If you’re evaluating machine monitoring platforms in the UK, FourJaw and RoboVigil should both appear on your shortlist. They’re both cloud-based, both aimed at manufacturers running 5 to 200 machines, and both priced in a similar range. But they take fundamentally different approaches to getting data from your machines — and that difference shapes everything else.
What FourJaw does
FourJaw is a Sheffield-based machine monitoring platform built around plug-and-play IoT hardware. Their MachineLink device clips current sensors onto a machine’s power cables and infers machine state from the electrical draw — is it on, off, idle, or running? The device connects via Wi-Fi or an optional 4G gateway and sends data to FourJaw’s cloud platform.
When the MachineLink detects that a machine has stopped, it prompts the operator via a tablet mounted on the machine to select a downtime reason from a predefined list. This operator input is how FourJaw builds its picture of why machines stop, not just that they stopped.
FourJaw has good traction. They’re used by manufacturers across aerospace, automotive, food production, and precision engineering. Their customer testimonials are genuine and their onboarding process is well regarded. They’re a serious product backed by a team that understands manufacturing.
That’s important to say upfront. This isn’t about one being good and the other bad. It’s about which approach fits your factory.
What RoboVigil does
RoboVigil is a software-only monitoring platform. There’s no hardware to install — no sensors, no IoT devices, no tablets. It connects directly to the data sources your machines already provide: OPC-UA servers, MQTT brokers, Universal Robots RTDE, ABB Robot Web Services. It also connects to your existing IP cameras for live visual monitoring.
Where FourJaw infers machine state from power draw, RoboVigil reads it directly from the machine’s own controller. That means fault codes, program states, cycle times, axis positions, temperatures — whatever the machine exposes through its native protocol. The data doesn’t need an operator to interpret or enrich it. It comes from the source.
Connectivity uses the factory’s existing network infrastructure with a WireGuard VPN tunnel for security. No Wi-Fi dependency, no SIM card, no 4G gateway.
The fundamental difference: power monitoring vs protocol monitoring
FourJaw’s current clamp approach has a real advantage: it works on any mains-powered machine regardless of age, brand, or whether the machine has any digital interface at all. A 30-year-old manual lathe with no controller? FourJaw can tell you if it’s running. That’s genuinely useful and it’s something RoboVigil can’t do with data alone.
But power monitoring has a ceiling. A current clamp knows the machine is drawing power. It doesn’t know what the machine is doing. A power clamp can’t distinguish between a robot running a production cycle and the same robot sitting in a fault state with its servo drives still energised. It can’t tell you which program is running, what fault code triggered a stoppage, whether cycle times are drifting upward, or what position the axes were in when something went wrong.
To get beyond on/off/running, FourJaw relies on operator input. When a machine stops, the tablet prompts the operator to say why. That’s useful data — but it depends on operators actually doing it, doing it accurately, and doing it promptly. In practice, that input is inconsistent. Operators are busy. They’re running multiple machines. They’ll tap the most convenient reason on the list, not necessarily the right one if it is even on the list. And if nobody’s standing at the machine when it stops — nights, weekends, breaks — that downtime goes unlogged until someone notices.
RoboVigil’s protocol-based approach doesn’t have this problem because the machine tells you what happened. An ABB IRC5 robot reports its own fault codes through Robot Web Services. A Universal Robot reports safety violations, program state, and joint positions through RTDE. A CNC machine with OPC-UA exposes spindle load, feed rates, tool numbers, and alarm history. None of that requires a person to be present or to make a judgement call.
The trade-off is that RoboVigil needs the machine to have a digital interface. If your machines don’t speak OPC-UA, MQTT, or a supported protocol, the software can’t read data that doesn’t exist. Camera-based visual monitoring is still available, but the full value of the platform comes from machine data. For legacy machines with no modern interface, FourJaw’s power monitoring approach has the edge.
Pricing
FourJaw offers two tiers. Their Standard plan is £90 per machine per month. Their recommended Pro plan — chosen by 90% of their customers according to their website — starts from £19,000 per year for 10 machines, and includes the hardware, operator tablets, and additional features like downtime tracking, job tracking, and shift management.
