it's just they're scrolling by it.
Right? Same thing with ads in a newspaper
or ads in a, like, in a Automation
World magazine. I know that a lot of
people actually look at them. I don't. So
better the better the sponsor content people want,
like how to how to use something. That's
my opinion. Anyways,
with that, if you're interested in the membership,
(25:57):
check it out over at the automation blog.comforward/join.
You can see all the information right there
whether you wanna join on YouTube or,
on the automation blog.com.
And if you are a level 3 member,
formerly level 2, and now level 3, join
me tonight for the live chat. If you're
a student,
join me tonight for the office hours.
(26:17):
Members, you I have posted, how to get
that, how to get to the live chat
discord.
And,
students, it's in lesson 111,
the link to the team's meeting.
So I'm gonna go ahead and end the
show here. I I don't know if I
left anything out. I'm I'm but, in any
case, hopefully, I didn't. So, at this point,
I just wanna wish you guys a very
happy 2025.
(26:38):
I want to wish you all good health
and happiness.
And until next time, my friends,
peace.
Welcome back to the automation podcast, and a
very happy 2025 to you. My name is
Sean Tierney
from Insights and Automation, or going on, we're
just going to call it Insights.
And this week on the show we're going
to take a look at what you chose
as your most popular products, or your products
of choice in industrial automation. Now, before we
(00:20):
get to that, a couple of things. First
of all, I am in discussions with several
vendors to get them back on the show.
Some new vendors, actually, mostly new vendors who
have not been on, but we do have
some favorites coming back on as well. And
so not sure when those episodes will be
recorded or released.
December is a very slow time for us,
because everybody's thinking about the holidays, and holiday
(00:41):
parties, and holiday gifts. So in any case,
we'll be ramping back up here, in January
like we do every year. But, as soon
as I know more, I'll let you guys
know. The second thing is because this is
not sponsored,
right, nobody's paying us to actually produce this,
the video edition of this episode is for
members only. I just updated all the members
levels for
(01:01):
2025. I added a new, a lower cost
level, and you can see all those details
at the automation blog.comforward/join.
That actually doesn't force you to join. That
is just a page with information on the
memberships.
And, I try to mirror the YouTube because
we do the memberships on YouTube and on
the automation blog.com,
but you can find all the information at
the automation blog dot com with links to
(01:22):
sign up at either location.
And I'm very excited that, formally, the level
2, now level 3, we now have a
new Discord server for both, level 3 members
at the automation blog and YouTube. Again, these
would be level 2 members last year. I
just renamed it. And the price stays the
same. Everything else stays the same, except that
we have a discord server, and we're gonna
(01:43):
do a weekly hangout
on Wednesday nights from 6 to 7 PM
EST. That's the same time I'm in the
office for the students. Had to have a
lot of students showing up lately, so I'm
like, we're just doing together until we get
so many people showing up that we have
to separate them. So in any case, I
want to use my time wisely, and I
don't want to be sitting in 2 hours
worth of silence
(02:03):
during the week. So please come by and
see us if you're a level 2 member
or a student.
In any case, with that said,
I do want to get into this week's
show. We're talking about the audience choice polls
for 2024.
Now this is not a 100% representative of
the audience. So if you're out there and
you're listening, you're like, well, those ain't my
picks. It's not everybody in the audience. This
(02:26):
is only the most
enthusiastic members of the audience who actually went
to the automationblog.com
and voted. So I know a lot of
people just said, hey. I'm just gonna comment
while I'm on LinkedIn, and that's great. But
that's not a vote in the poll itself.
I didn't actually try to take all the
comments from LinkedIn and vote for each of
these people. Who has time to do that?
But in any case, I do appreciate all
the feedback on LinkedIn. I think I replied
(02:47):
to everybody or liked everybody who made a
comment.
In any case and I try to do
that across well, Let's talk about that for
a minute too. Social media 2025,
I'm focusing on YouTube, the automation blog, and
LinkedIn.
I'm really,
not deleting the other channels, but I'm gonna
take a step back from them. I know
the folks over at Locals already know this
because I posted it and emailed you guys
about that. But in any case, we get
(03:10):
virtually zero interaction on those other sites. So
we're just gonna focus where most of you
are, LinkedIn, YouTube, and the automation blog.com.
