If you’re evaluating OEE and machine monitoring platforms, Evocon should come up. They’ve been around since 2010, they’re used in over 1,000 factories across 50 countries, and they have strong case studies from companies like Mars and Saint-Gobain. They’re a credible product with genuine traction.
RoboVigil takes a fundamentally different approach to the same problem. Understanding the difference matters, because it determines what data you get, what hardware you need, and what your ongoing costs look like.
| Evocon | RoboVigil | |
|---|---|---|
| Monitoring method | Sensors + operator input | Direct protocol integration |
| Hardware required | IIoT device + sensors at each machine | No additional hardware |
| Best for | Production lines / OEE tracking | Robots / CNC / automation |
| Operator involvement | High — downtime reason logging | Minimal — machines report their own state |
| Camera integration | Not included | Native — live feeds + fault snapshots |
| Fault diagnostics | Signal-based (on/off/running) | Controller-level (fault codes, program state) |
| Deployment | Physical install at each machine | Remote setup via VPN |
| Mobile app | Browser-based | Native iOS, Android, Amazon Appstore |
| Pricing (at time of writing) | From $189/machine/month + device fees | £150/machine/month, all inclusive |
What Evocon does
Evocon is an Estonian company that provides cloud-based OEE monitoring software. Their system centres on a proprietary IIoT device that connects to machines via industrial sensors, PLC relay outputs, or existing signal sources. The device captures production signals — typically a count of products passing a sensor — and sends that data to Evocon’s cloud platform hosted on AWS.
On the shop floor, operators interact with Evocon through touchscreen displays. When a machine stops, the operator selects a downtime reason from a predefined list. This combination of automated signal capture and manual operator input is how Evocon builds its OEE picture: availability from the signal data, performance from cycle time comparisons, and quality from operator-entered scrap counts or secondary sensor signals.
Evocon’s strength is OEE visualisation. Their Shift View gives operators real-time feedback on production performance, and their analytics dashboards are well designed for tracking trends across shifts, lines, and factories. They also offer checklists for quality control, API access for ERP integration, and multi-factory management on their higher-tier plans.
Their customer base skews towards production lines — food and beverage, packaging, building materials, paper products — where the core question is “how many units did we produce and how long were we stopped?”
What RoboVigil does
RoboVigil is software-only. No hardware, no sensors, no IIoT devices. 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 and fault capture.
Where Evocon captures a production signal and asks an operator to explain stoppages, RoboVigil reads the machine’s own data. Fault codes, program states, cycle times, axis positions, temperatures, safety status — whatever the controller exposes through its native protocol. Push notifications go straight to your phone when a machine faults, accompanied by a camera snapshot of the machine at the moment it stopped.
Connectivity uses the factory’s existing network with a WireGuard VPN tunnel. No Wi-Fi dependency, no SIM cards, no cellular gateway. Cameras provide visual context for operators and managers — they’re for human reference and fault verification, not automated visual inspection.
Hardware requirements
This is the sharpest difference between the two platforms.
Evocon requires their proprietary IIoT device at every machine or line. The device costs $19–$24 per month depending on contract length, on top of the software licence. You also need sensors or relay connections to capture production signals, cabling to connect everything, and display devices (tablets or monitors) on the shop floor for operator interaction. Evocon provides the IIoT device and basic sensors for a 30-day free trial, but after that it’s a recurring cost per device.
If your machines already store production data in a local database, Evocon can pull from that via HTTPS API — their “hardware-free” option. But the standard deployment path involves physical hardware at every machine.
RoboVigil requires no additional monitoring hardware — no sensors, no proprietary gateways, no IIoT devices, no cabling, no tablets. It uses the network infrastructure and IP cameras your factory already has. If your machines expose data via OPC-UA, MQTT, or a supported native protocol, and you have IP cameras pointed at them, there’s nothing to buy and nothing to install.
For a 20-machine deployment, Evocon’s hardware adds up. Twenty IIoT devices at $24/month is $480/month in device fees alone, before sensors, cabling, displays, and shipping. RoboVigil’s hardware cost for the same deployment is zero.
Pricing
Evocon prices in US dollars across three tiers (at time of writing). On a one-year agreement: Basic at $219/machine/month, Professional at $289/machine/month, and Enterprise at $379/machine/month. Three-year agreements bring those down to $189, $249, and $319 respectively. IIoT device rental is $19–$24/month extra per device. Integrations are priced as add-ons. Alerts are only available on Professional and above.
RoboVigil is £150/machine/month on a single pricing tier that includes alerts, camera feeds, multi-site monitoring, all supported protocols, and native mobile apps on iOS, Android, and Amazon Appstore. No per-user fees, no hardware fees, no integration surcharges.
To get alerts and API access on Evocon, you need at least the Professional tier at $289/machine/month (roughly £230 at current exchange rates) plus device costs.
