There are a lot of wireless vibration monitoring systems out there! But finding all of the options available to a vibration analyst can be time-consuming. In this post we have consolidated all the wireless vibration monitoring systems that focus on accuracy & performance over cost. In a separate post we'll do a similar comprehensive comparison of the lower-priced solutions.
To help traverse this long (almost 4,000 words!) post, we've conveniently provided a summary table that includes anchor links to the more detailed discussion on the product. Hopefully this summary table, in addition to the detailed overview on each wireless vibration sensor, helps you more quickly find the solution that best meets your needs - and then get to the fun of analyzing data recorded remotely!
| Product | Best For | Price |
| Microstrain's G-Link-200 | Outdoor applications | RFQ |
| PCB's Echo Wireless | Large scale operations wanting a local database | $6,400 |
| enDAQ's W-Series Sensors | Acquiring a lot of data for a variety of applications with complete analysis and visualization customization available | >$2,500 |
| National Instruments' InSightCM | Large scale complex & customized operations | RFQ |
| Erbessd 3X Wireless | In situ monitoring with a detailed tablet analysis app | $1,995 |
| Dynapar OnSiteTM Monitoring | Detailed frequency analysis | RFQ |
| Bently Nevada Ranger Pro | Large scale predictive maintenance | RFQ |
| Emerson's AMS | Mega scale condition monitoring | RFQ |
| SpotSee's OpsWatch | Simple monitoring of assets in smaller operations | $2,350 |
Full disclosure is that I work here at enDAQ (as evidenced by the navigation!), and we have a product included in this list, but I think this gives me a unique perspective because I continually work to educate myself on the competition we face. I'm excited to share with you what I've learned to help you decide which product best meets your remote vibration monitoring needs!
Lord Sensing's (formerly MicroStrain) have a wireless sensor nodes product line that also includes two nodes specific to vibration monitoring. The node (pictured above, G-LINK-200) with the embedded accelerometer is clearly utilizing Analog Devices ADXL355 or ADXL357 which we have as the digital accelerometer in our sensors - this is by far the best embedded digital output accelerometer we've seen on the market! And the specifications they have of the embedded are quite good accordingly. Then for higher frequency or more accurate vibration needs their IEPE-LINK-LXRS connects to more traditional piezoelectric IEPE or ICP accelerometers with a very high sample rate and resolution. They nicely list detailed specifications on their website which is a welcome surprise compared to others on this list! Although they still don't have pricing but we'd estimate there price somewhere in the $500 to $1,000 range per node.
Because their nodes don't connect straight to the internet, you will need a gateway. They have a few different options, one the WSDA-2000 will upload the data directly to their SensorCloud discussed shortly. Then they have a USB gateway that plugs straight into a computer and two other gateways for potentially connecting the gateway into another larger DAQ system. These gateways probably range in price of between $500 to $2,000; but that's just a guess!
So this brings us to their SensorCloud (sweet name!) cloud-based monitoring platform. This seems very well featured with highlights below, full details on their website.
What's most impressive about SensorCloud compared to every other cloud platform on this list except enDAQ... the pricing is publicly listed, picture below! The pricing is based per gateway and is either free, $35 or $100 per month defined by how many "transactions" (API uploads/downloads). The Premium and Pro levels offer 1 billion of data points which would be roughly 2 GB of storage per gateway.
All in all this a great option that seems to offer a nice combination of quality. affordability, and customization! They are definitely the top choice for monitoring assets located outside with their long range radio and waterproof sensor nodes.
PCB Piezotronics (now owned by MTS who also owns Endevco who make accelerometers) is known for their very high quality accelerometers and other piezo-based sensors (like pressure and force sensors). They nicely list the prices on their website which are detailed below and appreciated along with pretty detailed specifications! The sensor quality you know will be good.
Looking at the software specifications yields shows that the data is locally stored on a server or PC in a SQL database - this has some pluses in data security and minus in less access to your data remotely. The software obviously lets you see the historical data in a few different graphs/metrics and then use this to manually program warning and alarm conditions. Some other systems out there have begun using machine learning to tell you that something has changed which would be nice as opposed to the manual editing but this is clearly very feature-rich!
