Embedded firmware that survives the field
Architecture, interrupts, memory, watchdogs used properly, and diagnosing faults you cannot reproduce, on devices that must run for years with nobody present.
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Engineering insights
Engineering notes on building connected products.
In-depth articles on industrial IoT, embedded engineering, connectivity and product development, written for the engineers and technical buyers who have to make these decisions.
Cloud backends and dashboards for device data
Ingestion bursts, time-series storage and cardinality, retention, what really drives cloud cost, and dashboards designed around a decision rather than around the data.
Read the article ↗Product cost reduction: where the money actually is
Component prices are rarely the opportunity. Part count, over-specification, assembly and first-pass yield usually are, and knowing what each change triggers decides whether a saving is real.
Read the article ↗Measuring OEE and energy: where the time and money actually go
Why the single figure hides what you need, how your own definitions change it, and why energy per unit produced is the measure that actually changes behaviour.
Read the article ↗EMC and compliance: designing electronics to pass first time
Where emissions actually come from, why cables are usually the antenna, what pre-compliance can and cannot establish, and how to arrive at a test house prepared to fix things.
Read the article ↗Device security and OTA updates: designing both in
A device you cannot update safely is one you cannot fix. A device that accepts any firmware is one somebody else can take. Both are decided by choices made before the first board.
Read the article ↗Battery life in connected devices: designing it in
Where quiescent current hides, why peak current causes resets rather than flat batteries, what cold really costs you, and how to measure consumption instead of estimating it.
Read the article ↗Sensor selection and signal conditioning: getting the measurement right
Sampling, aliasing, conditioning, noise, mounting and calibration. Everything downstream inherits the quality of what you captured, and no processing puts back what was lost.
Read the article ↗SCADA and PLC integration: getting plant data out safely
Where to take data from, how to design the boundary between plant and business networks, and the timestamp and data quality problems that decide whether any of it is usable later.
Read the article ↗Choosing IoT connectivity: LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, cellular, Wi-Fi and BLE
LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, LTE-M, cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth compared on the things that matter: coverage at your sites, power, payload, downlink and cost across the fleet.
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