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Getting started

Welcome to the quick start guide for implementing and using ifm remoteConnect in the mobileIoT Suite.

This guide will help you to actually setup the connection and fulfill the use-cases as described.

Preparation

To be able to start a remote connection, there are some steps to walk through and to verify whether everything is setup correctly.

  • Access to mobile IoT Suite
    First thing is that you will have to have access to the ifm mobile IoT Suite. This Cloud-based solution will open up the world of machine (lifecycle) management, of which the remoteConnect solution is part of. To gain access, please contact your local ifm representative in order to be setup and configured in the mobile IoT Suite.

Hardware preparation

Let's get the CR3171 ready.

ℹ️ Important Information and Requirements:
- To be able to use remoteConnect, FW 1.7.0 or higher is required.
- The devices that we're equipped with FW 1.7.0 or higher in production, remoteConnect is the default enabled.
- If an earlier firmware was installed on the gateway and/or the secomea connection was used in the past, the secomea sitemanager will be still switched on.
- Devices with serialnr. 2537000 and higher are pre-installed with the remoteConnect security keys needed to setup the connection to our cloud services. If you're device has an serialnr. higher than 2537000 you can skip the hardware preparation. For the other devices, please look at this guide ifm Docs | mobileᴵᵒᵀ Hardware | CR3171 | remoteConnect security keys
First connection with the CR3171

Without a CR3171 we will not be able to setup a connection, therefore having the device at hand, connected and supplied with power is mandatory.

  • Connect the device to the power-supply
  • Connect the ethernet interface to the (machine) network that you would like to gain remote access to.
  • To access and configure the device, either use the Ethernet interface or the WiFi interface.
ℹ️INFORMATION
Please note, the Ethernet port of the CR3171 is pre-configured to be in IP 'shared' mode with the IP address 192.168.82.1 which means that if you connect, make sure your network is setup accordingly, or make a direct connection to the device to initially gain access to the device. In this quick start we won't go deeper into the actual setting up of networks and initiating a local connection to the device, please have a look at our detailed documentation on this here: ifm Docs | mobileᴵᵒᵀ Hardware | CR3171 | WebUI | Ethernet
Checking remoteConnect on the CR3171
  • Now, make sure that you're device is configured correctly by logging into the CR3171 WebUI, using your preferred web browser. By default, the IP address is 192.168.82.1
  • Depending on the browser you use, you will see a message as depicted below. This is shown because the certificate on the device to create an https connection is self-signed and cannot be validated by the browser.
  • At this point, click `Advanced` (this could look differently on your browser)
  • Click on Continue to ..
  • Now enter the (default) credentials for the device ( default: username = admin, passw = ETH MAC )
  • Navigate to Connectivity
  • Navigate to remoteConnect
  • Make sure that remoteConnect is enbled.
  • With in the status overview, later on we can monitor the actual connection status, to do so, click in the left-sidebar on Status
  • In the remoteConnect section the current status of a connection is visualized.


Prepare the security keys

As described in the first information and requirement section, it was explained that the CR3171 has to be equipped with security keys to actually be allowed to connect to the remoteConnect cloud services.

Devices produced before week 37 of 2025, are not by default equipped with these keys. This means that devices with a serialnr . lower than 2537000 we need to do an extra preparation step before the device is remoteConnect capable.

As there are some options how to do this, an extra guide was created for this topic, please find that here ifm Docs | mobileᴵᵒᵀ Hardware | CR3171 | remoteConnect security keys

Cloud-side preparation

Onboard the device within the mobileIoT Suite

With the hardware ready to go, we need to do some administration in the mobileIoT Suite. First we will have to onboard the machine (device) in the platform and if that is done, we need to assign the machine to a datacenter that will organize and provide the connection.

To add the machine to your domain in the mobile IoT Suite, follow this guide : ifm Docs | mobileᴵᵒᵀ Suite | Documentation

Configure the network on the machine

The next step is to configure the remoteConnect service to know which network nodes are on the network. This can be found in this guide, ifm Docs | mobileᴵᵒᵀ Suite | remoteConnect | Setup network

Making a connection

Now that everything is setup, it is time to initiate a remoteConnect session and make connection to your target machine. If all the other steps are done, this one is going be really easy.

  • Navigate to your machine in the mobileIoT Suite
  • Click on the 🛡️ icon to go into the remoteConnect connection mode

if no active contract is available for that particular machine, you will be asked to fill-out this form:

ℹ️ INFORMATION:
The Reference number will be placed on the invoice that will be sent from ifm to you, you can use this freely to reference to a PO number or others.
  • Now hit the Activate button
  • It will take a couple of minutes for our systems to be configured and all the rights and permissions are set to allow an remoteConnect session. In the mean time, the Contract status will show Pending
  • In the meantime, if you haven't done yet, you should install the remoteConnect client on your computer. This can be done by clicking on the remoteConnect Client button, which will download the client application.
  • Once download, execute the application and it will install the required client on your computer.


ℹ️ INFORMATION :
If you've installed the client, you won't see anything of it on your system. You won't find the application as a listed application, it's rather a background application that waits until the service is started. Then it will pop-up.
  • As seen in the picture below, the contract status is now active and ready to go
  • For this session, we ONLY need to connect to the gateway @ 192.168.82.1 and the display @ 192.168.82.245
  • Now click Connect
  • The browser will prompt something like this, which indicated that the browser would like to make a connection to your remoteConnect service running or just installed on your computer.
  • Click Open
  • In the SysTray of your computer, you'll now find a small ifm logo, which represents the remoteConnect service.
  • If the connection was established correctly, the mobileIoT Suite will show something like this:
  • As connection validation, a ping to the device(s) can be done. This will also give you an indication of the latency on the line.
  • Congratulations, you've successfully established a remoteConnect connection. Now you can use what ever tooling you want use to connect to the components.
  • remoteConnect works perfectly together with ecologOne, as described here: ifm Docs | ecologOne . With the combination of ecologOne and remoteConnect, one now can make remote updates on ifm components.


Status and closing the connection

If a remoteConnect session to a machine is active, you will see the green shield icon.

If you're done with the session, just open-up the connection properties and click the `Disconnect` button. This will close the connection and terminate any active connections.