IO-Link A market survey

I am interested in how many of you use IO-Link.
I would like to know what the application is
Your view of the availability of products.
Ease of implementation
Performance.

We see a trend, maybe, to replace analog inputs and outputs with IO-Link. Yes, digital I/O too but mostly I am interested in the efforts to replace analog outputs.

We have had two high mucky-mucks from Parker and Siemens come by and IO-Link seemed to be a common I/O at the actuator level. If I do a google search for IO-Link you can see Parker and Siemens show up on the first page.
Actually, I think this is a good idea but as an old stick-in-the-mud engineer I wonder about how real it is.

I can remember ignoring GM's MAP and Rockwell's ControlNet and being glad I did.

BTW, the Siemens guy was really promoting Profinet RT, IRT, Profidrive and Safety. That is a lot of software and certifying.
Thanks for any info you can provide.

Personally, I've added IOLink as a mandatory replacement for analog devices if available to the build specifications for two automotive manufacturers. I tend to be an early adopter
(sometimes with disastrous results, haha), but analog was a pain when you could hire good maintenance. With the quality of help these days, I'm sold on IOLink.
Siemens seems to be supporting it enthusiastically, which surprises me. I figured they'd stay with ASi.

We have used IO-Link at one of our clients, Food & Bev / Dairy site.

They had a heap of old Profibus temperature transmitters (10+ all in a similar location on a pasteuriser) and the Profibus transmitters when failed would cost $1500+ to replace, and were a pain in the *** to address.

Replaced all of the transmitters with IFM IO-Link style, and added 2x IFM 8-port IO link masters over Ethernet/IP to a AB CLX PLC.

Setup was a breeze, no addressing of instruments necessary, simple configure the master and tell it what device is going to be connected to each port and then it's all plug and play. Replacement instruments are only $400 now and not only that but parameterisation and extra diagnostic data is now available over IO-Link that wasn't possible with Profibus before.

For process industry, will definitely be looking at IO-Link devices in the future.

Thanx guys.
I don't understand how analog can be a pain since one can measure analog with a voltmeter.
Looking at digital signals on a serial line is not easy and usually requires a scope.
I still think the big advantage is noise immunity and being able to run longer distances.
The serial link isn't that fast but it is still possible to use as a control signal to a drive or valve.

I still would like more input.

When I've used IO Link, it's mostly been for machine mount IP65 IO blocks. I never once had to do anything to troubleshoot the IO Link part of the network. I had plenty of problems trying to get the IO link master configured correctly in the controller project, but that was mostly me being dumb and actually trusting the drawings I was given...

I mostly see automotive, like AutoMax above, but in the last couple years I don't think I've worked on a system without IO Link SOMEWHERE in it.

From everything I've heard, IO Link fits in a good sweet spot price-wise for device manufacturers. An ethernet port costs $$$ relative to analog, plus all the certification (and cost of licensing someone's stack) for different protocols. But analog doesn't really cover a lot of the diagnostics I'd really prefer to get from a sensor.

I think it fits for a lot of the same reasons that HART popped up in the process world.