ABB E-Device and Robots You Control From a Tablet

From switch cabinets and teach pendants to ABB's new E-Device: how robots moved onto tablets and PCs, and why home robot arms will still need a stop button.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/23/20261 min read

Early industrial robots were driven from control cabinets full of switches. When a Unimate poured coffee for guests at a Los Angeles hotel in 1967, every move had been programmed in advance, and only specialists knew how to change it.

Black and white photo of a woman watching a Unimate robot arm pour coffee into a cup

A Unimate robot pours coffee at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, 1967. Photo: Frank Q. Brown, Los Angeles Times / UCLA via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

By the 1980s engineers carried a teach pendant, a heavy box on a cable with buttons for each axis, and walked the robot point by point through its job. Pendants got screens and touch panels over the years, but each brand kept its own device, and new staff had to learn it before they could do anything.

Black and white photo of a man in a lab coat holding a control box next to robot arms

An engineer with a hand-held controller beside Unimate PUMA robots, 1986. Photo: UL Digital Library via Wikimedia Commons (no known restrictions)

On September 21, ABB Robotics announced E-Device, a small safety unit that lets people operate, program and monitor OmniCore robots from their own tablet or PC instead of a dedicated teach pendant. It carries an emergency stop and a three-position enabling switch, meets ISO 10218:2025, and works with ABB's no-code AppStudio screens.

ABB FlexPendant screen showing block-based program next to a small white robot arm

ABB's Wizard easy programming on a FlexPendant next to a single-arm YuMi. Photo: ABB

The design keeps the safety parts in hardware and moves everything else into software. ABB's Wizard easy programming already lets people build a program from drag-and-drop blocks on the FlexPendant, and E-Device puts the same OmniCore interface on a screen they already own.

Two people at a desk with monitors in front of an ABB robot cell and controller cabinet

Engineers working with an ABB robot cell run by the OmniCore controller. Photo: ABB

It also links the office to the shop floor. An engineer can plan a cell in RobotStudio on a laptop, then walk to the robot and run it from the same device. ABB says the unit can connect to the internet for manuals and troubleshooting, and its built-in camera can capture images for diagnosis.

Engineer typing on a laptop beside a white ABB industrial robot arm

Programming an ABB robot from a laptop on the shop floor. Photo: ABB

At home we already control robot vacuums from phone apps. When home robots get arms, I think they'll need something like E-Device: a physical stop button and an enabling switch in hardware, with a friendly app on top. I'd want that button within reach before letting an arm near my kitchen counter.

Black round robot vacuum docked at its charger on a wooden floor

A robot vacuum at its charging dock, the kind of home robot we already run from a phone. Photo: Piperpet / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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