A few years ago we hunted for a rugged SBC that could run a LabVIEW-application, had dual network interfaces and a very low power usage....(3-4 W). It was a difficult combination of requirements to meet. For a long time we ignored the sbRIOs as their official power requirements were way above what we wanted, but then we tested the actual power usage of an sbRIO-9607 and found that even when running the CPU at 100% it still drew only a fraction of the official numbers. We endedn up using that and have been happy with it.
Now the 9607 is getting close to last time buy though and we have to find a replacement. The closest option in terms of physical footprint, networking and support for LabVIEW seems to be the 9603, but its power usage (in real-life) is almost twice that of the 9607...Are there any other sbRIOs that have dual networking and lower power requierements? Another option would be to find an SBC...it would then need to run either Windows or a Linux-version supported by LabVIEW...Most likely the latter then if it is to require less power(?). Using sbRIOs have the advantage of having a device that is designed to be worked on through a network link / headless, but perhaps a similar solution can be achieved with Linux as well?
