Weintek Love in the Wild
Jose Luis Garcia
Today we've been tinkering with something that I find especially useful in an industrial environment: user access in a Weintek HMI using RFID tags. Nothing particularly "futuristic", but very well resolved. Instead of relying on usernames and passwords (which we all know how they end up in the plant...), each operator identifies themselves by bringing their RFID key fob close to the reader. The HMI recognizes the tag and directly applies its permission level. Simple, fast and, above all, practical. On a technical level, the interesting thing is how it integrates with the user management of the system itself. You can map each tag ID to a user, define roles and limit critical actions (recipes, parameters, maintenance...) without the need for external development. On a day-to-day basis, this translates into: – Fewer steps for the operator – More real control over who accesses what – Better traceability of actions – And fewer "shared passwords" circulating around the plant I have recorded a short video where you can see the real operation, without filters. So you can see how simple it is to implement and how well it can fit into a real application. If you work with HMIs or are thinking of improving access control in your equipment, I think it can give you some ideas.
Today we've been tinkering with something that I find especially useful in an industrial environment: user access in a Weintek HMI using RFID tags. Nothing particularly "futuristic", but very well resolved. Instead of relying on usernames and passwords (which we all know how they end up in the plant...), each operator identifies themselves by bringing their RFID key fob close to the reader. The HMI recognizes the tag and directly applies its permission level. Simple, fast and, above all, practical. On a technical level, the interesting thing is how it integrates with the user management of the system itself. You can map each tag ID to a user, define roles and limit critical actions (recipes, parameters, maintenance...) without the need for external development. On a day-to-day basis, this translates into: – Fewer steps for the operator – More real control over who accesses what – Better traceability of actions – And fewer "shared passwords" circulating around the plant I have recorded a short video where you can see the real operation, without filters. So you can see how simple it is to implement and how well it can fit into a real application. If you work with HMIs or are thinking of improving access control in your equipment, I think it can give you some ideas.