So, just wanted to throw it out quickly.
But in any case, so I put these
polls up in November, earlier this year try
to get more people to vote. And, we
had of course, there was a lot going
on with the election and stuff, so a
lot of people were distracted in the holidays.
(03:30):
But in any case, we did have
we did receive thousands of votes in this
poll, and hundreds of people went up there
and voted. And so I'm going to take
the polls in reverse order. We're going to
start with,
the 10th poll and work up to the
1st poll, kind of like a countdown. Okay?
And again, please do not be bummed out
if your favorite vendor doesn't make number 1.
(03:51):
This is just the people who were enthusiastic
enough to get in there and vote in
November December. So if you did vote, then
you may be very interested in knowing, how
many of the enthusiastic members of the audience
actually voted. So with all that said, let's
go ahead and get started here, and we'll
scroll up to the 1st poll. And this
poll is
going to require me to have my glasses
(04:13):
on to read it. And let me see
if I can make that a little bit
bigger.
Okay. So in this poll it says, please
choose up to 3 automation sensor and code
reader vendors
you prefer the most. So,
you know, I was going to include vision
in there,
but I'm like, you know, I didn't want
(04:33):
to make the question too long. So sensors
and code readers, and people may be considering
vision a code reader or a reader of
some type, but in any case,
number 1
with
14.3%
of the vote was Banner Engineering.
I'm not surprised by that because we've had
Banner on so much over the years, and
they've been just a great sponsor of us.
(04:54):
And, you know, they have great products. Right?
Especially the last one we did with the,
the the sensing distances and whatnot. And then
following them very close at 13.10
is a company we used to do a
lot with. They kind of fell off the
face of the earth for us, but we
used to do a lot with them, still
think very highly of them.
IFM,
(05:14):
13.10%
of the vote went to them. And then,
a company we've never done anything with, we've
we've covered them back when I was doing
the automation, news show,
SICK.
They came in at 11.9%,
and which surprised me because we've never interfaced
with anybody from SICK. And so I'm like,
well, there must be I I was covering
(05:35):
them because I always knew they were a
big name, so it must be something that
our audience
is interested in.
And then from there we had Siemens. Now,
again, this is for sensors and code readers.
So again, I was surprised they got up
there, 10.71%.
And then I'll just quickly go through some
of the others. Andress and Hauser, 7.14.
Rockwell Automation 5.95.
(05:56):
I am surprised they're so low on the
list. Cognex
at 4.76,
another vendor I'd love to get on the
show. And Turk, somebody we've been covering quite
a bit
in the news, 4.76,
and data logics 4.76.
And P and F, I'm really surprised about
P and F being solo
because they've been on the show a bunch.
(06:17):
So, P and F at 3.57.
So
maybe not for,
sensors, although we have a bunch of samples
from them. They've been really good to us.
They came in a little bit farther down
the list. So now let's go to the
next question. So that poll had a total
of
(06:38):
39 votes. Okay. So the next poll, we're
talking 46 votes. Let's take a look at
this. So let's start here. This is, choose
up to 2
motion control or servo vendors you prefer to
use.
Okay. And and customers could add,
with all these poles, they could add additional
choices with the other choice pole, option. And
(06:58):
so here,
Siemens, 31.82%.
I know we've really grown our European
audience, English speaking, alert European audience,
because, one of our top videos of all
time with over 400,000
views is my s 7 1200
I'm sorry, s 7 1500 video. And I
know the 1200 does really good and so
(07:20):
on. So in any case, right behind Siemens,
though, is the hometown boy, Rockwell Automation,
28.79.
Okay. So 31.82
for Siemens, 28.79
for Rockwell. And then B and R, a
company that I just think is so interesting,
and we'd love to get on the show,
4.55%.
(07:40):
Automation Direct, who has sent samples into us,
3.03
tied with Schneider and Horner.
We've had Schneider and Horner on the show
many times. Great, great companies,
great sponsors. But those are you can see,
really, anybody above 7%, there's only 2. Siemens
and Rockwell as far as motion control, and
Siemens comes out at the top, 31.8
(08:01):
versus 28
point 8, roughly.
