In the era of Internet of things, both industrial routers and consumer router play vital role. When it comes to routers for either home or industrial, the differences can be significant, even if the underlying concepts and technologies are similar. Let’s take a look at some basic network scenarios and find out more about the subject.

Applications

The industrial router is a rugged router designed to withstand the harsh environment and to handle the wide temperature range from the freezing environment to the hot desert. It is mainly used in different industries including intelligent transportation, environmental monitoring, industrial automation, finance, electricity, water, etc., supports the wide temperature from -30 ~ + 75 Celsius . The home router is mainly used for personal indoor, so the adaptability to the environment is only 0 ~ + 55 C.

Functionality

An industrial grade router is built to maintain a consistent and heavy workload 7x24 hrs. They pack in better technology, from faster CPUs and more RAM to a better operating system, that can be adjusted and customized to your specific business operations.

Industrial routers often come in the form of integrated service devices, meaning they provide network, application, and security services on a single device, can offer hardware based VPN access for remote staff members and clients.

The routers used for industry are highly configurable, and offer advanced options for managing connected devices, such as controlling data flow control, bandwidth control, website filter, quality of service (QoS) for devices, ports, and specific types of traffic.

Hardware

Industrial routers typically use high quality component that will continue to perform for many year, whereas consumer devices often use cheaper components that can degrade and sometimes fail. Industrial router are durable industrial design with robust metal housing, IP30 protection, Wall mount/Din Rail Mount, built-in high performance industrial level communication processor wireless modules, embedded real-time operating system as a software support platform, and simultaneous connection of serial devices, Ethernet devices or WIFI devices. The industrial 4G/3G Router is embedded with cellular module while a consumer 4G/3G router is built-in cellular chipset instead.

Security

Industrial routers have many security rules and more advanced firewalls, such as supporting the APN/VPDN special network, and the devices have many VPN connections, such as IPSEC, PPTP, L2TP, GRE, OPENVPN, with VPN client, server and so on. The security of civilian routers is low.

Signal stability

Industrial routers can provide reliable networking and stable communication for complex systems. In the same environment, the signal sensitivity is stronger.

Interface

The industrial router supports RS232/485/422, Ethernet, WIFI, Digital I/O, USB and other interfaces. It can simultaneously connect serial port equipment, Ethernet equipment and WIFI equipment to achieve transparent data transmission and routing. The main interfaces of home routers include WAN, LAN, WIFI.

Mounting

An industrial router always supports several mounting type including Desktop, Wall Mount and DIN Rail Mount for a variety of application, supplied with mounting kits. While the home router is desktop or pocket type.

Support contract

This explains about the technical contract, includes expert help and suggestion from vendor in-case of any issues (this is like VIP customer support), very quick replacements in case of any hardware failures and several other. 

Cost

The cost for an industrial router must be expensive than a consumer router. The industrial router is made of higher-quality materials, costs much, but it’s able to provide better performance, and tackle with the heavier workload. So an industrial grade router's cost cannot be even compared to a home router's

As we can see, industrial routers are more complex and are designed to be a single high performing device within a larger and more complex network, whereas home routers are designed to be all-in-one solutions for ease of connectivity and access.