In 1974, Robert Engman III stared down at 22 optically isolated, highly reliable, liquid epoxy-filled, solid state relays (SSRs) with no moving parts—quite an innovation back then—and he contemplated what to name the new company.

The result? "Opto" signifies optical isolation, and the "22" represents the original lineup of 22 relays. But this year, there’s another important number that we need to discuss—50!

Yes, Opto 22 is 50. Years. Young. 

This week, as we celebrate Opto’s Golden Anniversary of existence, I’d be remiss not to reflect on the legacy of a company I have loved being a part of for the last decade. And while my 11 years may seem like a long time, many of the folks I work with each day have tenures twice or thrice as long—they’ve been carrying the torch, maintaining the legacy that we are still building today.

Innovate Early. Innovate Often. But Don’t Forget Legacy.
So it started in ‘74 with 22, but let’s jump ahead. Seven years later, it’s 1981, and by now, Opto 22 engineers have already pioneered and developed the PC-based I/O market. The first generation (G1) design used a red-black-yellow-white color-coding scheme, which quickly became the standard for I/O and is still used today—oh yeah, and we STILL make G1 modules, along with various next-generation I/O modules, and even the original 22 SSRs!

In our 50th year, innovations look different. Opto 22’s groov EPIC, RIO, and EMU (Energy Monitoring Unit) products dominate our daily activities with tools that help you automate, of course—but beyond that, help you securely democratize OT data, all the way to the cloud if you like (which wasn’t even a thing in the 70s ;)

Open Standards. Open Technology. Open Source?
By 1995, the industry had changed quite a bit, but Opto 22 remained steadfast. Engineers from Opto, along with a handful of the industry’s leading automation companies plus Microsoft, sat in the conference room at Opto’s new Temecula, CA headquarters and drafted the first OPC (OLE for Process Control) specification, which subsequently spawned the OPC Foundation. This task force would go on to release the OPC standard to ensure interoperability that would benefit the industry for years to come.

In the 30 years since, open standards have changed a bit. OPC evolved into OPC UA (yes, every Opto 22 groov device has built-in OPC UA servers). New standards like MQTT Sparkplug B came on the scene in a big way. Again, yes, every groov device is equipped with MQTT client/broker capabilities.

And open-source (which, btw, wasn’t much of a thing in ‘94) became an integral part of Opto 22’s philosophy and culture. Indeed, we developed and released toolkits for programming and controlling I/O in languages widely adopted by the world at large: Python, Java, .NET, C++, RESTful APIs, and the list goes on. Just pop over to https://developer.opto22.com to see for yourself.

Can’t Stop. Won’t Stop. (Innovating and Supporting our Products, That Is)
Back to the timeline. Now it’s 1998, and while other automation vendors were still touting proprietary bus protocols and naysaying Ethernet for its nondeterminism, Opto 22 released SNAP Ethernet I/O as our standard product offering. I think we can all agree that Ethernet was the right call.

Now fast-forward to 2018 at the ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, FL, where Opto 22’s groov EPIC was launched, adopting more widely accepted technologies like segmented networking, cybersecurity, HDMI, a touchscreen interface, a secure Linux OS, and, of course, more protocol support than ever before. Yes, Opto 22’s innovative spirit is as resilient as ever.

What about our legacy SNAP products, you ask? We kept producing and supporting them through a global recession, pandemic pandemonium, and, more recently, supply chain anguish. In fact, we just announced long-term support (LTS) for SNAP—a product line that originated in 1995. Name another automation manufacturer that does that!

At 50 years old, we are still innovating. But no spoilers here; you’ll have to stay tuned to see what exciting new features groov EPIC version 4 firmware has in store. It's coming soon to an Edge Programmable Logic Controller near you, including the one you may have purchased over 6 years ago.

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50 years strong. Here today. Here tomorrow. #Opto22Turns50