Alright. So in the next poll we have,
68 votes. This next poll is,
I gotta go all the way up to
the top to see the question.
This one is
choose up to 2
VFD or VSD
vendors you prefer the most.
And again, they could add others, other choices
(08:23):
to the list that I had. I started
with an extensive list.
In this one,
Rockwell Automation, the PowerFlex now I separated the
lines. Okay?
Because just because you use a PowerFlex 520
or 52x, doesn't mean you use the PowerFlex
75x.
So I spent a lot of time digging
up all the different models from all the
different vendors. And so number 1 was the
(08:44):
Rockwell Automation PowerFlex 52
series. So the 525,
523, 527
series, with 17.78%
of the vote,
followed up closely by the Siemens G120,
which is at 14.81.
And then right behind that is at 11%,
(09:05):
the PowerFlex 750
series.
And behind them, again, at 8% is the
Siemens G 220.
So you can see Rockwell and Siemens battling
there for 1st place. Definitely, the lower end
drives are a higher choice than the higher
end drives, because you can use a lower
end drive, a simpler drive, in more applications.
(09:25):
Right? That's my take. Now, the next one,
though, surprised me. Never had them on the
show.
Danfoss at 7.41%,
Siemens G130
at 6.67%,
and then ABB. Very surprised to see ABB
down here at 5.9%,
and then the Rockwell Automation PowerFlex 40s,
4s, and 400s at 3.7%.
(09:48):
And the list goes on and on. So
very interesting to see that, mix there. And,
now let me talk about the new show.
So what I did is I looked at
2023 and 2024. In those 2 years, I
did over 250,
shows. Right? So that's like 2 a week
on average. Right? And, I looked at how
(10:08):
much we made from sponsorships of those show
shows. I looked at how much we made
from ad revenue and how many members signed
up after it went members only. And,
what I found is we need a lot
more members to bring that back. So right
now, we're about 40 let's just say 40
level 2 members. We need actually 240
level 2 members for me to be able
to do that and not lose money every
(10:29):
show. So just to let you know, the
new show is on pause. I already have
plans to bring it back. I got a
new website. I got all these plans, but
the businessman in me is saying, Sean,
you gotta have at least, let's say, $24100
a month. You know, we don't get all
of that. Right? So if we have 240
members at $10, that's 24100 a month, we
(10:50):
don't see all that. YouTube takes 30%, then
the tax man, you may look at, what
you pay taxes when you're self employed. It's
pretty high up there and, so on and
so forth. So to be able to bring
that back, we need
240. And to bring it to 2 days
a week, we need 400. Okay? So,
what I am doing is, the weekly membership
show
(11:10):
that, goes through how to's. I will be
continuing to do that. Even though the memberships
are low right now, I'm hoping that over
the year we'll grow the membership, and,
it'll at least make the, the weekly how
to show in-depth how to show, like the
automation show,
you know, for members actually, you break even.
But in any case and, of course, we
will have sponsored episodes. Again, I'm talking to
(11:32):
vendors about not just sponsoring episodes of the
automation podcast, but also sponsoring
additional episodes of the automation show and the
automation minute. You know, we had real time
automation. They have a new historian module coming
out, so we have another show coming up
from them. We've had,
just so many different vendors over the years,
Red Lion,
IFM, just so many of them from,
(11:53):
sponsor episodes with us that, we wanna keep
that going. And when the vendor sponsors it,
we release it to everybody. So in any
case, because they're paying for the the the
filming of it. They're covering the cost. But,
let's move on from variable frequency drives. Now
this next poll only had 30 votes in
it,
and this was your favorite.
What is your favorite historian or MES product?
(12:14):
Yeah, I guess a lot of the audience
aren't using those or choosing those, right, on
a regular basis. But in any case, here
we can see inductive automation. This surprised me.
Inductive automation,
not that it's not a good product, but
they've only come on the show once. It
wasn't sponsored, so the video is now members
only. And, you know, for for a product
like that, you think you want some visuals.
