Hatch Corp

Hatch Vision

Camera-driven spindle & uptime monitoring for real factories.

See every spindle in real time – green, amber or red – using nothing more than a camera pointed at your tower lights and the Hatch Vision engine. No PLC integration. No £7k hardware. Just clear, live data from the machines you already run.

Works on any CNC No PLC outputs required Built for sliding heads, lathes & VMCs

How Hatch Vision Works

Hatch Vision turns your tower lights into live production data using simple IP cameras and a lightweight cloud engine. You don’t need to rewire machines, fit new sensors or buy complex black-box systems.

  1. 1. Mount a camera
    Position a camera above the machine, looking at the tower light. One camera can cover multiple machines in many cases.
  2. 2. Run the Hatch Wizard
    Use the built-in Hatch Vision Wizard to connect the camera, draw a box around each light stack and name each machine.
  3. 3. Go live
    Hatch Vision reads your green / amber / red states and feeds them into live dashboards, uptime charts and downtime events – in real time.

Best of all: you can start with a single camera and two machines, then scale up across your factory when you’re ready.

Built on real shop-floor experience

Hatch Vision was designed in a real aerospace machine shop, not a software office. It solves very specific problems:

  • “Is that machine actually running or just sat with the door open?”
  • “Which machines are down right now and why?”
  • “Where is my night-shift time really going?”
  • “How often are we stopped waiting for tools or decisions?”

If you’ve ever walked the shop trying to figure out what’s really going on, Hatch Vision was built for you.

What Hatch Vision Gives You

Live status wall

See every connected machine on one screen – green, amber or red – with names, groups and current state.

Uptime & downtime analytics

Shift-level and weekly uptime, downtime breakdowns and trend lines so you know where time is really going.

One-tap downtime reasons

Operators tap a simple reason when they stop a machine – tool, inspection, material, program, breakdown – so your data stays clean.

Tool Request integration

Combine Hatch Vision with Hatch Corp Tool Request so that when machines stop for tooling, stores already know – and can react faster.

Multi-machine coverage

One 8MP camera can often cover more than one machine, keeping hardware costs down while still giving clear visibility.

Works on iPads & shop PCs

Designed to run cleanly on iPads in Guided Access mode, as well as desktops and big screens in offices and production meetings.

Before Hatch Vision

  • Walk the shop to see what’s running and what isn’t.
  • Rely on guesswork and memory for downtime reasons.
  • Expensive monitoring systems that never get fully used.
  • No simple way to show management where time is going.

With Hatch Vision

  • See every machine’s status in seconds, from anywhere.
  • Clean, structured downtime data with one-tap reasons.
  • Lightweight system that operators actually use.
  • Real numbers to back up decisions on tooling, people and capacity.

Simple to install. Serious under the hood.

Hardware

  • Uses standard IP cameras (WiFi or PoE).
  • No direct connection to the machine control required.
  • Mount above machines or on mezzanine beams.
  • Designed to cope with real factory lighting – not lab conditions.

Software

  • Secure cloud backend built on Firebase.
  • Multi-tenant from day one – each company sandboxed.
  • Live dashboards, history and trends built for daily use.
  • Integrates cleanly with other Hatch Corp portals.

If you ever outgrow the starter setup, we can expand camera coverage, add more locations and link deeper into your planning and ERP tools without throwing away what you’ve already built.

Included in your Hatch Corp subscription

Hatch Vision is available as part of our portal bundles. Many shops start with Tool Request + Hatch Vision together – a complete visibility package for around £200 / month to cover initial machines.

Common Questions

Does Hatch Vision work with sliding-head lathes like L12s?

Yes. That’s exactly where it was born – from monitoring Citizen L12s and similar machines where uptime really matters.

Do I need an electrician or PLC engineer to install it?

No. You’re not rewiring the control. You’re simply mounting cameras and pointing them at tower lights. It’s designed to be shop-floor friendly.

Can we just start with one or two machines?

Absolutely. Many factories start with one camera and a couple of key bottleneck machines, then roll out across the shop once they see the impact.

Does this replace my ERP or planning system?

No – Hatch Vision sits alongside them. It gives you clean, real-time machine behaviour that your ERP can’t see by itself.