When a client first approached us help support them in their quest to track the occupancy and make a visual status system for their office meeting pods in one of their offices in Europe, it seemed straightforward. But as any engineer knows, “simple” projects rarely stay that way for long.
I’m Philip, a Software Engineer at Hamilton Robson. After graduating from DCU with a degree in Electronic Computing Engineering almost eight years ago, I started working with Hamilton Robson. My first three years I was part of the Audio-Visual Team but I made the switch to the Software Team in Belfast when an opportunity arose and have been involved in a wide variety of projects involving different software and hardware since.
My project focus over the last 3 years has been around our IoT product suite and developing our product, BeaconIQ.
Following a requirements workshop with the customer we got to the drawing board. Ready to interpret their needs into a product, rather than rushing to implement the first solution that came to mind, we opted for a more cautious approach. Our experience delivering AV and software solutions has taught us the value of balancing cost, performance and flexibility.
For this occupancy monitoring solution, we selected a flexible control unit enabling multiple sensor options, connectors and light attachments. This gave us room to experiment while we worked with the client to nail down their exact requirements.
This iterative, flexible approach proved invaluable. As conversations progressed, the client’s needs evolved and suddenly we needed custom brackets for the lights. Fortunately, we have advanced 3D printing capabilities and industrial design skills in-house, which let us iterate quickly and stay flexible. This combination of modular hardware and in-house manufacturing allowed us to deploy several proof-of-concept, sometimes multiple times a day for client feedback before committing to a final design.
The success of the first release of BeaconIQ brought its own challenge. After the initial beta delivery, the client wanted the solution rolled out across all their sites, 10 locations across the globe, with multiple buildings at each. We suddenly needed to become manufacturers.
Our office transformed into a mini production line. In those early deliveries, a core of four team members handled everything: ordering, assembly, programming, shipping and commissioning. We learned quickly, developing new manufacturing and operational processes drawing experience from software techniques like Minimum Viable Product, First-Principle analysis, Kaizen, Continuous Delivery, Automation and team retrospectives.
The first couple of deliveries were challenging and a steep learning curve but necessity breeds innovation.
About a year into the development of BeaconIQ, we got the question that sparked what the product has now become – “Do you store the meeting room data?” Our clients where designing some new offices and wanted to ensure meeting space decisions where data driven. Their existing offices were growing quickly too, so they also wanted those investments to be evidenced and optimised.
We had already been exploring the market for adding analytics and identifying the capability gaps so we were excited for opportunity to develop a richer BeaconIQ offering.
One of more important considerations for IoT solutions is how edge-devices physically communicate with data and processing tools. There are many options, WiFi is a common consumer choice but for enterprise customers Wi-Fi can mean additional significant infrastructure cost and for many is a security red line.
Enter LoRaWAN. This low-power RF (Radio Frequency) solution uses a central gateway as a hub, with battery-powered IoT sensors placed within range – from 200 meters up to multiple kilometres – more than enough to cover an office building securely, redundantly and cost effectively.
We layered this on top of our existing solution with minimal installation overhead, using reliable off-the-shelf LoRaWAN components to get the next version of BeaconIQ up and running quickly with great success in the storing of meeting room data.
Scaling this across the world again brought a new opportunity to develop BeaconIQ further: our solution now met all requirements but increasing our customer base also increased demand for customisation, energy-efficiency and extreme resilience to customer power and network outages.
Off-the-shelf options to consolidate everything were limited. We did experiment with custom electrical and hardware integrations, but it was increasing complexity quickly so custom hardware became the logical next step.
Our software team have multiple people from electrical, mechanical and robotics backgrounds so we had the skills in-house to scope the project and develop prototype for BeaconIQ v3.
We identified a suitable microcontroller with the necessary features, a compatible radio module and sensors, getting test implementations working relatively quickly. The hardware design and manufacturing proved to be the real beast – a longer, more iterative process than we’d anticipated. In 12 months, we did the system design, developed the electronics, integrated a radio for diverse regulatory operation, did the industrial design, developed firmware and fabricated hundreds of units – this version now called BeaconIQ Pro, aimed at customers with uncompromising performance and customisation) and sits alongside our simpler BeaconIQ Essentials aimed at data-focused customers.
We learned a lot along the way, particularly around EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) prevention when working with radios.
What started as a simple occupancy light request evolved into something substantial, and took advantage of the same vertical integration benefits seen at companies like Apple, Google, Tesla and SpaceX.
We developed BeaconIQ, our own IoT product that we can continue to refine and apply to new situations, all while still delivering the solution our customer needs during its ongoing production.
Sometimes the best products aren’t the ones you set out to build – they’re the ones that emerge from solving real problems, one iteration at a time. This is why we’ve had so much interest in and success with BeaconIQ, from version 1 through to our new Pro and Essentials packages.
Want to know more about how our space management and dashboarding product can help your business thrive? Have a look at our product page for BeaconIQ here.
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