RoboVigil is £150 per machine per month. No hardware cost, no one-off fees, no minimum machine count, no tiered feature gates — every feature is included. No per-user fees. Native apps on iOS, Android, and Amazon Appstore are included.
Deployment and connectivity
FourJaw requires physical installation. Their MachineLink device needs to be installed inside the machine’s electrical cabinet by a competent person — current clamps attached to power cables, the device connected to mains power, Wi-Fi credentials configured. FourJaw call it plug-and-play and claim 10 minutes per machine, but their own installation guide specifies that installation should be conducted by someone who can safely work inside an electrical cabinet, and the machine must be fully isolated during installation. That’s production downtime for every machine you connect.
If factory Wi-Fi is poor or unavailable — which is common — FourJaw offers a 4G managed connectivity gateway. That adds another device, another dependency, and ongoing mobile signal quality as a variable.
RoboVigil has no physical installation. It’s software that connects to data sources over the network. If the machine has an OPC-UA server or MQTT broker accessible on the local network, RoboVigil connects to it remotely through a WireGuard VPN tunnel. The VPN runs on the factory’s existing router. No machine needs to be isolated, no cabinets need to be opened, no production is interrupted.
Data depth
This is where our approaches diverge most sharply.
FourJaw gives you machine utilisation — how much of the available time a machine was actually running. That’s valuable baseline data and for many factories it’s the first time they’ve had an objective measure of it. Their energy monitoring is also a genuine differentiator, tracking power consumption per machine for cost allocation and sustainability reporting.
RoboVigil gives you what the machine itself knows. For a Universal Robot, that means real-time joint positions, safety status, program state, and 500Hz data streams via RTDE. With ABB IRC5, it means fault logs, cycle counters, and program state via Robot Web Services. For CNC machines with OPC-UA, it means program name, cycle times, spindle load, feed overrides, tool data, and alarm history. Plus live camera feeds showing what’s physically happening at the machine and capturing faults as they happen.
The question is which level of data you need. If you’ve never monitored your machines and you want a simple utilisation baseline across a mixed fleet of old and new equipment, FourJaw’s power monitoring is a pragmatic starting point. If your machines have modern controllers with digital interfaces and you want the actual machine data — fault codes, cycle analytics, process parameters — that’s what RoboVigil is built for.
Mobile access
RoboVigil has native apps on iOS, Android, and Amazon Appstore. Machine data and live camera feeds are accessible from your phone, anywhere. When something goes wrong a push alert tells you immediately and the system takes a snapshot of the camera and the machine status.
FourJaw is web-based. Their platform is accessible via a browser on any device, but there’s no dedicated mobile app. For managers who want a quick glance at machine status from their phone, a native app with push notifications is a different experience from opening a browser and logging into a web portal.
Who should choose FourJaw
Choose FourJaw if your machines are predominantly older equipment with no digital interface — manual lathes, legacy presses, machines with no OPC-UA or MQTT capability. FourJaw’s power monitoring will give you utilisation data from machines that RoboVigil’s software-only approach can’t reach. Also consider FourJaw if energy monitoring and carbon footprint tracking are primary requirements — their energy features are more developed in this area.
Who should choose RoboVigil
Choose RoboVigil if your machines have modern controllers with OPC-UA, MQTT, or brand-specific interfaces like ABB RWS or UR RTDE. If you want actual machine data rather than inferred state from power draw, and you don’t want to install hardware on every machine or depend on operator input for data quality. If you want live camera feeds alongside machine data. If you want native mobile apps. If you want to start with one machine rather than committing to five.
And if you’re running a mixed fleet — some modern, some legacy — you can use RoboVigil for the machines with digital interfaces and add basic sensors and a MQTT gateway for the rest.
Get started
Sign up at robovigil.com, download the app, and connect your first machine. No hardware to order, no minimum commitment, no waiting for a site visit. If your machines speak OPC-UA or MQTT, you can be monitoring within the hour.