Fast data labeling
Label data quickly with a suite of AI-assisted annotation tools to augment human labeling or fully automate your data labeling pipeline.
Siemens Inspekto is one camera and two check types, Roboflow is any camera and any vision task
Siemens Inspekto alternatives? Over 2 million engineers create datasets, train models, and deploy to production with Roboflow.
Why are manufacturers choosing Roboflow?
The turnkey solution for vision AI. Create datasets, train models, and deploy to production.
AnnotateAI-accelerated labeling and dataset optimization
TrainComplete model training toolset and platform
BuildVisual application builder and template
DeployManaged infrastructure, cloud and edge support
Any camera, any task
Use the industrial, GigE, or RTSP cameras already on your line for defect detection, OCR, counting, assembly verification, and safety.
Models you own
Label your own images with AI assistance, train RF-DETR or YOLO26, and export the weights.
AI at the Edge, Without Limits
Deploy to NVIDIA Jetson, x86, or the Roboflow AI1 device, and trigger PLCs over OPC UA, Modbus TCP, or EtherNet/IP from Workflows.
Build vision AI applications with ease
Use a low-code open source platform to simplify building and deploying vision AI applications.
Edge deployment
Cloud and edge deployments (NVIDIA Jetson, Raspberry Pi, or mobile devices) for real-time, on-premise inference.
Devices for every scenario
Software, compute, cameras: all the tools you need to deploy vision AI.
Datasets and models for every industry
Access thousands of datasets and pre-trained models to kickstart your computer vision projects.
Flexible model licensing
Choose from a range of licensing options to fit your needs, whether for commercial use, private deployment, or collaboration across teams.
Ready to build your own inspection AI with Roboflow?
Start with your own cameras and images
Bring footage from the industrial cameras already on your line into Roboflow and label it with AI assistance.
Deploy with Roboflow
Run on an NVIDIA Jetson, an air-gapped server, or the Roboflow AI1 device, and trigger PLCs from Workflows.
Automate data labeling
Use AI labeling in Roboflow to automate 90% of human labeling.
OK I’m ready, how do I use Roboflow?
Roboflow makes it easy to build, train, and deploy custom computer vision models, even if you’re not a machine learning expert.
Speak with an AI expert
Our team will help you start solving business problems on the first call.
Ask us about:
- Solution architecting
- Live demonstration
- Pricing and specifications
- Feasibility assessment
Over 16,000 organizations build with Roboflow.
- Rivian
- Pella
- Chobani
- USG Corporation
- BNSF Railway
- American Woodmark
Start where you are
Stay connected
Get the Latest in Computer Vision First
Compare Siemens Inspekto and Roboflow
Siemens Inspekto is an all-in-one visual inspection appliance: a SIMATIC IPC, a monochrome 3.1 MP zoom camera, and a SmartLight in one kit, sold as Inspekto VIS V6 through Siemens distributors. You mount it over the part, show it about 20 good samples, mark the regions to inspect, and it flags parts that deviate, returning PASS or FAIL to the PLC over PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, or TCP/IP.
Teams that need more than one camera and one answer often choose Roboflow. GPT-6 Astra is the first foundation model that sees well enough to label production data, and Roboflow turns those labels into models you own. Your engineers label their own images from any industrial, GigE, or RTSP camera (GPT-6 Astra and Gemini do the first pass through Auto Label), train a specialized model such as RF-DETR or YOLO26 for defect detection, assembly verification, OCR, counting, or safety, and deploy it to a Jetson, an air-gapped server, or the Roboflow AI1 device with PLC triggers built into Workflows. Vision Events then logs every prediction, image, and operator correction from every camera into one searchable dashboard across every line and plant.
Each trained model is exposed over MCP as a vision sub-agent, so GPT-6 Astra and Gemini can call it whenever they need to see the line precisely. Manufacturers pick Roboflow because the first model proves out on their own images, on the same platform that then covers every camera in the plant instead of one appliance per station.
Siemens Inspekto vs Roboflow: feature by feature
Both put AI inspection on a production line and hand a result to the PLC. The difference is whether the camera, the model, and the number of use cases are yours to choose, and whether your frontier models can call the result.
