Next time you go to the store to buy ice for your cooler, you might pause to marvel at the technological complexity of it all- that is, if the score, operated by Package Ice Inc. That machine doesn’t merely make and dispense ice; it’s also a subtly engineered communications and computational instrument. It has sensor’s that continuously measure almost 100 physical conditions, including the machine’s ice production, temperature, whether a bag is overfilled, and so forth. The sensors relay data over the Internet via wireless moderns to the company’s service center in Houston, where technicians can often diagnose and solve problems for that machine- and the company’s more than 2,000 other Ice Factory units across the country- with a few clicks or keystrokes.

Of course, monitoring and controlling equipment from a far isn’t a new idea. Machines break, and it saves time and money if you can fix the problems without having to be there. But remote sensing and service technology has typically been too expensive for everyday use- NASA has long controlled its equipment remotely; purveyors of frozen water haven’t. Now the convergence of wireless networks, the Internet, and new sensor technology is making it more feasible for businesses to keep a remote eye on their machinery. “It’s going from being a neat but expensive idea to a cost effective one” says Craig Resnick, a director at ARC Advisory Group, a technology analysis firm in Dedham, Mass.