No Windows, No Worries - A Smarter, Safer Way to Spot Trouble Before It Strikes

In many industrial environments, heat is an early warning sign. Whether it’s the result of a worn bearing, an overloaded connection or friction where there shouldn’t be any, a sudden rise in temperature often signals the start of something going wrong.

Traditionally, these issues were picked up during scheduled thermographic surveys — someone walking around with a high-spec handheld infrared camera, capturing images to spot heat anomalies. While effective, it’s not continuous. And it’s certainly not cheap.

Online thermal monitoring, meanwhile, has always been something of a dream solution. Being able to track temperature trends around the clock and get real-time alerts should be a no-brainer. But for most manufacturers, the cost, complexity, and need to modify enclosures meant it simply wasn’t an option. That’s where Calumino and ERIKS come in.

Turning the Heat Up on Innovation

With a long history of delivering thermographic surveys for customers, ERIKS has always been at the forefront of predictive maintenance. But we knew there had to be a better way to scale that service — especially for harder-to-reach or safety-critical locations.

That search brought us to Calumino, an innovative developer of compact, low-resolution industrial thermal sensors. While the sensors were clever, what they needed was a practical, easy-to-install solution that could fit seamlessly into existing plant systems. Together, we got to work.

The result? A compact, low-cost, smart low resolution infrared detector that doesn’t compromise safety, performance or reliability — and is now part of ERIKS wider Smart Asset Management offer.
 

Small Device. Big Impact.

The Calumino Industrial Monitoring Sensor, enhanced with ERIKS' engineering insight, is compact and unobtrusive. Housed in a 12cm x 12cm enclosure, it can be safely mounted inside electrical switchgear and control panels without weakening their structure or needing invasive modifications — no need to cut inspection windows into arc-flash rated enclosures.

It runs on a simple 5V power supply, uses a Modbus output, and connects via a plug-and-play socket with just four connections. Straightforward, scalable, and smart.

Once installed, it monitors pre-defined areas of interest, learning what’s “normal” and flagging unusual temperature behaviour before a fault becomes a failure. And thanks to built-in algorithms, it cleverly filters out false positives caused by ambient changes or load fluctuations.
 

Powered by 5G, Integrated with SAM Platform

Crucially, we have integrated our unique temperature severity calculation as an output meaning that ambient temperature and loading changes can be taken into account. It is the temperature profile that is monitored as well as absolute temperatures and temperature difference. This is then integrated to our Smart Asset Management (SAM) platform, combining real-time thermal insight with the benefits of 5G wireless connectivity.

This means data from even the most remote or challenging environments can be transmitted  directly to SAM — providing maintenance engineers with instant alerts and a complete temperature trend history for each asset. The image data can then be interrogated for what has chaused the change in condition.

That’s not just clever technology — it’s predictive maintenance made practical.
 

A New Standard in Condition Monitoring

The sensor’s simplicity and affordability make it ideal for continuous monitoring across a wide range of sectors. Our customers in pharmaceutical, food & beverage, petrochemical, utilities and building products have already embraced the technology — gaining peace of mind and improved asset reliability without the usual expense or disruption.

And while it might not boast the pixel count of a handheld infrared camera, don’t let that fool you. As Marek Steffanson, CEO of Calumino, puts it: “When it comes to sensitivity, accuracy, and real-world deployment, this sensor punches well above its weight.”
 

Bridging the Gap Between Surveys and Smart Monitoring

For ERIKS, this solution doesn’t replace thermographic surveys — it enhances them. By filling the gap between periodic checks and always-on insight, our customers get a fuller picture of their assets' health, especially in locations that are hard to access or where downtime isn’t an option. As our Technical Manager for Smart Asset Management, David Manning-Ohren, puts it: “This is a fantastic addition to our smart monitoring suite. It gives customers a practical way to continuously monitor captive or remote assets, and the reassurance that problems won’t go unnoticed.”
 

Ready to Future-Proof Your Maintenance Strategy?

Get in touch to learn how ERIKS can help you deploy this game-changing monitoring solution as part of your predictive maintenance programme. Our engineers can advise, install and integrate everything you need — from a single sensor to a full plant-wide deployment.

Smart monitoring just got smarter.
 

For more information on ERIKS Reliability Services, contact your local ERIKS Service Centre who will be happy to discuss your options.

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