Edge HMI
The Edge HMI is ControlCom's operator interface for wall-mounted touch panels on site: screens in the chiller room or at the switchgear that show live Dashboards and Diagrams, served by the gateway on the local network rather than from the cloud. The Edge HMI tab of a ControlCom Gateway is where you configure those panels: which screens each one shows, how operators navigate between them, and who can log in. The feature is in beta, which is why the tab carries a BETA badge.
Workflow Stage: Visualize
How It Works
The pieces fit together in three layers. You author the HMI configuration here in ControlCom Connect. The gateway's Edge Server pulls that configuration down, the same way it receives its SDK configuration. Each panel on site runs the ControlCom Edge HMI application, pairs with the gateway over the local network, and pulls its configuration and live data from the Edge Server.
That local delivery is the point of the design: a panel caches everything it needs and keeps working if the site loses its internet connection, because its data source is the gateway a few meters away, not the cloud. When you change the configuration here, the Edge Server's configuration changes, and every paired panel picks up the new version automatically.
One gateway carries one HMI group, which holds everything on this tab: the panel clients, the menus and the local users.
Creating the HMI Group
A gateway that has never had an HMI configured shows a single card on the Edge HMI tab. Click Create HMI Group to create the group; the tab then switches to the full configuration view.
Once the group exists, the tab shows its sections in order: Clients, Menus, Users, and the organization's dashboard library underneath, so the screens you reference in menus and clients are one scroll away.
Clients
A client is the configuration profile for one physical panel. When a panel is set up on site, it picks one of the clients defined here, and that choice determines what the panel shows. Two panels can share a client if they should behave identically; giving each panel its own client lets the chiller room panel start on the chiller dashboard while the switchgear panel starts on the electrical one.
Click Client in the section header to create one. The form asks for a name, a start screen and a menu:
Start Screen Type chooses between a Dashboard and a Diagram as the screen the panel boots into. For a dashboard with parameter groups, a Parameter Group picker narrows it to the right equipment instance. HMI Menu attaches one of the group's menus, and you should always attach one: a client without a menu gives its panel a start screen and no way to navigate anywhere else.
Clients can be edited from the row menu after creation.
Menus
A menu is the navigation the panel shows alongside its content: a list of entries, each pointing at a Dashboard or a Diagram, so an operator can move between screens with a tap. Menus can be positioned on any side of the screen and sized to show icons only, full labels, or a resizable rail.
Click Menu to create one, or edit an existing menu from its row menu. The form holds the name, a visibility switch, the position and size, and the navigation items themselves:
Each item carries a title, an icon, a type (dashboard or diagram) and the target screen; dashboard items can also pin a parameter group. Add appends an item, and the trash button on an item removes it.
The menu items decide what ships to the panel: a Dashboard or Diagram reaches the panels only if some menu item references it. If a client's start screen should also be reachable from the menu, add it as an item too.
Users
HMI users are local operator accounts for the panels, separate from your platform users in Team & Roles. They have a first and last name, a username and a password, and exist only on the gateway and its panels; they carry no email address and no platform role. This keeps panel access on site: an operator logs into the panel with these credentials even when the site is offline.
Click User to create one. The Active switch controls whether the account can log in; deactivating a user removes them from the panel's login screen without deleting the account.
The row menu edits a user, changes their password, or deletes the account. Usernames need at least 5 characters and passwords at least 4, short enough for a code an operator can type on a touch screen.
Connecting a Panel
On site, the ControlCom Edge HMI application runs on the panel hardware and walks through a short setup: pick a theme, connect to the gateway, choose a client, and set the panel options. Connecting takes the gateway's IP address and the device shared secret, which you can copy from the gateway's Details tab (see Connection Details); the panel can also discover the gateway automatically on the local network. A local supervisor password set during onboarding protects the panel's own settings.
After pairing, the panel offers the clients you defined on this tab; choosing one gives it its start screen and menu. From then on the panel keeps itself current with the Edge Server and needs no further attention from the platform side.
Panels are kiosk devices without conventional ways to get data off them, so exporting from a panel works optically: the panel shows an animated QR stream, and scanning it with a phone camera opens a transfer page that receives the data.
Where This Fits
The Edge HMI belongs to the Visualize stage, delivered locally: the Dashboards and Diagrams you build in the cloud are the same screens the panels render on site. The content comes from the Visualize stage's Dashboards and Diagrams, the data behind them was Collected by the gateway's Edge Server, and the gateway itself was registered in the Connect stage through Device Administration.
Alarms configured with Edge Server evaluation also reach the panels, so operators see active alarms at the equipment even when the site is offline; see Alarms for the edge evaluation option.