This is clearly a great option if you already trust and have an existing relationship with PCB. They also seem to be well aligned for very large systems and when you want the data saved locally.
I would be reminisce to not mention how catchy that song in their overview video is, you have to check it out; but be ready to jam out!
In 2020, enDAQ released the W Series wireless device and accompanying enDAQ Cloud platform, both customer-driven products that we’re very proud of developing! Many of our customers needed tools for data-acquisition and analysis that would move them into the maintenance sphere and help them perform condition-based, predictive, and prescriptive maintenance. The W5, W8 and the enDAQ cloud are geared toward helping our customers acquire the data they need to start monitoring remotely.
Our products stand out for just how much data they can record and upload directly to our cloud app over WiFi. We focus on combining convenience with capability to adapt the system to meet your specific testing needs and provide data you can trust. This adaptability is highlighted in how the cloud-generated reports can be completely customized by the user.
There are two main product types, one that has a 4 Ah rechargeable battery and the other has a 1.25 Ah and is much thinner. Within each product, there is a full range of variants based on accelerometer type (MEMS, piezoelectric, or piezoresistive) and range (25g to 2,000g).
enDAQ has a range of free software options for analysis and configuring the unit. But now this includes the launch of the enDAQ Cloud platform that has a lot of capabilities, some highlighted below.
In true enDAQ fashion, all of our pricing is and will always be very public shown below! You can see that even our free account offers a ton of storage because our sensors stand out for just how much data they can record and upload! Our free tier also lets you generate unlimited standard reports. Customers on paying tiers have access to more data, the API, and the ability to customize reports. You can pay one month at a time if only needed for a short time, or sign on for an annual subscription to save 17%.
The enDAQ solution stands out for just how much data it provides coupled with the customization. If you want/need a lot of data, and like being able to have unlimited customization ability - this is a system to check out!
National Instruments is known for the configurability of their platform(s). Their base level solutions can offer the ability to setup one's own long-term monitoring system by utilizing some internal servers and developing custom VIs (virtual instruments). But for the purpose of this article, we'll focus on their more out-of-the-box solutions for long term monitoring. There are four systems available that they compare here:
This brings us to their InSightCMTM server and software. This is their solution for either on site server installation or hosted in the cloud. Then maintenance engineers can log in with a web browser to monitor data across all connected assets regardless on location. Again, they don't provide too much information other than this a list of 5 features for remote diagnostics:
Erbessd reliability instruments with the slogan "masters of machines health" offer a range of wireless sensors and an even wider range of analysis software tools. For the purposes of this article that focuses on accuracy over cost, I'll highlight the following two options. But they do also have a range of lower cost monitoring sensors (~$400 each) as well. The company seems like a small, but capable operation with a lot going on! And they are very much focused on machine health with software aimed at understanding and diagnosing specific failures from either bearings, pulleys, miss balancing, belts etc.
Erbessd has a LOT of different analysis solutions! Their Digivibe software if the wireless vibration analyzer and data collector that pairs to the wireless accelerometer. This software with a laptop, tablet or smart phone will provide near real time frequency analysis when connected to the wireless accelerometer. Their analysis capabilities are definitely wide and powerful!
They have some other relevant software solutions like their EI Analytics software is their cloud solution. This seems to offer machine learning which is powerful to learn what are appropriate alarm conditions. And then an unrelated but cool software is their "Dragon Vision" which can determine vibration information from video, pretty neat!
Overall Erbessd is definitely a solution worth checking out! For better or for worse, their wireless accelerometer seems better aimed at in situ testing where you are physically going around from machine to machine and don't want to deal with wires. If you are looking for more longer term monitoring, the Phantom system would be better. Again they have a lot going on!
Dynapar's OnSiteTM remote vibration monitoring system offers a 4-in-1 sensing system that conveniently incorporates the wireless connectivity directly to the cloud in the main DAQ sensor "hub." At each wired sensor location (the wires offer some strengths in arguably better data quality but with the complexity wires bring) triaxial acceleration along with temperature is recorded. They seem to have a range of software tools including a cloud portal to access and analyze the data with some impressive custom alarm conditions that the user can program. Again they don't provide a ton of detail online but here are some specifications I could find:
The most impressive part of Dynapar's solution is the frequency analysis it provides that can determine the root cause such as mass imbalance, shaft misalignment or bearing wear. They seem to really focus on the frequency analysis element in general as opposed to simple vibration "levels."