Data depth and approach
Evocon excels at OEE tracking for production lines. Their system is built around counting output, measuring cycle times against targets, and categorising downtime through operator input. For a packaging line or a bottling operation where the core metric is “units per hour” and “why did we stop,” Evocon provides a polished, proven workflow.
The limitation is that Evocon’s data is largely about production counting and operator-reported stoppages. The IIoT device captures signals — a product passed a sensor, a machine started, a machine stopped — but doesn’t read the machine’s own diagnostic data. Fault codes, program states, axis positions, temperatures, safety violations: that information lives inside the machine’s controller, and Evocon’s sensor-based approach doesn’t access it.
Sensor-based monitoring platforms became widespread because many older production machines exposed little or no usable network data. External sensors provided a practical retrofit path, and for high-volume production lines they still do. But the landscape has shifted. Most industrial robots, modern CNC controllers, and injection moulding machines built in the last decade expose rich data through OPC-UA, MQTT, or manufacturer-specific APIs. The question is whether you still need to bolt sensors onto a machine that’s already broadcasting everything you need over the network.
RoboVigil reads from the controller directly. For an ABB IRC5 robot, that means fault logs, execution state, and cycle data via Robot Web Services. For a Universal Robot, it means real-time joint positions, error information, safety mode, program state, and data streams via RTDE. For CNC machines with OPC-UA, it means spindle load, feed rates, tool data, alarm history, and program names. Plus live camera feeds from every machine.
The question is what you’re monitoring and why. If your primary concern is production throughput and OEE across high-volume lines, Evocon’s operator-centric workflow handles that well. If you need to know what your robots and CNC machines are actually doing at the controller level — what faulted, why, what was happening at the time — RoboVigil provides that without anyone needing to be standing at the machine.
Deployment
Evocon’s deployment involves physical work at each machine: mounting sensors, running cables to the IIoT device, providing power and internet to the device, and setting up display screens. Their onboarding team ships hardware and provides instructions, and they claim the process takes only a few days. For machines where signals come from PLCs via relay outputs, an electrician or automation engineer needs to be involved.
RoboVigil’s deployment is remote. A WireGuard VPN is configured on the factory’s router, and RoboVigil connects to the machine’s existing data interfaces over the network. No machine isolation, no cabinet access, no production interruption. For machines already running OPC-UA servers — which includes most modern CNC controllers, injection moulding machines with Euromap 77, and many PLC-based systems — initial monitoring can often be live the same day.
Operator involvement
Evocon is designed around operator engagement. Shift View dashboards on the shop floor give operators real-time feedback, and downtime reason logging requires operators to interact with the system every time a machine stops. Evocon sees this as a strength — it drives accountability and creates a culture of production awareness.
The trade-off is that data quality depends on operator compliance. If operators don’t log downtime reasons, or log inaccurate ones because they’re busy, the analytics suffer. Nights, weekends, breaks — any unmanned period means unlogged stoppages.
RoboVigil doesn’t require operator input. Machines report their own state. Faults are captured automatically with timestamps and camera snapshots regardless of whether anyone is standing at the machine. This is particularly relevant for robot cells and CNC machines that run unattended, lights-out shifts, or overnight.
Mobile and remote access
Evocon operates primarily through a browser-based interface. Their dashboards are accessible from any device with a web browser, and they mention tablets and phones as display options. At the time of writing, Evocon doesn’t offer native mobile apps on iOS or Android — access is through app.evocon.com in a browser. Evocon does offer alerts on its Professional tier, but without a native app these aren’t push notifications that wake your phone up at 3am when a robot faults on a lights-out shift.
RoboVigil has native apps on iOS, Android, and Amazon Appstore. Push notifications fire directly to your phone when a machine faults, with a camera snapshot attached. You can check live machine status and camera feeds from anywhere. The platform was designed mobile-first — the assumption is that the people who need to know about machine problems are not sitting at a desk in a control room.
Who should choose what
Choose Evocon if your priority is OEE tracking on production lines — packaging, food and beverage, paper products — where counting output and categorising downtime through operator input is the core workflow. Evocon’s strength is operator engagement and shift-level production visibility. If your machines are older or lack digital interfaces, Evocon’s sensor-based approach works where protocol-based monitoring can’t.
Choose RoboVigil if you’re monitoring industrial robots, CNC machines, or any equipment with OPC-UA, MQTT, or native protocol access, and you want controller-level data without installing hardware. If push alerts with camera snapshots matter to you, if you run unattended shifts, or if you want to avoid any on-premises hardware, RoboVigil is the simpler, faster path.
Both are cloud-based. Both charge per machine. Both serve the same broad market. The difference is in how they get the data and how deep that data goes.
Try it on your own machines — sign up at robovigil.com or explore the demo factory to see what the platform looks like with live data.