Category: HMI Screen

HMI stands for Human-Machine Interface. An HMI screen is the visual interface between a human operator and an industrial machine or automated system. It allows operators to monitor, control and interact with equipment without needing to touch the machinery directly.
Typically a touchscreen panel (anywhere from 4″ to 21″+) mounted on a control panel or machine enclosure, showing graphical representations of the process — piping diagrams, machine animations, trend graphs and data tables — updated in real time.
The HMI communicates with a PLC (the brain doing the actual control logic) via industrial protocols such as Modbus, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET or OPC-UA. The HMI reads and writes data tags in the PLC — it doesn’t control the machine itself, it talks to the PLC which does.