| Feature | Roboflow | Siemens Inspekto |
|---|---|---|
| Form factor | Software platform; runs on the cameras and compute you choose, or the Roboflow AI1 device with integrated camera and lighting | Closed appliance; SIMATIC IPC BX-39A, one monochrome 3.1 MP motorized-zoom camera, and a SmartLight per kit |
| Use cases covered | Defect detection, assembly verification, counting, OCR, PPE and safety compliance, logistics, and any custom vision task | Presence and integrity checks on a stationary part: surface defects, missing parts, misalignment, wrong labels; two ROI types (Inspection and Presence) |
| Who builds the model | You do, on your own images, with AI-assisted labeling | The appliance does, from about 20 good samples per profile; you mark regions and optionally tag samples OK or NOK |
| Label your own data | Yes, Auto Label with GPT-6 Astra and Gemini plus Smart Polygon powered by Segment Anything | Partial; mark regions of interest and tag samples OK or NOK; no class-level labeling |
| Train your own model | Yes, RF-DETR, YOLO (v8 / v11 / v26), Detectron2, and more; retrain as parts and lighting change | No; unsupervised anomaly detection with no architecture choice |
| Export and own model weights | Yes | No; images and results leave the device via FTP/SFTP only |
| Sub-agents for frontier models (MCP) | Yes, every trained model is exposed over MCP so GPT-6 Astra and Gemini can call it as a specialized vision tool, and agents can query Vision Events history over MCP | No; nothing documented on foundation models, LLMs, or MCP |
| Model architectures | Open, user-selectable registry | Proprietary "AMV-AI" acquisition, recognition, and inspection engines; not user-selectable |
| Camera support | Any RTSP, USB, GigE, or industrial camera, plus the Roboflow AI1 device with integrated camera and lighting | Supplied camera only; third-party cameras not documented; one camera per system |
| Edge deployment | Yes, NVIDIA Jetson, x86 servers, Roboflow AI1, fully offline | Yes, on the supplied SIMATIC IPC, fully local |
| PLC and line integration | Yes, PLC Reader, PLC Writer, and OPC UA blocks in Workflows (OPC UA, Modbus TCP, EtherNet/IP) | Yes, PROFINET with TIA Portal function blocks, EtherNet/IP, TCP/IP telegrams, and a 24 V trigger; OPC UA and MQTT not documented |
| Dashboards and analytics | Yes, Vision Events aggregates predictions, images, and metadata from every camera and site into one dashboard, filterable by shift, line, lot, or serial range, with saved filters | Per-device performance screen; no fleet dashboard or multi-site view documented |
| Operator feedback loop | Yes, operators flag wrong predictions from the line-side HMI; flagged events are stored with the image and go straight into the next training set | Partial; retag samples OK or NOK on the device, and the recommendations screen suggests adding samples |
| Multi-camera and multi-site | Unlimited cameras, sites, and models on one account | One camera per kit; the Basic license caps at 6 profiles, Professional is unlimited |
| Self-serve sign-up and free tier | Yes | No; sold through Siemens distributors on demo and quote |
| Time to first model | Days, on your own images, starting the same day | 30 to 45 minutes for one profile on one part, per Siemens |
| API and SDK | Yes, Python SDK, REST API, MCP server, public docs | None documented; PLC telegrams and FTP/SFTP file transfer only |
| Open source | Yes, supervision and inference libraries | No |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA with BAAs, PCI DSS | Not published for Inspekto; inference and data stay on the device |
| Air-gapped deployment | Yes, Docker-based offline install | Yes; the appliance runs without a cloud connection |
| Pricing | Published plans; free tier; usage you can see before you sign | Not published by Siemens; a reseller lists the Basic kit at about €20,700 net per station, Professional by quote |
Roboflow
End-to-end computer vision platform (annotate, train, deploy)
Siemens Inspekto
All-in-one autonomous machine vision appliance (Inspekto VIS V6, Siemens Digital Industries)
Scale & Ecosystem
Roboflow
- 2,000,000+ developers on the platform
- 1,000,000+ public datasets on Roboflow Universe
- 100,000+ pre-trained models hosted publicly
- 25,000+ organizations building with the platform, including more than half of the Fortune 100 (publicly cited: Rivian, Chobani, USG, Pella)
- One platform for inspection, assembly verification, logistics, safety, and every other vision use case in the plant
Siemens Inspekto
- Founded in Israel and later headquartered in Heilbronn, Germany; acquired by Siemens Digital Industries in February 2024 and now sold as Inspekto VIS V6 through SiePortal and distributors
- Named deployments include BMW, BSH, Mahle, Siemens's own Erlangen and Karlsruhe plants, and Printing International; Siemens publishes no unit counts
- No public catalog of datasets or models; each profile is trained on the device from the customer's own good samples
- Ecosystem is Siemens automation: TIA Portal function blocks, SIMATIC S7 PLCs, and the SIMATIC Robot Library
Product Capabilities (Computer Vision)
Roboflow