(12:35):
Right? But, and when they came on the
product, they only talked about,
Ignition,
SCADA, or HMI, whatever. But in any case,
they get 25.5
percent of the vote. So there's a lot
of inductive automation fans out there. And then
this next one, I have not been able
to find somebody at GE to come on
the show,
but their GE prophecy historian,
(12:56):
13.95%,
or let's say 14%
in 2nd place. Aviva, OSIpi historian,
11.5%.
And then Rockwell Tide at 11 a half
percent
is a factory talk historian,
which is based on OSIpi historian.
So if you put those 2 together, that's
22. That gets you pretty close to Ignition
(13:17):
historian.
But I suspect the ignition historian number, they're
using that with ignition. They're not using a
stand alone.
Then we had a Siemens process historian come
in at 4.65,
tied with Siemens Opcenter MES
and Emerson Delta V MES.
And Aviva historian, the old Aviva historian and
(13:38):
the Emerson delta V historian. So, all those
guys tied at,
at that 4.65%.
Very interesting. Okay, the next poll, we had
a 104, this is one of the most
voted in polls. A 144
votes in this poll. And this poll is,
choose the PC based SCADA software you prefer.
(14:00):
Okay. And this one, Ignition and inductive automations
Ignition took it away with
49.46%.
Nearly 50% of the vote preferred ignition. Love
to get that. I've asked them to come
back on the show multiple times, so I'm
not going to be that that nagging ex,
ex customer.
But, in any case, but that's pretty impressive.
(14:22):
And what I thought was more impressive, because
we've only covered it a
little bit, was Siemens Unified WinCC
at 8%. Now,
you know, we've covered the unified
HMIs from Siemens. They sent us in some.
They sampled them, and then they sponsored the
episodes. So, you know, we're just so you
know, when dentistry is like that, I mean,
we can't ask for a better support. Right?
(14:44):
And, but we only really covered you Siemens
Unified Wind CDC as part of Siemens SCADA
in one podcast.
And that got in at,
8.15%.
That's a fairly new product. Right?
When we look at, you know, WinCC, just
standard WinCC, you would think, yeah, that's been
around for a long time, but the Unified
WinCC
(15:04):
is new. Then we have, one of my
favorite products that I teach on, Rockwell Automation
Factory Chalk Factory Chalk View Site Edition. We
have had that team on a couple of
times to give us updates on the product,
and
we'd love to get them back on. But
that came in at 7%. So win Siemens
Unified WinCC,
8%,
(15:25):
Rockwell, 7%, and then standard
win, Siemens WinCC, 7%.
Aviva
Wind to Wear InTouch, 6.52%.
That surprised me. It's so low. And then,
another Siemens down at 5 4.35%.
So inductive at nearly 50,
then Siemens Unified at 8. Rockwell Effector Talk
(15:47):
View at 7. Siemens WinCC at 7.
So, wow, very interesting results. Yeah. Let's go
on to the next poll. This had a
105 volts.
In this poll
votes, not volts.
This
poll, please choose your human machine interface HMI
hardware you prefer the most. Choose up to
(16:07):
2.
And, number 1 was the Siemens Unified Comfort
Panel. Still, I think that's very surprising.
Fairly new product. We had Remi on when
it first came out, and, I was very
excited to get one. We we had it
behind in the studio here behind me. For
the longest time, I gotta build a new
wall. It's just, financing waiting for the financing
(16:28):
to make that happen. But in any case,
Siemens Unified Comfort Panel, 16% of all votes,
over a 100 votes, went for the Siemens
Unified Comfort Panel. Rockwell Automation Panelview Plus, a
product I've been using since beta,
15%.
So very interesting there. And then inductive automation
ignition as an HMI,
(16:48):
11%.
And then I thought this one was very
interesting.
The,
I think it's Winetec?
Winetec, 7%. We're trying to get them on
the show. Siemens' older comfort panel, 6.5%.
Automation direct,
Seymour,
5%.
Siemens' unified basic panel, which is very new,
(17:08):
5%.
And then the factory talk optics comes in
at 8,
4.5%.
Alright. Very interesting. Alright. This next poll had
66 volts in it.
