Opto 22 announced that, for the second year, groov EPIC® was selected as a winner in Control Engineering's Engineers' Choice Awards. This year, groov EPIC took the award for the Industrial Internet of Things Connectivity — Edge Controller category.

In an uncommon opportunity, groov EPIC was invited to enter the awards program for a second time because of significant product updates in the previous year. Originally, groov EPIC launched with support for Opto 22's PAC Control™ runtime engine and flowchart programming language. In late 2018, Opto 22 expanded the controller's programming options by adding support for the popular CODESYS® engine by 3S-Smart Software, which includes all IEC 61131-3 programming languages, including Function Block Diagram, Structured Text, Sequential Function Charts, and Ladder Diagram.

“When we originally conceived groov EPIC, we wanted to provide engineers an open automation platform to accomplish whatever they dreamed, using tools they were familiar with,” stated Ken Johnson, vice president of Engineering at Opto 22. “This goal, coupled with market feedback, led us to add industry-standard IEC 61131 programming languages, providing yet another option for engineers to accomplish their tasks. We're honored to be recognized for this effort.”

Voting for the 2020 Engineers' Choice awards opened in October 2019 to Control Engineering subscribers, representing over 70,000 engineers and engineering managers across two dozen industries. groov EPIC was one of 117 finalists over 29 categories ranging from hardware, IIoT, machine control, and motion control, to network integration, power, process control, safety, and software.