The Bently Nevada Ranger Pro by Baker Hughes (now owned by GE) is a piezoelectric accelerometer based system that uses the ISA100 Wireless Network Protocol for predictive maintenance programs. The product is specifically targeted to the oil & gas, power generation and industrial markets. It integrates with their System 1† condition monitoring system which seems to be a very powerful large scale system aimed at "complex manufacturing businesses." They don't provide much detail of the specifications (or the cost) of their system online but here are a few specs I could glean.
Being part of Baker Hughes / GE along with the limited online details suggests their system should only be considered by the "big boys" with large scale operations. I will say that I am very enamored with their product's name... it's sweet!
Emerson is a big company that definitely knows a thing or two about production! They have a few conditioning monitoring products including their AMS 9420 wireless vibration transmitter. It took me a few minutes to understand what is going on with that picture. The green part at the end of the wire is connected to a traditional piezoelectric accelerometer there. That is then wired to the recording system with the wireless antenna. So now that we got that out of the way, here are the specs!
Emerson has a monitoring software called Plantweb Insight for monitoring assets across a plant, not just vibration. There is a lot going on with very nice dashboards that let you dive deeper into particular assets and why they may be failing to diagnose problems remotely.
Emerson's solution is best for big time manufacturing facilities with a lot of monitoring needs. If you have a large operation, you need to definitely consider Emerson's suite of wireless products!
SpotSee (formerly known as ShockWatch) makes a wide range of transportation monitoring products such as simple go/no-go shock sensors that turn red when certain levels have been exceeded. They began offering digital sensors with their ShockLog impact recorder that is a direct competitor with enDAQ's S-Series sensors and aimed at transportation monitoring like their legacy systems. Their OpsWatch is specifically aimed at "stationary" applications to monitor vibration and communicate that to their cloud portal. Here are the specs:
SpotSee offers a cloud solution for real time reporting called OpsWatch Cloud which seems different than their regular SpotSee cloud that is aimed at tracking things in transport. This will provide status indicators of each asset and then clicking on an asset will bring up the time history of the peak acceleration and RMS vibration level.
These products admittedly may not belong in a list of accurate vibration monitoring systems because accuracy doesn't seem quite the focus. But they are definitely convenient with a simple interface and a straight to cloud architecture over WiFi. If you have a smaller operation and want a simple means of monitoring your heavy machines, this is worth checking out!
If you've made it this far hopefully you've found the above overviews helpful! Here is that summary table again with anchor links to give you a second read on some of your favorites!
| Product | Best For | Price |
| Microstrain's G-Link-200 | Outdoor applications | RFQ |
| PCB's Echo Wireless | Large scale applications wanting a local database | $6,400 |
| enDAQ's W-Series Sensors | Acquiring a lot of data for a variety of applications with complete analysis and visualization customization available | >$2,500 |
| National Instruments' InSightCM | Large scale complex & customized operations | RFQ |
| Erbessd 3X Wireless | In situ monitoring with a detailed tablet analysis app | $1,995 |
| Dynapar OnSiteTM Monitoring | Detailed frequency analysis | RFQ |
| Bently Nevada Ranger Pro | Large scale predictive maintenance | RFQ |
| Emerson's AMS | Mega scale condition monitoring | RFQ |
| SpotSee's OpsWatch | Simple monitoring of assets in smaller operations | $2,350 |
Lastly, if you're looking for wireless vibration monitoring - you probably are doing some vibration analysis! To help, we have a handbook, An Introduction to Shock and Vibration Response Spectra, that will help you bridge the gap between shock and vibration analysis as it’s taught in universities and as it’s practiced in industry. You’ll find formulas, advice and lots of examples to help you more quickly make sense of your data and verify your tests and designs.
Related Posts:
For more on this topic, visit our dedicated Wireless Vibration Monitoring Systems resource page. There you’ll find more blog posts, case studies, webinars, software, and products focused on your condition monitoring and maintenance needs.