I feel like I'm saying volts and not
volts,
so excuse my slang.
This is which micro PLC or nano PLC
(17:30):
platform you use the most. And you can
choose up to 2 here. The Siemens S7
1200
comes in first at 26%.
Rockwell's control compact logics rather, Rockwell's compact logics
comes at 22%.
But, and I put the compact logics there
because I don't consider it a micro
PLC, but I thought a lot of people
(17:50):
would. So I put it in there, and
they got 22%.
But look at this, Rockwell Automation's micro, a
100, which I consider a nano PLC. That's
how they launched it. That's how they explained
it. 11%.
So s 7 1200 from Siemens, 26.
Rockwell Automation CompactLogix,
22.
Rockwell Automation, Micro 800,
(18:11):
11%. And then the logo from Siemens, 8%.
Then we get the automation direct click at
7.
Opto, 22. Groove, RIL. That can now be
a stand alone PLC, 4%.
And,
now we'll go to the next one. This
poll has 61 votes in it.
And
let's see what the question is.
(18:32):
Okay. Choose the distributed IO platform you prefer
to use the most.
Number 1, with 17.82
percent of the vote, Siemens ET 200 SP.
Number 2,
Rock Automation
1756
ControlLogix
IO as remote IO, distributed IO. I did
not expect that. Right? When I was putting
it in there, I'm like,
(18:53):
but it came in second. Right? 10.89%,
almost 11%,
followed up by
2 more Rockwell choices. Right?
Point IO, which I didn't like at the
beginning, but I've become a big fan of.
We cover it in our courses. It's a,
we have a ton of it here. 8.91%,
and then
Rockwell,
(19:13):
Automation 5069
Compact 5000 IO,
8.91%.
And then WAGO's in there
at 6.93%,
and then we're back with the old 17/69
Compact IO at 4.95,
tied with Flex IO and Flex 5000.
So very interesting results there. You can see
(19:36):
while Siemens ET 200
SP1 has the top choice at almost 18%,
Rockwell has the next three choices with ControlLogix
Point L and Compact 5000.
So very interesting. If you add those all
up, they definitely get the most votes in
the poll. But none of them they have
so many options, I'm not surprised they didn't
come in. Siemens, I think for MP and
L distributed IO, ET 200 SP is probably
(19:58):
what most people are going to use. If
they want machine mount, then they have other
options. Right? Alright. This next poll, this is
one of the biggest polls that people voted
in.
A 126
votes.
And this one is votes, not volts.
This one is,
please choose the medium to large
PLC platform,
or PAC platform, because Rockwell calls their PLCs
(20:21):
PACs now.
And we could get into a long conversation
about that, but we're not going to.
In any case, large to medium to large
PLC or PAC platform that you choose the
most,
and people could choose up to 2.
And so this one I thought was very
interesting here. Right? So,
there's only really two choices in this category
(20:43):
for Rockwell, and they came in number 1
and number 2. So I said medium to
logic, and we have control logics at 23%,
and then compact logics
at 17.6%.
Very interesting,
with a total of, what is that, 30,
40 over 40%.
Right?
Then, following that, we have Siemens, s 7
(21:04):
1500,
at 15.6%,
and the s 71200
at 8.6%.
So that's a total of, let's see, 16
+8. Right? So that's, what, 24?
And then that is followed quickly by the
Schneider Electric modicon, the M580
at 7.54,
Codesys,
(21:25):
7.04,
and then you can see they go down
below that. Okay.
So from there, we'll go to the next
poll here. This is the one that gets
the most,
a 176
volts.
Volts?
I don't know what it is today.
But in any case, I'll find out when
I see how long you guys listened or
(21:46):
watched if you guys enjoyed this lighthearted look
at, the polls or not. In any case,
here we
have, choose up to 3 of your top
industrial automation vendors.
Okay? And again,
voters could add additional vendors to the list
that I didn't have.
Number 1,
(22:06):
with the most votes out of,
almost 200 votes,
Rockwell Automation with 19, just over 19 percent
of the vote. Number 2,
Siemens
with just over 15.6%
of the vote.
Inductive
Automation, man, they have a great fan base.
Right?
