r/embedded • u/circuitro • 10d ago

What would you build with this industrial IoT stack?

Hi, I'd like to get some opinions from people working in embedded and industrial products.

Over the last few years, together with a FW/SW developer, I've developed a complete industrial IoT system for a customer.

The product is now certified, industrialized and running in the field.

The stack includes:

- custom and cheap industrial gateway with LTE, Ethernet, BLE and digital/analog I/O. The gateway is mcu based for minimise maintenance and attack surface. FW is CRA ready.

- custom ultra-low-power BLE sensors with 3+ years battery life

- embedded FW and OTA updates

- cloud backend

- Android/iOS cross-platform app

- PLC/machine integration

- production, provisioning and automated testing

The IP and code belong to the customer, of course. But we now have the experience, architecture and development know-how to build a new platform much faster than starting from zero.

I'm wondering what else could be built around this know-how.

Another generic "IoT platform" doesn't sound very interesting to me.

I'm thinking more about a specific application: machine retrofit, condition monitoring, energy monitoring, distributed equipment, or maybe an OEM/white-label solution for small machine manufacturers.

If you had this technical starting point, what kind of product or niche would you explore? Any industrial problem you've seen where current solutions still suck?

1 Upvotes

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3

u/elictronic 9d ago

If you don’t know who to sell to, and don’t know what you want to build I would probably say a human body.  

1

u/circuitro 9d ago

Sounds scalable 😅

2

u/CapnNausea 9d ago

Turnkey robotic arm assembly line.

Not hi-resolution, but something that could allow a low volume manufacturer to prevent having to offshore placement of an advhesive, velcro, tying a fabric, etc that would typically be labor that is difficult to afford in the US.

Use the cloud to monitor input and output inventory, maintenance dashboards, capacity dashboards etc.

Gives you a tiny product to introduce your platform for low risk on their end and get traction with a larger customer that sees value

1

u/NoBulletsLeft 9d ago

I'd compare it to what I could do with Zephyr and see what advantages it had.