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Good morning everyone, we’ll just give it another small bit to let the last few join up and we’ll get started then.
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Okay, I think we have more people in now. Thank you for joining this morning on our webinar on controlling your machine from the web using WebMy2.0.
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As usual we’ll go into the presentation but if you have any questions at any point just put them in and we should get to them at the end.
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Hello and welcome to today’s webinar.
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In this webinar, we will look at controlling your machine from the web using WebMI 2.0.
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Here is the agenda for today.
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We’ll start with a brief review of WebMI, some of its applications and requirements, and how it works.
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Then we’ll look at WebMI 1.0 versus 2.0.
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Finally, we’ll look at the transition to 2.0 and some of the requirements for using WebMI 2.0.
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As always, we will finish with a Q &A session at the end.
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What is WebMI?
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WebMI is the capability for Horner all-in-one controllers to serve webpages over Ethernet from local memory.
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Webpages are typically used for remote monitoring and or remote control.
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These webpages don’t require any web design knowledge to create.
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Simply make a screen in Cscape as you normally would and it will automatically be converted to HTML5 by Cscape.
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HTML5 is the most modern release of HTML which means your web pages are compatible with nearly all web browsers on any device, mobile, desktop or otherwise. What are some applications for WebMI?
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Most commonly it can be used for monitoring machinery and equipment in a factory setting for operational purposes.
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You can make adjustments to a machine from behind a desk instead of on the factory floor.
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Alternatively, it can access data from machinery and equipment for the purposes of preventative maintenance or production efficiency programs.
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Use this real-time data to check the efficiency of new programs or to check for faults or so on.
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It can also be used for monitoring and controlling equipment and processes in a campus environment.
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For you could manage an agricultural site from a laptop or phone instead of an on-site controller. These are just a few of the many example uses for WebMI.
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Next, let’s look at some of the requirements.
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Firstly, you need a compatible Horner controller, which is nearly any Horner product at this stage.
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Whether it’s an XL series controller, an XLEE or an XLTE series controller, or something modern like a Canvas or Micro OCS, nearly all Horner products support WebMI.
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Then you will need to make a one-time upgrade via a WebMI license voucher for each controller deployed with this feature.
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This goes for all controllers except for the Canvas series, which come with a license already included.
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Finally, you need to make webpages.
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These webpages are created in Cscape and should be loaded onto the root directory of the microSD drive in the controller at runtime.
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These webpages can either be duplicates of existing OCS screens or independently created, depending on your needs and skill level.
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But how does WebMI work?
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Cscape takes the screens created by the user and builds HTML5 compatible webpages based on them.
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When traditional graphics objects are used, Seascape converts those to web-compatible versions in that process.
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The finished webpages are packaged together and then should be loaded onto the controller via a microSD card.
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Then the OCS software, if enabled by a valid WebMI license, will serve up those webpages when queried by a HTML5-compatible web browser.
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These pages are served one by one as requested.
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This means there is a slight pause on every web page change, which is proportional to the complexity of the page.
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What about Canvas controllers?
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As stated before, Canvas series controllers come with a WebMI license included, but this WebMI actually works a bit differently.
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The Canvas series use a different set of graphics objects called Canvas graphics.
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This means that the browser does more work at runtime, executing faster page changes, but with a longer one-time initial load.
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After this load, page changes are quick and responsive, especially for complex web pages.
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What’s the difference between WebMI 1.0 and WebMI 2.0?
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WebMI 1.0 refers to the original execution method performed by Horner controllers using traditional Horner graphics objects.
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WebMI 1.0 is supported by most of our controller series, including the XL series, the RCC series, the Micro series, and the XL Prime series.
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WebMI 2.0 refers to the execution method performed by Horner controllers using the more modern Canvas graphics objects.
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However, in April of 2026, a majority of these controllers will transition to WebMI 2.0, and some of the older controllers will have their WebMI capabilities retired entirely.
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But this change affects new installations only.
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Existing controllers with WebMI 1.0 will not be affected.
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How will this transition from WebMI 1.0 to WebMI 2.0 work?
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For Canvas series controllers, there will be no change, as these controllers already use WebMI 2.0.
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For XLEE, XLTE, Micro Series, and XL Prime Series, there will be a few steps.
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First, when creating WebMI pages in Cscape, all existing traditional graphics objects will be converted to canvas web-based graphics objects automatically.
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Then, future firmware updates for these controllers will introduce a new WebMI 2.0 runtime execution engine.
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These same updates will also remove the old WebMI 1.0 runtime execution engine.
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What about existing WebMI 1.0 sites?
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For legacy XL and RCC series, existing installations are completely unaffected.
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Furthermore, changes to the webpages of existing installations can still be performed, as long as the controller is already licensed.
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However, new deployments, meaning newly licensed installations, using this legacy hardware will not be possible after 30 June 2026.
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For XLE, XLTE, Micro OCS and XL Prime, existing installations are also completely unaffected.
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Changes to these webpages can still be performed and they will remain as WebMI 1.0 webpages.
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However, if you update a licensed unit to a newer firmware, your controller will switch to WebMI 2.0 automatically, and your original license will remain valid.
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From that point forward, new and existing webpages will run as WebMI 2.0 pages.
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What will be noticed in the transition to WebMI 2.0?
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Since your OCS pages were built using traditional graphics objects, some tweaking may be required for them to work correctly as WebMI 2.0 pages.
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Specifically, text spacing will require the most tweaking.
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At runtime, there will be a longer delay when querying the first WebMI page from a web browser, but after the initial one-time load, the web page changes afterwards will be quick and responsive.
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Finally, we are going to run through each controller series requirements for the transition.
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The XLEE XLTE series requires firmware 15.8 or later, and CScape version 10.2 Service Pack 2 or later.
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Despite XLEE series reaching its 20th anniversary this year, during mid-2026 a new generation of XLEE will be released, which will be fully compatible with the previous generation and will support WebMI 2.0 as standard.
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Next, the Micro OCS series.
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This will require Firmware version 16.2 or later, and Cscape version 10.2 Service Pack 2 or later.
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Note that Cscape version 10.2 Service Pack 3 will release with the ability to directly convert Micro OCS screens to WebMI 2.0.
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Currently, with Cscape version 10.2 Service Pack 2, you have to manually convert the screen using a Cscape feature called the Web Designer.
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But from Service Pack 3 onwards, Cscape will be able to handle its conversion completely automatically.
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Finally, the XL Prime series, which is fairly straightforward.
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This series just requires Firmware version 17.4 or later and Cscape version 10.2 Service Pack 2 or later.
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One added feature of the transition to WebMite 2.0 further integration with OCS 360.
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Later, in 2026, Horner’s cloud service OCS 360 will support serving up WebMI 2.0 pages from the cloud.
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For OCS 360 users, this means a few things.
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First, WebMI pages will be accessible anywhere in the world, removing the restriction of the controller having to serve up the pages itself on a local network.
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And this allows for more scalability and more simultaneously connected users.
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With that, we’ve covered everything you need to know about WebMI 2.0 and the transition coming later this year. That concludes our webinar for today.
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Thank you so much for listening and the Q &A session will begin shortly.
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and tech support and we will help you out on that.
10:51
Okay other than that I think that the upcoming webinars are up in the registration so if you would like to go look at those they are up on either the website where you can see those or your newsletter where they would have been sent.
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Other than that I think we can leave it there for today.
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Thank you all for joining and we’ll see you next time.
