Dot Com

Connecting physical devices to software is the whole business of Dotcom, an Indian engineering company that works from Surat and Mumbai and describes itself as one of few IoT service providers handling embedded devices, cloud and mobile applications under one roof. Its site presents it as a technology partner for startups and larger enterprises that want an idea turned into a working connected product. It says it can take on a partly or fully built solution at any stage of development.

From idea to deployed device

The company describes a development sequence that starts with technical discovery sessions to understand the use case, constraints and target outcomes. These are turned into technical documents, block diagrams and interface specifications, followed by a roadmap with sprints, hardware timelines and integration checkpoints. The embedded, cloud and communication stack is then engineered, with firmware and software built under version control, and validated through unit, system, field and compliance testing. Deployment uses firmware that can be updated over the air, with monitoring and support afterwards. Services named on the site include rapid prototyping, proof of concept, market research, technology identification, product engineering and re-engineering, board support package development, OEM and ODM engineering, digital engineering, and IoT product testing and compliance.

Hardware, connectivity and cloud

Earlier company material lists gateways for Zigbee, Bluetooth, Thread and Z-Wave, connectivity modules and system-on-module products, along with a testing framework called Volanium that the company says automates more than 90 per cent of validation effort. It names low-power radio technologies such as SubGHz, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, Thread, mesh networks, Ethernet, cellular IoT, NB-IoT and LoRa. On the cloud side it describes building and maintaining software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service systems on AWS, Azure and Rackspace, and connecting products to platforms such as AWS IoT, IBM Watson IoT, Ayla and Evrythng. It also designs the mobile applications that sit on top, arguing that a good app and attractive hardware still disappoint if the parts do not work together.

Industries and ways of working

The industries listed include healthcare, smart homes and offices, energy, automotive, transport and logistics, smart retail, smart cities, agriculture, cleantech, mining and industrial IoT, where connected machines and sensors support predictive maintenance. For manufacturers it also talks about technology platforms that give visibility into supply chains. Clients can choose a dedicated offshore R&D team or a time-and-materials arrangement. The website cites more than twelve years of experience and over fifty clients.