Omron wants your devices out of the control cabinet
Omron has been busy on the panel side. Its Cabinet-Free Solution is a range of tough devices you mount on the machine instead of inside the cabinet, and Omron reckons it cuts cabinet design effort by 30 to 50 percent.
So what's Omron up to?
On 28 September Omron put out a news release about its "Cabinet-Free Solution", and if you build or look after machines it's worth five minutes.
The idea is simple. Instead of squeezing everything into the control cabinet, you mount a lot of it outside, on the machine, close to whatever it's controlling. Omron says the whole range shares the same networks, connectors, configuration tools and status information, so it all works the same way.
They've been making cabinet products since 2016, mostly smaller devices with standardised sizes that go inside the cabinet. This is the next step: changing what the cabinet is actually for. It sits under the "Device Enhancement" part of their medium-term plan, "SF 2nd Stage", if you like roadmaps.
Why they're doing it
Their reasoning will sound familiar. Labour is short, supply chains are getting reshuffled, and car makers in particular (Omron points at automotive) are rethinking how they build as new energy vehicles heat up the competition and they have to switch between lots of variants in smaller batches. Machines have to be more flexible and up and running faster than before.
Big cabinets with a lot of wiring get in the way of both. Omron says changing a layout is hard because of the cabinet design and the wiring, which adds to startup and maintenance work, and that automotive assembly lines often need hundreds or even thousands of cabinets. On top of that, skilled maintenance people are getting harder to find. So the simpler a machine is to design, start up and fix, the better.
The numbers Omron quotes
- Cabinet and junction box design effort down by roughly 30 to 50 percent, by combining the functions of several devices and mounting them outside the cabinet.
- Wiring effort down by up to 66 percent with their own M12 Smartclick screwless connectors, which Omron says speeds up startup and commissioning.
- Easier fault finding. Device status and wiring conditions are visualised, so you can find a fault faster and plan replacements properly.
Those are Omron's own figures, so how much you'd really save depends on your machines and how much of it you can standardise.
The products
Seven products are on the list, but they aren't all new. The launch dates run from June 2020 to August 2026, and three of them are from 2025 or earlier, so this is Omron pulling an existing range together and adding to it, not seven fresh launches.
NXR-S series safety I/O terminal
Aug 2026The newest piece. A rugged remote safety I/O block with a simple logic function built in, and it works as a CIP Safety target device. IP65/IP67 with M12 screwless (Smartclick) connectors. You get 5 inputs, 12 test outputs and 5 outputs, plus a web server function and a fixed application function.
S8NR-S series IP67 power supply
Apr 2026A power supply you can mount on the machine. 90 W, 360 W and 600 W versions, all 24 V, with M12 Smartclick connectors. The 360 W and 600 W ones add electronic circuit protectors, a digital display and a notification for when it's due for replacement.
S8R-BB DC disconnect box
Apr 2026A waterproof box with G7SA and G7S-□-E safety relays inside, so you can put your safety circuits outside the cabinet. 24 V DC in, and 24 V DC out at 6 A max and 10 A max. M12 Smartclick connectors.
Water-resistant round connector cables, branch connectors and accessories
From Apr 2026, sequentiallyThe cabling that ties it together. Smartclick (screwless) connectors come as standard, which Omron says means no torque management. The range covers M12-S, M12-L and M12-L power cables, 7/8-inch conversion cables, M12-A I/O cables, branch connectors (XS5 series and others) and waterproof M12 caps.
K3CV series IO-Link AD converter
Aug 2025Turns analog sensor signals into IO-Link digital data: current, voltage, K-type thermocouples and resistance thermometers. Omron says that cuts the wiring cost and labour between the cabinet and the equipment. Environment-resistant, with M12 Smartclick connectors.
NXR series IO-Link master unit for EtherNet/IP
Jun 2020Environment-resistant and EtherNet/IP compatible, with 8 IO-Link ports and 16 configurable digital input/output points. Omron says it makes startup and maintenance a lot quicker and helps cut downtime.
NXR series IO-Link I/O hub
Jun 2020Environment-resistant and IO-Link compatible, with 16 configurable digital input/output points. A simple way to add I/O over IO-Link.
One more thing from Omron, on the safety side. With CIP Safety enabled, safety, power supply and I/O circuits can all sit on the equipment side, which Omron calls a fundamental shift away from cabinet-centred designs.
What I think
I like the direction. Anyone who has wired a machine knows how much time goes into the cabinet and the cabling out to the machine, so moving power, safety and I/O out to where they're used makes sense, and standardising the connectors is where I'd expect most of the saving to come from.
A few things I'd think about before getting carried away:
- It's not really cabinet-free. Look at Omron's own "after" picture and there's still a cabinet in it, just a smaller one. Think "a lot less cabinet".
- Check the network. The safety terminal is CIP Safety and the IO-Link master is EtherNet/IP. If your machines run something else, find out what Omron has for it first.
- On the machine means exposed to the machine. Omron describes these as environment-resistant (the NXR-S terminal is IP65/IP67, the S8NR-S supply IP67), but I'd still plan where they mount, how the cables run and whether you can get at one to swap it.
- Not all of it is new, and the headline numbers are Omron's. Three of the seven date from 2025 or earlier, and I'd want a few real examples before planning a whole machine around 30 to 50 percent.
Don't get me wrong, it's a nice lineup, and good on Omron for pulling it together in one place. But next to Beckhoff's MX-System, I reckon there's still a big gap.
Beckhoff sells the MX-System as one complete system: an aluminium baseplate with the module slots, EtherCAT and voltage distribution built in, and the mains connection, drives, power supplies, industrial PC and I/O all plugging onto it. It's IP67 and mounts straight on the machine, and Beckhoff says you can set one up, tests included, in just one hour against at least 24 hours for a comparable cabinet. (That's Beckhoff's claim, same as Omron's numbers above.) Omron's list is seven products covering I/O, safety, power and cabling, with no controller or drive among them, and as I said above, there's still a cabinet in its own "after" picture. That's my read from the two companies' own pages, not a side-by-side test.
The Omron details come from Omron's news release and the pages it links to, and the figures and specs are Omron's. The Beckhoff details come from Beckhoff's MX-System page and its May 2025 press release, and those figures are Beckhoff's. The comparison is just my opinion.
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