- Native support for object detection, instance and semantic segmentation, image classification, keypoint detection, OCR, depth estimation, and multimodal tasks
- Train on your own images with RF-DETR, YOLO (v8 / v11 / v26), Detectron2, and other current architectures, then retrain as parts, lighting, and defects change; pick, swap, and export model weights
- Auto Label uses foundation models (GPT-6 Astra, Gemini) to label images for classes you define in a text prompt; Smart Polygon creates one-click polygon annotations powered by Meta AI's Segment Anything
- Every trained model is exposed over MCP as a specialized vision sub-agent that GPT-6 Astra and Gemini can call; Roboflow Workflows chains detection, OCR, business logic, and PLC output into a single pipeline
- Vision Events stores every prediction, image, and operator correction from every deployment in one searchable dashboard, filterable by shift, line, lot, or serial range; flagged events feed straight back into training
- Roboflow AI1 packages onboard AI compute, integrated lighting, and an industrial camera into a plug-and-play inspection device
Siemens Inspekto
- Two ROI types, Inspection (feature integrity at a fixed position) and Presence (feature exists, may shift), applied to a stationary part; results are PASS, FAIL, not inspected, or not detected
- Learns from a hard minimum of 20 good samples per profile; NOK samples optional; no defect classes, measurement, counting, or trainable OCR documented in V6 (the legacy S70 read QR and Data Matrix codes)
- Proprietary unsupervised "AMV-AI" engines for acquisition, recognition, and inspection; no architecture choice, model export, or dataset export beyond FTP/SFTP file transfer
- Fixed hardware: monochrome 2048 x 1536 global-shutter camera with 20x motorized zoom and autofocus, SmartLight, and SIMATIC IPC BX-39A; part sizes from about 3 cm to 1.5 m; indoor use
- No generative AI, foundation models, or MCP exposure documented; release 5.2 added an AI Auto Markup tool for drawing regions of interest
- One camera per system; multi-view inspection requires a robot to move the part, per Siemens's UR5e application example
Developer Experience
Roboflow
- Free tier: sign up and start labeling, training, and deploying today without talking to sales
- Line-side HMI built on Workflows, with a visual drag-and-drop canvas for chaining detection, OCR, counting, and PLC output without code; operators flag wrong predictions from the same screen
- PLC Reader, PLC Writer, and OPC UA blocks speak OPC UA, Modbus TCP, and EtherNet/IP
- Trained models are served over MCP so frontier models can call them as tools, and the Vision Events skill lets agents query event history in natural language
- Open-source supervision library and open-source inference server, self-hostable on hardware you already own; Python SDK plus REST/HTTP APIs and public documentation
Siemens Inspekto
- No self-serve sign-up, trial, or free tier; sold through Siemens distributors on demo and quote
- On-device wizard: position light and camera, set zoom, mark outline and ROIs, add samples, analyze; Siemens cites 30 to 45 minutes per profile
- PROFINET with TIA Portal V19+ function blocks for S7-1200 and S7-1500, EtherNet/IP, TCP/IP telegrams, a 24 V sensor trigger, and a USB code reader trigger; nine trigger modes
- No REST API, SDK, Python client, MCP server, or public GitHub; images and results exported via FTP/SFTP
- Documentation lives on the Siemens Industrial Operations X docs site and SiePortal application examples
Enterprise & Security
Roboflow
- SOC 2 Type II compliant
- HIPAA-compliant infrastructure with BAAs available
- PCI DSS (SAQ A and AOC) compliance
- Deployment options: managed cloud, customer VPC, on-premises, and fully air-gapped / offline (Docker-based) with no cloud dependency to keep inference running
- Published plans; pricing scales with usage you can see before you sign
- Export your data, model weights, and event history at any time, so there is no lock-in to price against
Siemens Inspekto
- All inference runs on the local IPC with no cloud dependency, and no cloud dashboard either
- No SOC 2, ISO 27001, or trust-center documentation published for Inspekto; sold under Siemens Industrial Edge specific terms
- Fleet management, multi-site views, and Industrial Edge Management enrollment not documented
- Pricing not published by Siemens; a reseller lists the Inspekto VIS V6 Basic kit (6 profiles) at about €20,700 net per station, with Professional (unlimited profiles) by quote
- Models and training data cannot be exported, so a station cannot be moved to another vision stack
Sources: roboflow.com, docs.roboflow.com, blog.roboflow.com, security.roboflow.com, universe.roboflow.com, github.com/roboflow, siemens.com (Inspekto product and insights pages), docs.industrial-operations-x.siemens.cloud (Inspekto VIS 6.0 documentation), cache.industry.siemens.com (PROFINET and robot integration application examples), assets.new.siemens.com (Inspekto brochure), references.siemens.com, press.siemens.com, vision-systems.com, sme.org, automationworld.com, theimagingsource.com, industry-electronics.com, and Siemens distributor pages. Figures reflect publicly available information as of September 2026.