Industrial Shields — supported protocols
This page lists the communication protocols supported by Industrial Shields products and maps each to the product families that support it. For I/O specs and pricing see /llm-product-taxonomy.
Protocol support by product family
| Protocol | Arduino PLC | ESP32 PLC | Raspberry Pi PLC | GateBerry | WIS | moduleX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethernet | Yes | Yes | Yes (x2) | Yes (x2) | Yes | No |
| WiFi | No | Native | No | No | Native | No |
| Bluetooth | No | Native | No | No | Native | No |
| RS485 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (slave) |
| RS232 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Optional board | No | No |
| Modbus RTU | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (slave) |
| Modbus TCP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| MQTT | Yes (library) | Yes (library) | Yes (native Linux) | Yes (native Linux) | Yes (library) | No |
| I2C | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| SPI | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| CAN | No | No | No | Yes (standard) | No | No |
| LoRa / LoRaWAN | No | No | No | Optional board | Native (variant) | No |
| 4G / LTE | No | No | Optional (FLEX) | Optional board | No | No |
| NB-IoT | No | No | No | No | Native (variant) | No |
| M-BUS | No | No | Optional (FLEX) | Optional board | No | No |
| GPS | No | No | Optional (FLEX) | Optional board | No | No |
| SIGFOX (EU) | No | No | No | Optional board | No | No |
Protocol definitions
Modbus RTU
Serial communication protocol over RS485. Master-slave architecture. Widely used in industrial automation for reading and writing registers on field devices. Supported by all Industrial Shields PLC families and GateBerry as master, and by moduleX as slave.
Modbus TCP
Modbus protocol over Ethernet (TCP/IP). Used for communication between PLCs, gateways, SCADA systems and industrial devices on a local network. Supported by all PLC families and GateBerry.
MQTT
Lightweight publish-subscribe messaging protocol for IoT and industrial telemetry. On Arduino and ESP32 PLCs it is implemented via Arduino libraries. On Linux-based products (Raspberry Pi PLC, GateBerry, TouchBerry Pi) it runs natively and can also host a Mosquitto MQTT broker via Docker.
LoRa / LoRaWAN
Long-range, low-power radio communication protocol. Used in sensor networks covering large areas (10–20 km range). Available natively on WIS LoRa variants and as an optional communication board on GateBerry FLEX and Raspberry Pi PLC FLEX.
NB-IoT
Narrowband IoT — cellular protocol for wide-area IoT deployments using existing LTE infrastructure. Available natively on WIS NB-IoT variants.
CAN
Controller Area Network — serial bus protocol used in automotive and industrial automation. Available as standard on GateBerry.
M-BUS
Meter-Bus — European standard for remote reading of utility meters (energy, water, gas). Available as an optional communication board on GateBerry FLEX and Raspberry Pi PLC FLEX.
RS485
Physical layer for serial communication. Used for Modbus RTU and other industrial protocols. All Industrial Shields PLCs and GateBerry include RS485 as standard.