skAInet Edge-Compute: the core of our monitoring systems is now a product
For ten years we rebuilt the same Linux box with PoE ports for every project. Now it has a name, a version and a product page: skAInet Edge-Compute v1.5.
Every monitoring system we built with Auto-Intern over the past ten years had the same component in the middle: a small Linux box with one uplink, a handful of PoE ports and enough compute to make sense of the sensors hanging off it. The product was always something else, PowerSense or the reflow oven monitor. The box was rebuilt each time.
Since September 2026 it has a name, a version number and its own website: skAInet Edge-Compute v1.5, manufactured by Auto-Intern GmbH in Germany. nabla B was responsible for the system architecture, the PoE-first concept, the M12 cabling specification and the EMC certification.
The essentials: one M12 WAN port, seven M12 LAN ports with PoE Class 3 on their own DHCP network, an 8-core ARM with 8 GB RAM, a swappable compute module on a custom carrier, 48 to 72 V DC over M12 powering the module and every attached sensor, an anodised aluminium enclosure sealed to 1 bar. On top, a Yocto Linux with a documented SBOM, because the EU Cyber Resilience Act will ask for it, and interfaces from MQTT via OPC UA to Prometheus.
Why a product instead of another one-off? Because we did not want to make the same mistakes an eleventh time. The story behind it, with pointers to PowerSense and the EMC campaign in Dongguan, is on Stephan Bökelmann's blog.