4.5%
of the vote.
(22:27):
Automation Direct, another another company that has a
passionate following,
4%,
Codesys, 3.53,
Phoenix,
3.27,
Emerson, 3.27,
and so on. So I was surprised about
this too, not about Rockwell and Siemens. I
figured they would be fighting it because, you
know, they fight globally for the number 1.
They fight here. You know, we've we've tried
(22:49):
to get Mitsubishi back on. We tried the
Ganamaran on. They you know, it's all crickets
with them. So, you know, and they're big
in Asia. Although, they have their big fan
base here in the US too. I know
that. But, in any case, Rockwell Automation and
Siemens, I figured they'd be fighting for number
1. But I was surprised that inductive automation,
even though it's only 4 and a half
percent,
came in 3rd, although I shouldn't have been
(23:09):
surprised. And then the automation director, really didn't
come in 4th in any of the other
polls that I can remember,
that they came in 4th place. And then
there's a lot of people who only got
one vote.
And, again,
if you're if you're disappointed that your favorite
vendor didn't get more votes, it's probably because
you didn't vote in the poll, because I
know there's anywhere from a 1000 to 10000
(23:31):
of you who consume the podcast every week,
and,
whether it's on LinkedIn, on the automationblog.com,
or on iTunes, or on Spotify.
But in any case, hopefully, next year, now
that you guys are more familiar with the
polls and we reviewed them, hopefully, next year,
you guys will be more apt to vote,
because I love to see the more people
(23:51):
who vote, the more guidance I get. I
mean, from this poll, I can definitely see
some places where I need to focus both
my free public videos and articles,
as well as my membership videos and articles.
And so with that, we've come to the
end of the show. So, again, I just
want to recap.
I am in conversations with a lot of
vendors that get them on the show in
(24:12):
2025.
If you're a vendor, please contact me. Love
to get you on the show.
As far as the membership programs,
we are gonna be I'm personally gonna be
dedicating,
several hours every week to produce new membership
videos. With those, I will usually have, like,
a free
short tip for the public.
(24:32):
But, in any case, we're really trying to
grow that membership program from roughly 40 members
today to 240,
so I can really just dedicate most of
the day to doing both those in-depth,
how to's, as well as bring back the
news show, because I kinda miss following the
news. I don't know if any of you
saw the NVIDIA,
press conference. Was it yesterday or the day
(24:54):
before? But they had all those humanoid robots
we had been talking about, covering for 2
years.
And so I'd really like to get back
to doing that. Maybe we just do it
once a week to start, but we'll need
to get up to to to make it
break even, we need to get up to
240.
All we need, we need a a sponsor
to come in and sponsor the shows.
But in any case, I think, you know,
(25:15):
a lot of these,
large vendors have cut back on their
marketing budget, and and they've decided to do
the simple thing, just spend it all with
Google. And to me, it's like, yeah, you
may get millions of views, but
people don't really view the ads. Right? We
get, you know, 1,000,000, 9 8, 9,000,000
thumbnail views on YouTube every year, but, you
(25:35):
know, that doesn't mean anybody's even watching or,
you know, it's just they're scrolling by it.
Right? Same thing with ads in a newspaper
or ads in a, like, in a Automation
World magazine. I know that a lot of
people actually look at them. I don't. So
better the better the sponsor content people want,
like how to how to use something. That's
my opinion. Anyways,
with that, if you're interested in the membership,
(25:57):
check it out over at the automation blog.comforward/join.
You can see all the information right there
whether you wanna join on YouTube or,
on the automation blog.com.
And if you are a level 3 member,
formerly level 2, and now level 3, join
me tonight for the live chat. If you're
a student,
join me tonight for the office hours.
(26:17):
Members, you I have posted, how to get
that, how to get to the live chat
discord.
And,
students, it's in lesson 111,
the link to the team's meeting.
So I'm gonna go ahead and end the
show here. I I don't know if I
left anything out. I'm I'm but, in any
case, hopefully, I didn't. So, at this point,
I just wanna wish you guys a very
happy 2025.
(26:38):
I want to wish you all good health
and happiness.
And until next time, my friends,
peace.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.