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Hotraco Anniversary: 50 Years of Innovation and Growth
This year, Hotraco Group celebrates its 50th anniversary – a milestone we’re marking in a big way. To commemorate this special occasion, we’ve created a timeline that highlights Hotraco’s growth through key groundbreaking moments from our past. Along with this timeline, interviews and articles look back on our history. For this final article, we asked Eric Hagens, Product Manager, to give us a glimpse into the future of Hotraco.
The next generation of controllers
Technology is evolving at lightning speed, and Hotraco is preparing for the future. With the introduction of iHotraco in 2022, AI is now within reach. Eric explains: “With iHotraco Farm Data, we translate controller data into clear, actionable insights for our customers through dashboards. In September 2024, we introduced iHotraco Farm Manager, enabling remote control of multiple controllers simultaneously. Through developments in the iHotraco line, we’re gradually moving toward AI – from data to information, to insights, and eventually to providing advice. At Hotraco, we always stay on top of the latest trends; we foresee bringing AI to the agricultural market within the next ten years.”
How innovation takes shape
Technological advancements are closely monitored by our Research & Development team. Eric explains how new innovations come about: “We approach it on two levels. On one hand, we aim to identify and shape trends in the market, and on the other hand, we are highly interested in the latest available technology. We constantly explore how we can apply these technologies to the agricultural sector in combination with our products.” Eric emphasizes the importance of foresight: “We employ a significant number of people with deep knowledge of the agricultural market, and together we think ahead to the next 5 to 10 years. Many young people are part of our R&D team, and we challenge them to come up with applications for the latest technologies. It’s truly a collaboration across departments. Our product managers gather information from both teams – market and technology – enabling us to collaboratively create the products of the future.”