A Smart Approach for Doing Firmware Right

Over the Air · 23 Nov 2021 · 21m

What this episode covers

Alan Vardon, Director of the Smart Home Division at Globe Electric, discusses the challenges of transitioning a 90-year-old lighting company into the IoT space. He details the critical importance of firmware, sharing how a firmware update caused pairing issues with new routers and how integrating a camera with RGB lighting required extensive debugging. Vardon emphasizes that while hardware experience is valuable, continuous testing and user experience are key to success in smart home products.

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

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    173: Everything's Amazing

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  • The Amp Hour · 1h 38m

    Why IoT Is Difficult with Jonathan Beri

    Jonathan Beri, founder of Golioth, discusses the immense difficulty of building end-to-end IoT solutions, drawing on his experience at Nest, Google, Particle, and WeWork. He explains that IoT is a 'system of systems' requiring expertise in embedded firmware, RF, cloud infrastructure, and security, creating a significant 'impedance mismatch' for software companies trying to enter hardware. Beri highlights specific technical challenges such as cellular network instability, legacy hardware integration at scale, and the trade-offs between using vertically integrated platforms like Particle versus building custom solutions with protocols like CoAP and OpenThread.

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